Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,When I first heard the term “financial repression,” I thought it had to be a joke. Even people who are financially illiterate can understand that financial repression is a bad thing. Simply put, financial repression is a strategy governments use to reduce their debt burden by manipulating interest rates below inflation. But debt is also reduced through financial repression, a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or below-market real interest rates. Financial RepressionThere are many flavors of financial repression.