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Re:40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 1... by alexnewman on Sunday October 10, 2021 @11:31AM (#28819162)
1) Printed? Is he talking about cash? 2) The gov does not print money. Banks do. To give loans. 3) The gov is not your household
Re:40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 1... by imtringued on Sunday October 10, 2021 @12:05PM (#28819488)
>The gov is not your household

That's true but the funny part is that people misunderstand it in an especially contrived way. A companies job is to increase its net worth to make profits for its investors. A government's job is to increase its net worth to provide public services to its citizens.

The goal behind investments is to achieve an increase in your net worth. Whether you spend your own money or borrow money doesn't really matter, the point is that you make the investments that you think you need. Businesses should invest for obvious reasons. Governments should invest too but in traditional areas like infrastructure, health care or education.

Businesses do not do "austerity" full stop. They borrow heavily to grow. Households do not do austerity either, they borrow heavily to buy real estate. Strangely enough it is governments that should do austerity and be responsible and stop investing for future benefits. It's basically just anti government rhetoric.

When a $250k/year household borrows $2 million to buy a house nobody bats an eye even though that household has a 800% debt to household income ratio.

Re:40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 1... by anm89 on Sunday October 10, 2021 @11:59AM (#28819418)
You are drastically misunderstanding arguments that you are parroting.

When you see a physical dollar bill , the federal government, specifically the Beaureu of engraving and printing, printed that money.

Which is however not what people mean when they say printing money in this context. In that case they are talking about monetary policy, generally old-school OMO or recently it's variation QE which expands the feds balance sheet with recently created money ( ie they print the money digitally to expand their balance sheet)

Banks engaging in fractional reserve lending does increase the money supply but economists and the financial press do not refer to this as printing money, they refer to it as lending.

And finally the "the government isn't a household" argument has grains of truth but is also incredibly trite and fails to understand the many ways in which they are accountable to the same forces a household is accountable to.

Re:40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 1... by rco8786 on Sunday October 10, 2021 @11:57AM (#28819385)
Don’t follow #2. Governments do indeed print money. Banks do not. What am I missing.
Re:40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 1... by romanhn on Sunday October 10, 2021 @12:04PM (#28819470)
Check out fractional reserve banking - banks do indeed add to the overall money supply with every new loan.