> In my thought experiment, the prices of everything will instantly rise to compensate for the increased wealth, and everybody will be exactly where they are n

> In my thought experiment, the prices of everything will instantly rise to compensate for the increased wealth, and everybody will be exactly where they are now, just with more zeros on all their bills and paychecks. Well that's true if America is a closed economy without connection to the rest of the world. I could say that manufactured good prices shouldn't increase too drastically as they are made elsewhere, but that'd only be assuming that everyone in the US continues living their life as they already have. But this is a revolutionary change, so it ought to have revolutionary outcomes. Possibility #1: US loosens immigration controls as everyone is cash-rich. A flood of Mexican and Canadian immigrants enter the country to become the new middle and lower classes. Prices normalize rapidly after a brief spike. Possibility #2: Seeing the writing on the wall, Americans flee their country en masse, taking up residence everywhere in the world from Europe to Africa to Asia. These cash-rich Americans take advantage of the fact that local prices elsewhere can't change to compensate for their newfound wealth. The US dies. This is ofcourse all assuming that everyone can offload their cash into something valuable before the US economy goes into a slump, making American dollars less valuable.