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by thebooglebooski 2912 days ago
"Making" and "creating" are pretty ambiguous here.

The mint literally creates physical money (coins). But in the end, the government actually does generate revenue, that gets calculated into a profit or loss for the country:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/seigniorage.asp

$100 bills DO generate profit. Pennies generate a loss. If you look at all of the currency in aggregate, it generates positive revenue for the country.

2 comments

$100 bills generate close to 0 profit for the United States Treasury as they are sold to the Federal Reserve Banks at manufacturing cost.

However coins are sold by the United States Treasury to the Federal Reserve Banks at face value and can generate a profit/loss based on the difference between the face value and the cost of manufacturing.

$100 bills do generate profit for the person printing them, but in aggregate they inflate the currency as a whole. This inflation, in theory, cancels out the wealth "created."

So when people print money, they aren't generating any wealth - it's just a wealth transfer from people who have paper money to the people who print it.