[flexie]

It's a unique form of American subsidies: You don't have to directly pay your businesses to get a competitive edge. You just don't require companies and individuals to pay any way near enough tax to keep basic government functions like education and healthcare going. Then you solve it by printing more money.

When a less powerful country does that, it bears most or all of the cost itself. When the US does it, much of the inflationary cost is borne by all other countries that use the dollar as a reserve currency. Other countries don't have a reserve currency like the dollar.

[chii]

> Then you solve it by printing more money.

the money isn't printed. It's debt, which is different. The debt is expected to be repaid, with interest.

If you actually printed money, which does not have interest to be repaid, then the amount of circulating money would've increased permanently. Therefore, the expectation is that each printed dollar is worth less. By borrowing instead of printing, you don't have this permanent increase in money supply. Of course, there are other ways to increase the money supply, which is to control how much debt actually makes it into the system - but this can be regulated as required by the economy.

> Other countries don't have a reserve currency like the dollar.

the dollar being reserve is not really "forced" upon other countries - it's a choice they made to use USD as their reserve. They do it because other parties trust it. They could use the japanese Yen, or even the chinese yuan. And yet, majority of entities choose to use the USD.

They do it because it's a relatively stable currency. They do it because other people accept it, and they do it because there's some trust that the US won't print money like Venezuela or Zimbabwe.

[laboratorymice]

> If you actually printed money, which does not have interest to be repaid, then the amount of circulating money would've increased permanently.

You have to get your head around the fact that this is an open-ended system, the music never has to stop so long as the sun rises and we stay on this monetary system. The same way people still get "wealthier" from stock market appreciation, even though there is a buyer for each seller, so too does more debt indeed mean a permanent increase in money supply[1].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MABMM301USM189S

[Ylpertnodi]

>the dollar being reserve is not really "forced" upon other countries - it's a choice they made to use USD as their reserve.

The several countries that tried not to use the usd kinda got penalised, though.

[belltaco]

> The several countries that tried not to use the usd kinda got penalised, though.

That theory, even though it's floated a lot and is assumed true by otherwise smart people, never made too much sense to me because of the simple fact that a country that's already in the very bad books with the US would be the one that tries to switch to a different currency.

For example Iraq and Libya were already on the list of the countries that the US would take military action against, for several strong reasons nothing to do with currencies, before they floated the idea of switching to a different reserve currency. So it's correlation rather than causation.

[bobthepanda]

It also doesn’t help that most of the other candidates are more heavily controlled (CNY), actively do not want to be reserve currencies (JPY, CHF, CNY), or are worse managed (EUR)

[ThinkBeat]

The money is not printed but that is a technicality. The money is invented out of thin air as needed and spent. (In a rapid succession. ) (QE)

For a lot of it: No loans have been made, no obligations sold, No foreign or domestic entity has handed over "real money" No interest rate has been set.

For other parts the US government has bought its own obligations.

And then there are parts that are actually loans from other entities.

If they wanted, they could mint a few $1 trillion USD coins and whoosh the money exists.

The US is able to do this due to the special status of the USD as a reserve currency and general trust.

Venezuela is not able to do this because they lack the might and power od USD. Nor would Norway.

Under Covid Norway spent "real money" from their piggy bank. The US spent a lot of invented money. (But also, other categories)

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trillion-dollar-coin.as... https://www.investopedia.com/government-stimulus-efforts-to-...

[chii]

> If they wanted, they could mint a few $1 trillion USD coins and whoosh the money exists.

of course this is true - that's what sovereign power means.

And yet, other entities have trust that the US gov't doesn't just do it. Thus, the 'general trust' as you said. And this special status as being a reserve is mainly due to this trust - no amount of coersion is going to make an untrustworthy currency a reserve.

[flagrant_taco]

Is it any different in your opinion when $1T is created and deposited into bank accounts rather than minted and released as coins?

[chii]

It depends on the mechanism of said creation.

If it is created as debt, then there's a due date for which it is repaid, with interest. In which case, it works out OK, if the interest is lower than actual economic growth.

