Instead of an explicit default, governments often employ 'financial repression.' This strategy, a 'soft default,' involves policies that lead to inflation, steadily eroding the purchasing power of citizens' savings and effectively stealing their economic value to manage national debt.

Governments facing excessive debt levels operate with two primary levers unavailable to households: printing money and raising taxes. However, printing currency does not generate wealth; it dilutes existing dollars and generates inflation. Because both printing and taxing extract real purchasing power directly from consumers' pockets, high sovereign debt inevitably depreciates cash savings unless properly hedged with real assets.

A government funding unsustainable promises has only three choices, all of which terminate in dead ends. It can tax harder, causing capital flight; borrow more, leading to a debt crisis; or print money, destroying the currency's value. Each path inevitably leads to economic ruin.

Inflation is a political tool to manage national debt without raising taxes or cutting spending. The government repays debt issued in valuable pre-inflation dollars with newly printed, less valuable post-inflation dollars, effectively reducing the debt's real value at the expense of savers.

Faced with massive debt, governments have five options: austerity, default, high growth, hyperinflation, or financial repression. Napier argues repression—keeping inflation above interest rates to erode debt—is the most politically acceptable path, just as it was post-WWII.

Ahamed argues bimetallism remained stable through massive metal supply shocks when central banks coordinated reserve management. The system unraveled primarily because Bismarck imposed harsh reparations on France and forced Germany onto the gold standard to punish France economically.

In an act of financial warfare, post-war Germany sold its vast silver reserves to adopt the gold standard, intentionally harming France’s bimetallic system. This collapsed silver prices, sparking a global scramble for gold. The resulting shortage of the world's primary safe asset caused a severe credit crunch and a two-decade-long deflationary spiral.

Facing unpayable debt, governments consistently opt to inflate their currency away (a soft default) rather than openly defaulting. This strategy works because the general public doesn't understand the mechanics of inflation, making it a politically survivable, though immoral, choice.

Powerful financial entities can intentionally devalue a nation's currency. This erases citizen savings and creates hyperinflation, aiming to manufacture an uprising against the government, justifying military intervention to seize resources.