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by ismail 1893 days ago
If I had to venture an analysis it would be.

The difference between Zimbabwe printing a ton of money and us printing a ton of money boils down to social capital, cultural capital, political capital & influence. The US has all of these in spades, which Zimbabwe never had. This allows the us to exert an outsized amount of influence on shaping the story, which in turn allows it to print money with impunity.
3 comments
risk000 1893 days ago
Money printing is not a helpful term.

We need publicly created money because all money is ultimately publicly created - all the money any of us earns was created by the US government.

"Printing money with impunity" is a loaded phrase if ever there was one. Behind it is a whole narrative and belief structure which thinks money is something other than a unit of account, that has to be "earned" even by the entities that issue it, or somehow tied to other tangible assets. This is a bogus understanding of money, imo. Warren Mosler explains this in a variety of books and YouTube presentations.

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orwin 1893 days ago
Maybe that's kinda right, but i really comes down to production. You can't have hyperinflation if you're producing enough. You can have a big inflation, but not the venuezela kind.

And if your country is producing as much as the US is producing, you should not fear hyperinflation.

Tangent: Money supply is an adjustment variable, and most government don't even have direct power over it (not even China). more than 90% of all euros are created through loans. Consummation loans alone created more money that European stimulus package.

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Arnt 1893 days ago
Yes, exactly, but no.

Mugabe printed so much money that it was a strain on the world's money-printing presses, and Zimbabwe is a small country. Doing something comparable for an economy as big as the US... I don't think so. Logistically probably impossible even though only a little money is cash, and the attempt would IMO run that "social capital, cultural capital, political capital & influence" down to Mugabe-like levels.

Even though the US may be the country with the largest ability to do that kind of thing, its ability does not stretch that far.

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