WHY cant we just print 16 trillion dollars in money to erase the debt?

Because then we couldn't have all these "battles" over the debt ceiling. Because then we couldn't be told that there will be a disaster if we don't give the administration in power what they want. Because then there would be less for the administration to blame on the parties and individuals they want to destroy.

BardingTheBard
So WE get charged interest to use "our" money... but UK, European, Canadian, and Asian banks and corporations are given virtually zero percent bailouts... I'm sorry... "emergency loans".

To be fair...

You did, basically, steal all the worlds physical gold deposited with your FED as per the Bretton Woods accord when Nixon 'temporarily' closed the gold window back in 1971.



You owe 640 tons of gold bullion to Germany alone.

You have also forced and continue to force, at gun point, the entire world, since around the same time, to pay for oil from OPEC members in your dollars.

You also invade or threaten to invade to hike up the oil prices.

You don't feel it cause you can always print more dollars. And it further helps subsidize your negative trade balance.

But we, everyone else on this blue rock, do.

The dollar has immense worth. If you want to trade oil, you must buy dollars first.

because money is a means to get wealth, not the wealth itself.....

all those pieces of paper with the faces of patriots on them are completely worthless in reality....if you print more it will only mean there are more in circulation.... the real wealth is the gold which is why the fed reserve started stockpiling it decades ago....

at this point i think we should hit ctrl, Alt, delete on the entire banking system and start from scratch with people who don't get confused by basic arithmetic..

i hope the entire house of cards comes crashing down around us, not because i want chaos to ensue but because it is the only way to free the masses from a broken system that is going to condemn the next several generations to a life of crippling debt and borderline slavery...

I tried printing money once...didn't work out as planned.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


I think having the Treasury print the money is exactly what we need to do. Skip over the Federal reserve all together. This would be deemed to be very inflationary. How much so I don't really know. I do know the people who lend the cash and thus own our bonds, lend it because they don't need to spend it. Without excess spending you really shouldn't see inflation at least not domestically. Exchange rates may suffer, but that would just push us to produce domestically, which would be a good thing.

The next step would be to eliminate fractional reserve banking. Banks lend out many multiples of their deposits on hand. Stopping this practice would go a long ways towards offsetting any excess money supply caused by the printing and repayment of our debt putting a damper on any inflation.

I think the best approach would be to do this over time to eliminate any major shocks to the system. Basically, on an ongoing basis, we would print whatever we need in excess of taxes collected. This would include printing enough to cover the debt that comes due. Most of our debt is due in 5 years or less. So after 5 years put into place a hard cap on how much more can be printed each year. in order to exceed that, to go to war for example, you would need to have a national referendum passed. No referendum passed, no excess money printed, and thus no war.

It is a logical way to approach things but would be fought vehemently by those who get unfair advantages under the current system.

sligtlyskeptical
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

I think having the Treasury print the money is exactly what we need to do. Skip over the Federal reserve all together. This would be deemed to be very inflationary.

But it's inflationary when the FED does it, right?

And it's also not inflationary to enable people to spend FED notes that don't even exist, through the alchemy of fractional reserve banking, right?

+95% of the money supply doesn't even exist as federal reserve notes.

It's make believe notes in a wide area computer network.

They do print more fiat currency and add it into circulation all the time.

It's called "quantitative easing".


Adding more of nothing, gives you more of.... nothing.

See how that works ?


When the little guy does it, it's called "counterfeiting".
When the big boys do it, it's called "expansionary monetary policy".

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


The more you print, the more we are in debt, for every dollar in circulation represents the national debt. In order for there to be no debt at all, we would have to turn every single dollar bill back to the Federal Reserve.

No one has heard of the $1 Trillion coin or as I like to call it The ObamaCoin

Why it doesn't work is that the banking system in the US works off of debt. Congress tells the treasury to create a US Bond (an IOU with interest). Large banks buy US Bonds from the Treasury and sell them to the Fed for cash, That cash is handed to the Federal Government to pay for things. That cash goes to the workers who in turn deposit into a bank. Banks loan 90% of that deposit as part of Fractional Reserve Banking policies. Those loans go to people you buy cars, houses, iPhones, etc. That money is deposited into the banks to continue on until a $100 original deposit has become $1900. When the Fed needs more bank notes, it trades some of the US Bonds to the US Mint to print the notes at a near 2 to 1 ratio (the Fed can also use old notes on a 1 to 1 ratio to replace worn notes). The Mint hands the Bonds to the Treasury to be destroyed. Congress can now issue more bonds because the debt has been lowered.

So how can the debt be $17 Trillion when there are only $2 Trillion in circulation? Interest is the easy answer, but recall the Fractional Reserve Banking? There is over $10 Trillion in checking, savings, Certificates of Deposit accounts. None of that $10 T is physical cash so a run on the banks is still a scary thought. And could have happened had the Shutdown lead to a default by not raising the debt ceiling.

So why not just mint those ObamaCoins? Because when the Fed has no debt owed to it, it has nothing to trade in for notes other than worn notes. The owners of the Fed make 6% off of selling bond transactions as well. Without the bonds, there is no profit and no reason for the Fed to stay in business.

So other than the coins, how do we lower the debt? Easy answer is to make Congress stop issuing new bonds and let the Fed cash them in over time for notes to cover that $10 Trillion of electronic currency. But in order for Congress to stop issuing bonds, it has to stop or severely control spending and reign in the debt ceiling (which is Presidential discretionary spending through the various cabinet departments). And to complicate matters, the Chairman of the Fed is approved by the POTUS. So the POTUS controls both the head of the Fed and the head of the Treasury. Congressional Budgets (last one passed was 2008 for Fiscal year 2009) and the debt ceiling (which was a hard number of $17 T until the deal that ended the Shutdown--it is now spend whatever you want until Feb 15, 2014 because there is no hard dollar cap).

As a side note, some call the above deal capitulation rather than a compromise about the debt ceiling. Republicans will now blame Obama for every penny above $17T as reckless spending. I understand the political ploy, but it is weak sauce. The only thing about $1T that people understand is that it is a stack of $100 bills over 1 mile high. Great for trivia, but to people that have never held $10,000 in cash at once, it is just a made up number with no real meaning.

VeritasAequitas
reply to post by JohnPhoenix

 

The more you print, the more we are in debt, for every dollar in circulation represents the national debt. In order for there to be no debt at all, we would have to turn every single dollar bill back to the Federal Reserve.

Wrong. Most of the money supply is electronic money (rights to draw cash).

For every dollar printed by the FED that winds up in the banking system the ordinary retail banks eventually issue around 35 times as many drawing rights against it.

Why waist the paper.
Just add the required zeros to the end of your bank note value.
mmm, I think this has been tried before.

reply to post by Pejeu


Your reply is based on the false premise that real money actually exists anymore...

"This note is legal tender for all debts public and private."

The dollar bill is an instrument of debt and that is all it will ever be. My statement stands, in order for us to reset the national debt back to zero, we would have to all return every single dollar bill we own that is in circulation...It is debt because the United States government must BORROW the money in order to even introduce it into circulation..