Even in Germany, where prices had been the most stable of any country in the world as tracked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the purchasing power of the deutsche mark declined by more than half between 1972 and 1995. 2 For the United States, purchasing power declined more than 70 percent over this period.
For roughly half of all countries reporting to the IMF, the erosion of value of the currency was more than 90 percent. To express this erosion in terms of cumulative inflation, $ would be required today in the United Sates to purchase $ worth of goods and services at 1972 prices.