4 ms·
Devalue our currency by some amount by printing money over time? I'm not being glib. The effects: Makes debt and social security obligations smaller by paying
by ericb 16y ago
Devalue our currency by some amount by printing money over time? I'm not being glib. The effects:
Makes debt and social security obligations smaller by paying the dollar amounts, but with less expensive dollars.
Force boomers to work well into retirement which is set based on a shorter life expectancy anyway.
Reduce our debt to china.
There are plenty of bad effects, but it seems the easiest thing to put over on the people, because all the other hard decisions would be politically unpalatable. Aside from this, the current course seems to make it inevitable.
- thetrumanshow 16y agoWhoa, full global thermo-nuclear economic warfare? That would be a sight to see.
- chailatte 16y agoIt's already started :) Ben Bernanke's second round of dollar printing has already introduced massive inflation in food prices in China, causing them to institute price control this month. Just wait until Asia abandons dollar altogether and all those dollar flows back to US.....
- PakG1 16y agoNah, I doubt it. Inflation in China's been a longer term trend. http://www.businessinsider.com/qe2-and-chinese-food-prices-2010-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/qe2-and-chinese-food-prices-2...
- nradov 16y agoDevaluing the US dollar wouldn't actually fix the Social Security problem by itself due to COLA. http://www.ssa.gov/cola/2011/factsheet.htm http://www.ssa.gov/cola/2011/factsheet.htm I think some form of limited default on our sovereign debt (restructuring) is more likely in the long run, combined with a further increase in the Social Security retirement age and a cut in benefits.