Are you advocating for printing more USD?
edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted for asking a relevant question
edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted for asking a relevant question
Spoiler - we didn’t print nearly as much as you think we did. And we generally haven’t even scratched the surface of how much more a normal growth of the currency since 2008 was needed.
The question that needs to be asked is more political and societal than monetary. Does the US want to lead the world by resuming at marketing a more true and secular beacon of hope and freedom or does it want to become isolationist and toe the line of each dog to its own. If we choose the former the question than arises if that’s even still possible and if we ever were true to it or were we just lucky enough to enjoy the arbitrage of developing countries not having developed yet.
I personally don’t have all the answers but it seems to me that combined with our questionable moral standing in the last 22 years and our secular stagnation the latter is the path we’re choosing to follow.
Spoiler - we didn’t print nearly as much as you think we did. And we generally haven’t even scratched the surface of how much more a normal growth of the currency since 2008 was needed.
If by “normal” you mean debasing and destroying the government money just like every empire before, sure.
Often cited and incorrect metric. The fed changed how the count M2 I believe because they started paying interest on reserves during their response to the COVID crisis. Either way the chart often cited showing an increase in M2 is not telling the whole story, namely that not nearly enough USD has been “printed” to satisfy world hunger and needs. (Think, if dollar was a plenty then why is DXY at the close to the second highest in history. Demand outpaces supply.)
You can Google it. Have fun! While you’re at it also Google Triffin Paradox. Read about trade deficits as they relate to a country who’s currency is a global reserve currency.
US has around 1 trillion USD trade deficit every year, that money needs to come from somewhere and GDP seems to go up every year.
US also has budget deficit of around 1-1.4 trillion USD per year. So US is also printing 1.4 trillion to finance the budget.
So we are at around -2 trillion USD every year with debt of around 130% GDP.
Seems like the rest of the world is financing that debt? Or how does it work?
Triffin explains the trade deficit perfectly. I’ll quote from Wikipedia:
“…that the country whose currency, being the global reserve currency, foreign nations wish to hold, must be willing to supply the world with an extra supply of its currency to fulfil world demand for these foreign exchange reserves, leading to a trade deficit.”
We basically have to keep feeding the world with dollars. Or at least collateral that can be trusted to be turned into dollars so that banks around the world can create those dollars. How? Create more government debt.
The part about debt to GDP growth is I think exactly that problem of balancing your domestic short term needs vs the long term needs of the currency on a global scale.
When the world is starved for dollars and the dollar becomes stronger this isn’t a measure of US economic strength it’s a measure of how much the system is choked. Less dollars to go around less global trade is able to function less goods and services produced all around.
In a globalized system if one country isn’t able to produce as much (think China), the effects ripple to all countries like dominos. Causing secondary and tertiary effects further down the chain.
You do realize that it's not actually just printed and given to people right? The fed buys government bonds, the people through taxes pay the interests on this loaned printed money.
So, the money is printed and loaned to the government, the government uses this printed money to make the rich richer (supporting big companies so the economy doesn't crash, through Blackrock who gets to decide who gets what based on ..weird values), inflation is a tax on the people already, and they're the ones paying back that loan, and the poor countries get poorer because their dollar reserves aren't enough to buy things from the US and other countries who trade in USD.
So thinking QE on that scale is good is either being a contrarian for the sake of ego or believing everything you hear on CNBC.
The main issue is that the global supply chain cannot literally serve richer American consumers, so the cost of supply increases and everyone (in the US and out) faces inflation pressure.
Correction: foreign central banks guided by IMF subsidiaries loved it dearly, people - not that much, perhaps the opposite [1]
Don't watch the score and, especially, don't complain about it.
I inquired why I was being downvoted for asking a question. I was genuinely curious about how that was bad.
Yes it may be bad form to mention your own score, but it's equally bad form to downvote for asking a question, or read into a question something that wasn't said which may require a down vote.
Why don't you take the time to answer the parents question rather than downvote them for querying why their question got downvotes?
If there's anywhere that appreciates the gaining of knowledge on the internet, surely hn must be one of the top candidates. So why downvote questions? And yes it's happened to me multiple times, and it's bloody annoying. Doubly so because you know if you try to clarify you'll get someone downvoting you because why? I don't know. Because that would be 'bad form'? BS.
/Rant
I want intelligent questions and answers and a basic respect for learning and knowledge.
To me it just shouldn't be acceptable to downvote a (non rhetorical) question.