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Comment by pjerem | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, that’s exactly where this mantra is false.

Printing money for projects that benefit the greater good does not create any inflation and costs barely anything to anyone.

Print 100 for no reason and give it to the economy and for sure you create inflation. Print 100 and plant a tree, you just have a tree and a worker who get paid for doing real work.

But everyone gets a tree.

Printing money shouldn’t be seen as a crime in the context of climate change. But it must only be directed towards everyone benefit like public infrastructure projects that will stay public forever.

Bonus : great infrastructure reduces a lot of other costs and boosts the economy.

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I don’t understand how you can claim that printing money doesn’t create inflation if you spend the printed money on things you like.

Not agreeing with either side here, but, printing money and handing it to an investment class who then launders it through their companies, to acquire more assets vs printing money that goes into infrastructure, works projects, or R&D are wildly different.

Not all monetary inflation is the same, and the destination of the money and the work produced with it can actually have quite an impact on the true wider economic effects of that increased money supply.

To be very clear, I'm not saying monetary policy is magical, or that it doesn't cause inflation.

It has very little to do with "things you like" and a lot more to do with "utility to society accomplished with the policy" along with the velocity of that money afterwards in local economies (IE. a worker is more likely to buy, well, food and rent, education. A PPP loaned exec will buy assets, or another yacht)

Believe it or not, one of those can generate more widespread economic growth than the other, for the same amount of money printed

> printing money that goes into infrastructure, works projects, or R&D are wildly different.

They're identical from the perspective of creating inflation, even though they might have different outcomes.

Spending on things like infrastructure or R&D might in theory increase productivity by more than it increases money supply, in which case it would not result in inflation.

> They're identical from the perspective of creating inflation, even though they might have different outcomes

That will only hold true if you look at only the singular issue: Printing money while not changing economic output increases it's availability and thus decreases it's purchasing power, which we call inflation. However: if the money goes towards things like clean air and other infrastructure, there are suddenly less things you need to pay for (clean air, water, cooling in summer, cost of transportation become cheaper), which effectively leaves more money for you to spend on wants, offsetting the effect of inflation partially/fully. Another effect is that correct public can increase overall value generated (think: "nice, with cheaper transportation my home sales business is now viable and contributes to the value/tax pool"), so the "new" money can become backed by real value, again offsetting the loss of spending power for the average Joe.

I agree that if you add more variables that counter the effect then the effect will be countered. But that seems tangential to whether you pay for something by printing more money vs another means. If you use another means you don't inflate the currency, and you decrease inflation, leading to a better outcome.

It's not on "things they like" it's on productive output.

Because as long as the folks who buy your Countries bonds believe you are spending the money in a way that will eventually return on the investment, your bonds are still valuable and you con continue spending on projects.

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