Sublime

“An amount of money lent to a government, and the interest amount charged, is assumed to be risk-free because it is in turn assumed that a government can tax, borrow, or print further amounts of money to pay its debt. These three options are indeed available to a modern government, but one must not ignore the fact that the government has no access

It is extremely important to note Bernholz’s conclusion. Hyperinflations are not caused by aggressive central banks. They are caused by irresponsible and profligate legislatures that spend far beyond their means and by accommodative central banks that lend a helping hand to governments.

French economist Jacques Reuff coined the phrase “deficit without tears” to describe the new economic reality that the United States inhabited, where it could purchase whatever it wanted from the world and finance it through debt monetized by inflating the currency that the entire world used.