Comment by kelseyfrog
5 hours ago
The article is adamant that "this is not printing money," and then gives very technical explanations that are honestly difficult to untangle.
My question is, what would a "printing money" look like, hypothetically? I feel like comparing the real to the hypothetical would help me understand the difference by highlighting the contrast.
>The article is adamant that "this is not printing money," and then gives very technical explanations that are honestly difficult to untangle.
Because it's BS. In the modern fiat system the most basic form of money printing is expansion of the central bank's balance sheet. It creates the "base money". Sure, technically the government issues debt to "borrow" the new money, but everyone familiar with the system understands the the debt will never be paid out in the classical sense and it will be just re-financed by future expansion of the central bank's balance sheet. So the end effect is the same: new units of the base money enter circulation contributing to inflation.
But there are other forms of "money printing" as well. Every time a bank issues a credit, in a certain sense, it also "prints money". As long as the bank system functions as usual, it's indistinguishable from the printing done by the government+central bank. This is why bank de-regulation can have the same effects as the classical money printing, but with additional risks of potential credit contraction caused by bad loans (though they are minimized by central banks more often than not...).
I think the problem here is the idea of what money means varies so much
Printing money, in the "normative" sense is printing pieces of paper that has a certain picture and number on it and thats about it.
When the US treasury "prints money", its issuing debt. Yes the money supply increases, but its backed by "something", rather than "just" toilet paper with pictures and number on it.