Let’s also clear up something that is really grating to the nerves.
1. We do not just “print money”… you wouldn’t be a murderer for saying it… you would just be economically misguided.
2. The government ALWAYS creates new money when it spends and ALWAYS destroys money when it taxes. So the very notion of “printing more money” drives knowledgeable people even crazier.
3. If government spending is just “printing money” then taxing is simply “unprinting money”. It’s a circuit.
4. The money supply is always elastic. “Bank money” is not like government spent money because you cannot net save a bank loan. It must be paid back. When the government spends, it literally creates new net financial assets.
5. A dollar is a tax credit. The government agrees to take a dollar to extinguish a dollar of tax liability. So taxes are what both drives the dollar and what gives it the value gold bugs so crave. A sovereign nations ability to levy a tax in its own currency is all that keeps it up.
6. Since I have absolutely slaughtered the ignorant statement about “printing money” let’s go one more… when we were backed against gold, when the government “printed money” it naturally “devalued” it because it put more tokens out against that finite pool of gold. Now it is backed by ALL of our assets, productive capacity and the full faith and credit of the United States. Not because of the military. Not because of the petrodollar (omg…) and not because of our gold supply… no speculator markets… just taxation, the ability to collect taxation and payable ONLY in its currency.
7. No one is advocating just spending to infinity. The issue is about what the full productive capacity of the nation is. We have allowed our national infrastructure and healthcare system deteriorate to criminal proportions… allowed kids to strap 6-figure debt to their backs via student loans before their first job and destroy the planet with fossil fuels. We are telling you this can all change if the cool kids from the camp fire stop telling stories and start paying attention and learning. 45,000 commit suicide every single year from involuntary unemployment, we can solve that too.
8. The poor are made more poor when governments choose to tax more to “pay for programs”… they die in the cold. From malnutrition. From depression and a lack of healthcare…
If you push bad econ… those deaths are DIRECTLY tied to that. Period.
