Printing money, and putting it into circulation, in values that exceed economic growth always results in inflation.

Inflation is trivial to cause. Deflation takes a bit more work and discipline, and is subject to the requirement that economic growth exceed increase in money supply - but the method behind it is well understood.

The challenge is to keep your inflation at a low, reasonable level - say 3-5%. I don't think anybody has figured out a repeatable method to do that.

It is trivial to cause inflation, but central banks are either not allowed or ideologically opposed to effective means of putting money in circulation. Many central banks have printed enormous amounts of money and inflated the currency less than they would like to because they're buying second-hand bonds with the printed money. They've been really frustrated with the inefficiency of this, which I find amusing and slightly suspicious. Just printing money and giving it away doesn't necessarily cause short-term inflation. The way in which it is done is the key.

I absolutely guarantee you that if the US government just started cranking out a tax return to its citizens, inflation would return with great efficiency.

What you're saying doesn't hold up empirically. And like they say, if it doesn't hold up in practice, how should we accept it as theory

Which of the three do you think doesn't hold up empirically?

That we can cause inflation at will (pretty much universally agreed); that we can cause deflation with a bit of discipline/rigor (the mechanism for this is well understood as well); or that we are unable to reliably maintain a persistent low positive inflation rate (There is a Nobel prize for you if you have a guaranteed formula for that).

Printing money in US context however is indeed going to cause pretty serious inflation. Also in a world where we worry too much about inequalities, those american who do not have fixed assets are likely to get hurt even more.

How do you measure inflation? What is assets inflation?

> Printing money doesn't necessarily mean inflation is going to happen.

LOL. Come to Japan and see for yourself if prices don't rise. Your comment is a big lie.

Hey, turns out I actually live in Japan, and have been here for the most recent round of QE.

The value of the yen has dropped something like 33% compared to the dollar (went from $1 = 100 to $1 = 140 in the past 3 years) but yearly CPI increases have never hit above 2 or 3 percent.

Prices have gone up, but mainly due to the sales tax increase, not due to QE. Considering that CPI is almost definitionally linked to inflation, I feel that it's a pretty good indicator of lack of real inflation.

Turns out I live in Japan as well and we must not be shopping in the same places at all, because the prices increases are way more than the difference from 5% tax to 8% tax. I guess it's your opinion against mine.

PS: I noticed you have been in Japan for like 3 years. I have been here for 8 years. I guess some experience counts as well.

Perhaps it might be more correct to say that printing money does not necessarily mean wage inflation, but it is very likely to cause price inflation.

It's a factor, but there are many other factors involved.

In the first QE rounds by the US after the 2008 recession hit, money was being printed to basically end up in bank's coffers, but lending didn't go up correspondingly, so the actual amount of money in circulation didn't really change.

I think the big reason for the link being weaker than expected is that it's the money actually in circulation ( in the "being used" sense) that matters, not the amount of money in existence. It's all just numbers, after all, and if you're not doing anything with them, it's the same as if it doesn't exist.