[Verse 1] London, nineteen twenty-one, the ledger runs cold and cruel, Hundred thirty-two in gold marks, a number carved as rule. Germany signs the ultimatum, ink like a loaded gun — Pay the debt in hard currency, or the Ruhr Valley comes undone. [Verse 2] January twenty-three, French boots on Ruhr soil tread, Coal and steel held hostage, miners striking in their stead. Berlin just prints to pay the wages, passive resistance, bills unpaid, Every press run feeds the furnace, every mark a weaker trade. [Chorus] Zeros stacking, trillions high, Papiermark can't buy a pie, By November, one dollar's worth Four point two trillion marks on earth. Debt dissolves like smoke in air, Bondholders robbed — nobody's there. Call it inflation, call it theft, The oldest coin trick since Tudor heft. [Verse 3] Wheelbarrows haul the cash to market, burn it quick for heat, A wage collected Monday's ashes by the time you eat. But watch the trick beneath the chaos: old war bonds erased, Domestic debt in paper marks, discounted and disgraced. [Chorus] [Verse 4] Enter Schacht, enter Luther, steady hands amid the wreck, Rentenmark backed by mortgaged land — a promise, not a check. One new mark for a trillion old ones, confidence reborn, Nineteen twenty-four, the Dawes Plan smooths the path, reschedules the thorn. [Verse 5] Young Plan trims the numbers further, twenty-nine's revised design, Hoover halts it all in thirty-one when banks begin to decline. Lausanne, thirty-two, reparations quietly laid to rest — A decade's arc from gunpoint debt to a murmured, final confess. [Verse 6] Middle class and modest savers watch their decades turn to dust, Pensioners who trusted paper find their faith betrayed by trust. Speculators short the mark while honest wages fall behind — History forgets the victims, only remembers the sign. [Bridge] From Henry's clipped and sweated coin to Weimar's drowning press, Debasement wears a modern suit but signs the same confess: When the treasury can't tax enough and creditors want their due, Printing is the silent tax — it comes for me and you. [Chorus] [Outro] Gold marks, paper marks, mortgage-backed rebirth, Every state relearns the weight and cost of printed worth. Remember Schacht, remember Dawes, remember the default in disguise — Inflation is the ledger's lie that hides behind the rise. [Chorus] Zeros stacking, trillions high, Papiermark can't buy a pie, By November, one dollar's worth Four point two trillion marks on earth. Debt dissolves like smoke in air, Bondholders robbed — nobody's there. Call it inflation, call it theft, The oldest coin trick since Tudor heft.
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