Money is debt. Debt is a promise of something. You default when you can&#x27;t keep your promise.<p>If you promise gold or another country currency in exchange of yours, you can be in a position where you can&#x27;t pay.<p>If the only thing you promise is to accept your currency back as tax payment, you are never in a position where you can&#x27;t pay.<p>That inflation is low now is relevant because it invalidate the quantity of money view of inflation. We are in the middle of a huge &quot;quantitative easing&quot; and we don&#x27;t see inflation. In fact we see the opposite. For instance, the ECB is injecting (if I remember properly, I didn&#x27;t check) 80000 millions every month.<p>So, the &quot;common sense&quot; view of inflation have been proved wrong again and again but, we continue hearing the same thing again and again.