A fable about inflation and where the money goes. A colony of rats learns to print a paper they call Hojas, while the real money quietly disappears. Drawn from real events.
On an island lives a colony of rats who make a discovery. They cannot dig up more silver, but they can print more paper. They call the paper Hojas, and at first it feels like a miracle. There are more Hojas for everyone. Then the price of bread climbs, and the price of baskets, and the same coins buy less than they did last week.
No Silver on Rat Island is a fable about that quiet robbery: who gains when the printing starts, who gets the new paper first, and who is left holding money that leaks. It is the Cantillon effect and inflation as a hidden tax, told as a story a child can follow. Almost every absurd thing that happens on the island is drawn from real events. Only the species changed.
Federico began writing it to explain to his son why the money kept disappearing at home, and why the family left Argentina in 2008. The children's companion, The Wealth of the Island, is set in the same world.
Available now on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.
Also available in Spanish as No hay plata en la isla de las ratas. Meet the same world through its children's companion, The Wealth of the Island.