> You are claiming that defaulting on sovereign debt would have no consequences?
First, at the sovereign level, it only has consequences if the lender has more guns than you.
Seconds, most "debt" in OECD countries is not owed to sovereign entities, but to the countries population themselves, who if push comes to shove will just have to accept that their bonds are worthless if it is ever legislated to be thus.
That isn't true. If a country makes a habit of printing too much money, then creditors will start to insist on only loaning it money denominated in other currencies. And once it starts doing that, the country can be forced to actually default on its debts:
My point is it’s a social contract not a law of physics we cannot hope to bend.
Our embedded memory and experience need not be the one we pass on.