The difference between the standard systematic devaluation of modern governments and serious devaluation is that most governments tend to inflate at a rate of a

The difference between the standard systematic devaluation of modern governments and serious devaluation is that most governments tend to inflate at a rate of about 2-4% per year. This rate of inflation is considered by most economists to be benign and even helpful to a degree, because people tend to react better to inflation-triggered pay raises than deflation-triggered pay cuts, and businesses often choose to just fire bad workers instead of doing the latter, which can lead to massive spikes in unemployment. In the 70s, we had about 10-20% inflation per year. This is where we start to see people getting unhappy. Hyperinflation is defined by economists as being 50% per month, which adds up to something on the order of magnitude of a factor of 64 per year, however, when you have hyperinflation, you usually end up talking about having to add a digit to your prices at least once a month--more generally, hyperinflation is when there's so much inflation your currency is no longer considered to have any permanent value. Look at Zimbabwe and their use of scientific notation.