Demurrage (currency) subsidy. Both inflation and demurrage reduce the purchasing power of money held over time, but demurrage does so through fixed regular fees, while inflation does it in a variety of ways. Inflation is certainly not always everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Inflation is not always easy to predict & it does not stay fixed through time, but the level of demurrage is fixed by the Government. Gresham's law that "bad money drives out good" suggests that demurrage fees would mean that a currency would suffer more rapid circulation than competing forms of currency. This led some such as German-Argentine economist Silvio
Hard cases make bad law Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Its validity has since been questioned and dissenting variations include the phrase "Bad law makes hard cases", and even its opposite, "Hard cases make good law". The maxim dates at least to 1837, when a judge, ruling in favor of a parent against the maintenance of her children, said, "We have heard that hard cases make bad law." The judge's wording suggests that the phrase was not new then. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. made a utilitarian argument for this in his judgment of "Northern Securities Co. v. United States" (1904): Holmes's dissenting opinion in the case,