I think this actually misstates the problem in an important way, because many people believe that we can simply print more, ignoring the entire other side of th

I think this actually misstates the problem in an important way, because many people believe that we can simply print more, ignoring the entire other side of the equation. There has to be something to buy with that money or it's worthless paper and metal. There have to be people working to provide goods and services. If that's not the case for whatever reason--because of a lack of resources, because enough of society has broken down that people can't, won't or don't work, or whatever else--you see failures. So it's not just a currency problem. It's a problem of whether things that are actually useful to people are being produced and money is just a way of measuring the exchanges. Pretty much any naive maximization of money results in issues, whether that involves ignoring externalities for profit, or broken incentives caused by distributing piles of money that cannot, on average, be exchanged for useful goods or services.