Hyperinflation or just higher inflation?

THE surge in costs for everything from fuel to computer chips, to houses and even spinach, has some people fretting over the specter of “hyperinflation” – the phenomenon in which runaway prices destroy the value of a nation’s banknotes and coins.

Google searches for the term have rocketed in recent days, after Twitter Inc chief executive Jack Dorsey set the social-media platform alight with a comment that hyperinflation is “happening” – spurring responses from the likes of Ark Investment Management’s Cathie Wood and Tesla Inc’s Elon Musk.