Simply because while the government can print as much money as it wants, the value of that money collapses when the supply of dollars overwhelm the market
I hate the term “print money” because it implies that there is some inherent difference between dollars matched by taxation and those which aren’t. Every dollar spent by Congress is a brand new dollar and carries its own guarantee to be accepted in payment for a federal tax obligation. A dollar that has fulfilled that promise is balanced to zero in the process and cannot go on to fund anything.
The quantity theory of money has been frequently and consistently debunked as deficit and debt levels rise around the world without the predicted consequences coming true. Japan’s debt to GDP is currently in excess of 240% and it can’t even meet its inflation targets while trying to weaken its currency. When is all of this doom and gloom prediction supposed to happen?
When that happens vendors decide to avoid accepting currency. So there are real limits to how much a government can print money or borrow money before its behavior undermines the market.
You actually believe this is possible, don’t you? Amazing!
The issuing government is always the price setter in all transactions it enters into, so it’s highly unlikely any such vendors will be rejecting the US dollar any time soon except in some fevered libertarian imaginations. The US dollar is also still the leading choice as a store of excess reserves in the world, and yes, we control that rate as well, not the bond vigilantes. Given that we must create money into existence before it can be borrowed it is totally unreasonable to even consider borrowing as a funding mechanism for the government. It would appear that the primary function of Treasury bonds since we left the gold standard is lighting your hair on fire. Mission accomplished.
On the other side of the ledger, if health care prices do not matter in a single payer system since the government can print money why not triple them.
This is so juvenile as to not even qualify for discussion. The objective is delivering healthcare, not dollars, so if some resources are in short supply in the transition their price can be adjusted upward by “market forces”, not mandate, to assure realizing the goal. The point I was making is that the price is never a limiting factor unless we let it be. The money can always be created and such increases in random commodities will have no effect on the pricing of any others.
Your scenario has played out enough times in history to know that is not an option.
This is the typical response of the econ illiterate, but thanks for playing. The truth is that there is “NO” case of a sovereign fiat currency experiencing hyperinflation due to “printing money”. All such cases usually sited, Zimbabwe, Weimar Republic, Venezuela, etc resulted from production and supply disruptions, or currency manipulations, which made it necessary to increase the money supply so people could buy the products in shortage, not simply “printing money”.
While the government does have a monopoly when it comes to “manufacturing” money, the laws of supply and demand are universal and if the government oversupplies the market with dollars the demand will collapse causing the dollar to enter into a “death” spiral.
Money is a unit of measure, not a commodity that can react to supply and demand until an economy is producing at maximum capacity and employing 100% of the potential labor force at a livable wage. No one is saying we should carpet bomb the nation with money, only that we have greatly underutilized our capacity for productivity due to an unreasonable fear of large numbers. We obviously are underperforming or we wouldn’t have people dying from lack of medical care, and it harms our ability to compete in other areas.
People die and will continue to die, but they shouldn’t die because we don’t understand the nature of our own money, or have become subject to propaganda meant to enrich a small percentage of the population to the great harm of the majority. The first step in mitigating this suffering that has no place in a wealthy country like ours is to make it known that “ANY” suffering in such an economy is entirely a “POLITICAL” decision, not economics. Once the people realize this they will hold their representatives accountable for that suffering and their corruption that lies at the heart of it.
As the economy expands the market does demand more dollars to facilitate liquid markets, so the government can and does print some additional money every year, but the supply relative to the demand is kept within a pretty narrow range, when it isn’t we get deflation or excessive inflation. Both are brutal for economies and so your “print money” solution is simply not viable.
It is simply never about the money. A sports stadium has X seats available that it can sell tickets for and to not sell as many tickets as it has seats is stupidity in the extreme. We have been obsessing over the tickets and ignoring the empty seats for decades as we worship at the altar of the “market” and decry all things “gubmint” as evil. Your own numbered list demonstrates that market forces should never have been allowed near our healthcare, but we have to now make some choices that are going to upset some entrenched interests or we simply agree that we aren’t capable as a modern society to do what every other has done for decades and slip away into the fascho-libertarian dystopia that has been waiting just around the corner since ‘80.
Every single universal health care system in the world has addressed these issues in one of three ways. Pricing controls on products and services, various forms of rationing, and various degrees of cost sharing with consumers. They work at one level or another to control health care costs, but notice they do not optimize “outcomes”, they do not optimize satisfaction, they do not provide choices, they do not optimize on wellness, and a host of other problems with single payer systems.
I’m quite sure that’s why the rest of the world is clamoring for our private insurance companies to come save them from their evil government systems. Oh- — Wait!
You have managed to muster up the cajones to completely turn around the two systems. Congrats on that, but you also just made me aware of the utter uselessness of any further discussion in such a dishonest and biased framework.
Every damn one!!! That’s some impressive level of BS. Just WOW!!
