Also note that in both cases (Venezuela and Brazil) there was no external force (war or commercial ban) that artificially reduced supply. At the time Brazil started experiencing hyper-inflation, it was already one of the world's top beef producers, still beef was up 5000% a year. Venezuela was selling it's oil at peak prices to the US when their hyper-inflation started. For a while gas was the only affordable product in the country, because the production kept pace with the money printing. There's just no explanation for inflation in Latin American countries that haven't seen a war or major natural disaster in 100 years, other than bad spending policies. The government themselves admitted that in most cases, and were able to get inflation back in track with massive cuts in spending.

Hyperinflation only kicked in in Venezuela after the plunge in oil prices, but up until that point industry in Venezuela had been dying.

In Brazil it followed and was mainly triggered by the 1970s energy crisis.

There was already super high inflation in both cases before the supply crises. It's just it got way worse because the government reacted to the threat by printing even more money to pay for its spending. Unless you think 100% a year is not hyper-inflation. And how the hell an energy crisis can get the price of beef to go up 5000% a year, in a country that's a leader in beef production?

50% monthly inflation is a common definition. It's around the point where inflation doesn't tend to ever come down again.

Iraq has had 300% a year at one point and it came down.

Unfortunately I can't discuss Brazil because I have not information, but thanks for pointing it, I will try to look into it.

Venezuela seems to me a similar case to Zimbabwe. Their only asset (oil, agriculture in the case of Zimbabwe) was taken from the hands of the people that was exploiting it (if that it's fair is another question) and the production plunged (1).

It didn't help that the price of oil dropped at the same time.

So, a supply problem also.

The consequences: they can't get foreign currency. As they don't produce almost anything else than oil they have to import everything. The value of their currency goes down, they have "to print" money to keep the government working. Hyperinflation. They try price control (that don't work very well).

If there is a "fairly typical" process for hyperinflation is that one.

(1). https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/crude-oil-production

Your graph shows a decline in production in the past year or so. The country has been experiencing major economical hardships for several years. The downturn in oil prices only made worse something that was already awful.

Take a look at: https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

Of course 800% is worse than 100%.

But how do you explain 30%-100% inflation at a time when oil was at peak price?

It's simply impossible not to have inflation when you're printing money and flooding the economy with it -- no matter the supply side.

Inflation seems to only kick in when it enters the money cycle (non-banking sectors). The US Fed built up massive amounts of securities holdings over the last 10 years which injected a lot of money into the economy. However, inflation mostly never materialized because banks held onto that money instead of lending it out.

Hyper-inflation started before the oil price dropped.

Venezuelan hyperinflation began in 2015 [0]. Crude prices were on their way down at that point [1]. And Venezuelan oil production has been dropping continuously since 2006 [2]. The average reduction in production since 2006 was 3.17%. The overall reduction was 27.8% in that time period. Since I only found production numbers through 2016, you can see that there was an 8.85% drop in production between 2015 and 2016. If prices had stayed high the reduced production capacity wouldn't have hit so hard. If production capacity had stayed high the price drop wouldn't have mattered as much. Unfortunately they hit at the same time.

The oil situation probably became the tipping point when compounded with their monetary policies and price control efforts.

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

[1] http://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-char...

[2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/venezuela_oil_production (barrels per day, average across the year, goes through 2016)

So, 30% a year is just business as usual? Yes, oil hit then hard. But they already had pretty high inflation before. Not sure what counts as "hyper". Certainly having my salary go down 10% a year automatically is not a reasonable proposition.

I agree with your general point, monetary policy was the cause of much of the inflation and had they not mismanaged their oil industry they may have been able to survive with the bad monetary policy much longer. And better monetary policy may have put them in a position to handle the issues in the oil industry. But the immediate need to print more money was the drop in production capacity and price, which is what led to the hyperinflation at the end of 2015 to present.

Hyperinflation is usually very, very high inflation. Original definition was 50% monthly inflation (this would be 600% annual, higher actually since it would be compounding). 30% annual inflation isn't hyperinflation (though it's certainly not good, and after several years could be catastrophic on its own).

But not the drop in oil production:

https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/crude-oil-production

https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi

Please, for a better comparative, view it with the 5 years window for the graphs.

Take a look at other countries historical inflation too. I bet you'll see 50%-100% inflation rates before the supply problems started.

Only after the government realizes they can't indefinitely finance their spending by printing money, then they turn to seizing wealth production, or do stupid things like price control. Then things get really ugly.

Do you have proof?

It's difficult to tell if statements are true without hard evidence and data to back the claim.

The burden of proof is on the side making the nonsensical claim that hyper-inflation is always caused by supply problems, never ever by monetary policy. I've been nice enough to provide some first-hand reports and a few pointers. I'm not your google. If you'd rather remain believing in Keynesian fairy tales, so be it.