You seem to imply that the supply chain issue and the resultant inflation would not have happened had your government not borrowed so much?

What's more likely: - Prices went up because there was a short supply of tangible things that actually (somewhat) respect the supply-demand curve

OR - Prices went up because there was an "excess supply" of money from "printing" that arguably does not respect the supply-demand curve

> the supply chain issue and the resultant inflation would not have happened had your government not borrowed so much?

Probably not. Instead, we’d be in a depression amidst mass unemployment and bankruptcies.

So this supply chain crunch would have still happened but people would not have noticed it while dealing with much bigger problems such as unemployment.

> this supply chain crunch would have still happened but people would not have noticed it while dealing with much bigger problems such as unemployment

Supply chain would have crunched but the demand fueling inflation would have been destroyed. Instead, we maintained both demand and production while the supply chains falter. (For the most part. Egregious stand-outs in destroyed production capacity are the automotive and rental-car industries.)

Are you implying that more money does not increase demand?

Yes. It doesn't.

Not only that: the government cannot and does not create money.

Printing does respect the supply-demand curve in nominal dollars. It increases demand in nominal dollars.

Anybody making this claim should also explain how the government goes about "printing" money

The government doesn't create money.

How do you mean the government doesn't create money? The Federal Reserve Bank creates money. Sometimes literally by physically printing it, but more often by crediting someone's account in their computers. When the Fed "sets interest rates" on bonds, it buys bonds on the market using computer money it credits the seller's account with which it created out of nothing.

Ordinary banks also create money when they make loans, which gets destroyed again when the loans are repaid. More money is created this way when interest rates are lower because people take out more loans then.

> The Federal Reserve Bank creates money

So not the government.

> When the Fed "sets interest rates" on bonds

It doesn't set the interest rates on treasury bonds. They set a target and engage in the market to get the price to that level. Still a private entity doing private things. Not the government

> Sometimes literally by physically printing it, but more often by crediting someone's account in their computers

Definitely not!

> More money is created this way when interest rates are lower because people take out more loans then.

This is the only way money is created. The previous paragraph is far from how anything works.

> So not the government.

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. Its board is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It's the government.

Politicians sometimes like to pretend it's not so they don't get blamed for unpopular choices.

> It doesn't set the interest rates on treasury bonds. They set a target and engage in the market to get the price to that level

That's what setting interest rates means.

> Definitely not!

Where do you think coins and federal reserve notes come from?

> It's the government.

If that's your logic, it's very hard to argue with it. It's literally a separate entity even from what you described.

> Where do you think coins and federal reserve notes come from?

the federal reserve which is not the government.

If you think government can print money out of thin air why do they even have to collect taxes. Can they not print their yearly expenditures?

You should think more on this question before you reply with some circular theory

The fed is organized a bit differently than other government organizations, though similarly to how the US Postal Service is organized. But those are mostly to give it some semblance of independence from the winds of politics. But it is very much under the control of the US Government about as much as the US Military is under the control of the US Government.

From the fed's own website (notably a .gov domain):

"Some observers mistakenly consider the Federal Reserve to be a private entity because the Reserve Banks are organized similarly to private corporations. For instance, each of the 12 Reserve Banks operates within its own particular geographic area, or District, of the United States, and each is separately incorporated and has its own board of directors. Commercial banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold stock in their District's Reserve Bank. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. In fact, the Reserve Banks are required by law to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury, after providing for all necessary expenses of the Reserve Banks, legally required dividend payments, and maintaining a limited balance in a surplus fund."

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

> When the Fed "sets interest rates" on bonds

The Fed doesn't set interest rates on bonds, it sets target interest rates on interbank loans.

Bond rates will naturally tend to be impacted, but they aren't what Fed rate setting applies to.

You're right, that was an oversimplification, I should've been more clear.

It seems to me I've seen comments here complaining about "the government printing tons of additional money" for at least the last decade.

This is somewhat misleading - the definition of M1 was changed in May 2020, so numbers before and after are not directly comparable. See https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2021/05/savings-are-now-more.... It’s best to link directly to the page which is interactive and describes the actual components of M1 instead of just the image https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

Also that is the fed and M1 doesnt really have anything to do with money printing anyway - fed balance sheet is where it is at https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/central-bank-bala...

This is the government - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S - and for anyone wondering, your party is as bad as the other party

I don't think the best climbers in the world can scale that cliff.

> It's quite a coincidence that the numerous complicated factors all started causing inflation at about the same time as the government printing tons of additional money

It's not a coincidence, both have been caused by the same pandemic that you might have forgotten about.

To provide a natural experiment that should refute the point you imply: inflation went up massively in nearly every country on earth as they were all hit by the same supply side issues. Only a small minority of these countries "printed a lot of money" let alone as much as the US of A.

It's naive to pretend that when supply goes down and demand goes up, prices don't go up as a direct result.

Printing money also causes prices to go up, as does war.

Anyone thinking that the problem was that we didn't give people enough money, hasn't taken a look at the explosion in homeless population throughout the country. People are still hurting and it is obscene ti complain that your savings account is worth slightly less when people don't have have a roof over their heads due to the worst pandemic in a century.

1982—present is within the last century and has had a death toll of 36.3 million so far. I think your position could improve from some grounding and perspective.

(You seem to be referencing the AIDS pandemic.) In terms of deaths per year, that's far smaller than COVID-19, whose death toll over two years probably lies somewhere between the 6 million official number and the over 20 million "excess deaths" counted by The Economist.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...

You'd possibly have a point if we were discussing long term medical research h funding priorities. We aren't. We are discussing acute economic phenomena. It that context, covid it absolutely the worst pandemic in a century.

*had the worst government economic response to a pandemic in a century

That's a meaningless distinction since there isn't any comparable event to compare the response to.

How is it ineffable when he just described one?

Of course gov printing had an effect, but supply chain is prob the biggest. Do you not agree?

Supply chain crisis is to some degree a symptom of the monetary expansion

I wonder if massive piles of free money could have had something to do with people demanding more supplies from the chain.

Yeah definitely not a huge demand drop, followed by a normalization/huge increase of demand - bottlenecking most of the supply chain and causing those willing to pay more to get delivery priority.

Like Americans couldn’t afford their $25 plastic widgets before, and now because of gubmint stimulus they’re able to finally buy those widgets. Lol.

Cars is a perfect proof of my case. They thought covid would hurt demand for awhile, didn’t book enough chips. And then boom demand spike back and they don’t have a needed input in time. Thus people go to secondary market — used prices up a ton.

it's almost like "complex reasons" is simply obscurantism.