When national debts have once been accumulated to a
certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single
instance of their having been fairly and completely
paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has
ever been brought about at all, has always been brought
about by a bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one,
but always by a real one, though frequently by a
pretended payment. The raising of the denomination
of the coin has been the most usual expedient by which
a real public bankruptcy has been disguised under the
appearance of a pretended payment.
-- Adam Smith
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