4 ms·

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

rco8786 5y ago
Don’t follow #2. Governments do indeed print money. Banks do not. What am I missing.
- romanhn 5y ago
  Check out fractional reserve banking - banks do indeed add to the overall money supply with every new loan.
anm89 5y ago
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.
imtringued 5y ago
>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.

rco8786 5y ago

Don’t follow #2. Governments do indeed print money. Banks do not. What am I missing.

romanhn 5y ago
Check out fractional reserve banking - banks do indeed add to the overall money supply with every new loan.

anm89 5y ago

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.

imtringued 5y ago

>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.