The spectre at the feast manifests in Shakespeare's Macbeth as the ghost of Banquo. A former ally whose progeny is prophesized to become king, Banquo is murdered by Macbeth's men. Banquo's apparition then appears at the feast, seated in Macbeth's chair and seen only by the orchestrator of his murder, who goes mad, bringing the festivities to a premature end.

Modern events can mirror such tales when those obsessed with power do anything to hold onto it. The spectre of inflation has loomed historically as a threat to civilized economic exchange whenever wars or crises have induced high government spending deficits, with tax revenue falling well short of expenditure. Rising inflation is destructive and is caused by government agents clinging to their discretionary power by printing money at increasing rates. Such inflation threatens to fell any economy in which a government incurs high budget deficits. When inflation rears its head, it wipes out the gains in income and wealth that growing economies foster.

Once government deficits become too high, potential future inflation threatens money's value. Inflation had, until recently, been moderate and well contained by monetary authorities (namely central banks). This required the conditions of international peace and fiscal restraint by governments so that central banks were not pressured to finance wartime or crisis spending through the purchase of government Treasury debt and by giving fresh money to governments to spend. When fiscal restraint is broken, central banks typically help finance spending, with the result that inflation either rises or is suppressed – with even worse consequences.

Restraint on the part of central banks is designed to ensure money value through low or no inflation. When low inflation rate targeting became a widespread policy internationally, central banks had clear objectives that everyone could measure and consider in judging their policy success. But, ever since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the US government has run unending and rising deficits as a share of national output. The central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve System, in turn financed a large portion of this rising deficit by buying Treasury debt, which is how central banks “print money”.