Many people here seem to have rather generous views for governmental motives. I don’t. Inflation is a hidden tax on the population. Instead of taking the numbe

Many people here seem to have rather generous views for governmental motives. I don’t. Inflation is a hidden tax on the population. Instead of taking the numbers out of their bank accounts or dollars out of their hands, they can just print the money. This erodes purchasing power of individuals but also allows the government to spend more than they could from traditional tax hauls alone. The people think that they’re getting something for nothing, and politicians get re-elected. Additionally, such a scheme allows for the military actions that the USA loves to engage in. Without inflationary spending, the taxation becomes onerous enough that people wouldn’t passively accept it. The other reason is “growth”. With low interest rates and a decent amount of printing, you get two major effects. First, lenders are more willing to lend because they’re not paying high interest. The price of money is lower, and therefore money is easier to part with. The second reason is a follow on from that, monetary velocity increases. Monetary velocity generally helps your local government as sales taxes get paid. The problem with low interest and moderate inflation is that the lenders do not scrutinize things very well (because money is cheaper), so you get a lot of investments that don’t play out as a consequence. Likewise, the inflation is typically tied to assets at first (land, equities, metals) but eventually it does hit product prices and this results in moments of severe inflation. This usually occurs when the P/E ratios get bad enough and the equities markets crash. It also creates problems like 2008 given a long enough cycle. Every time these crashes occur, governments usually try to assume more power as they advertise themselves as the saviors for the problems that their own monetary policy created. Full disclosure, in a philosophical sense I consider myself a bit of an anarchist (just straight black flag, non-aligned), but in a practical sense I consider myself a mildly left but small government person. For example, I would happily trade constant war and standing armies for a public health care option, or even trade the war on drugs for a national rehab service. Due to the realities of finance, however, I do not believe that everything can be had, and giving the most corrupt people in a society (the politicians) unlimited power is Avery bad idea imho.