[PeterStuer]

"the dollar being reserve is not really "forced" upon other countries - it's a choice they made to use USD as their reserve"

Try selling your oil in anything but usd and see what happens. It's not a choice if the consequences of making the 'wrong' choice is being invaded, bombed into the stone age and have your country pillaged and its assets handed off to reserve currency alligned corporations.

[plonk]

> It's not a choice if the consequences of making the 'wrong' choice is being invaded, bombed into the stone age and have your country pillaged and its assets handed off to reserve currency alligned corporations.

Is there a reason everybody here seems to believe in that threat? I don't think the US is keen to repeat the 200X invasions. Plus Saudi Arabia, a US ally is threatening to switch to China's currency despite that?

[blkhawk]

So your argument is that it doesn't happen all that often? Also you have to remember that war isn't the only option the US has pulled. I mean the general low cost solution was just paying some terrorists to boot out the government to install a friendly Dictator. This fucking happened several times and it ruined whole regions and the aftereffects killed hundreds of thousands and affected millions.

Do the planners not know this will happen? Probably. They might have predicted those outcomes as worst case scenarios. History seems to point to it being the usual outcome. Bias I guess.

For them this is a trolley problem on one set of tracks is economic harm to the US and on the other as an indirect effect 500k deaths of people not anywhere near the US. Heck if they don't pull the lever somebody else will.

Anyway the practice of the US to externalize their inflation will cause extreme instability in the US if it can't wean itself off it.

[plonk]

I'm looking for actual evidence or reasoning. Of course I have nothing against the US government strong-arming others into using the dollar, but I don't think you have a lot supporting that hypothesis either. The dollar's preeminence could just as well be explained by the fact that the whole world already accepts it, and it's mostly free of exchange controls contrary to e.g. China's currency.

And yeah, the US is known to be a fan of regime change, but again, what indicates that this was done to support the dollar as reserve currency specifically?

[flagrant_taco]

> the money isn't printed. It's debt, which is different. The debt is expected to be repaid, with interest

One person's debt is another person's money. Our economic system is built on an expectation of contistent growth, deflation is not an option and those in charge will do everything they can to avoid it.

When the government creates new money it's technically debt, but debt they will never get back and clear off the books. Doing so would reduce the money supply and either cause deflation or reduce GDP, neither are acceptable for the system. They tried quantitative tightening policies to remove some of the debt/money created after the housing crisis, even a small amount of QT hit hard and they very quickly abandoned the idea of allowing those debts to be paid back (or ought back and removed).

[roenxi]

> The debt is expected to be repaid, with interest.

And yet, realistically, the US is almost at the end of a trajectory where they keep borrowing until they can't repay even the interest then default. What scenarios are there now where it makes sense to even try drawing down the principle?

The only question is who is eating the real losses. The ambiguity of that is half the spectacle. Ironically, US taxpayers are in it with the best chance of avoiding that particular burden.

> They do it because other parties trust it.

Speaking of, the Chinese seem to be losing confidence in the dollar, their treasury securities holdings are going down [0] remarkably quickly. They're at around 60% of peak and dropping. Amazingly, the US is still seeing foreign holdings of treasuries going up!

[0] https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-cent...

[chii]

> The only question is who is eating the real losses.

nobody has to lose.

A buyer of a treasury is receiving interest payments, and will receive the entire principle on maturity. At the time of buying, the buyer must have judged that the value is worth buying. In the future, if the value drops, then that's loss, but it's not unexpected. Just like if the value grow.

Debt is something that is used to produce _more_. Now, if the debt was not used properly and with care then, that's a different story...

[xyzzy123]

The interest is also USD denominated, so the only way the US government can default is by choice.

[georgeplusplus]

>>>If you actually printed money, which does not have interest to be repaid, then the amount of circulating money would've increased permanently. Therefore, the expectation is that each printed dollar is worth less.

When banks make a loan they are literally creating new money into existence.

Perhaps you meant Bank Reserves which is the underlying system banks and the fed use and the dollars which is bank customers like you and me use.

[chii]

> they are literally creating new money into existence.

Debt is new money, but this new money is _different_ from printed money. It's because the debt has to be repaid, which implies you have to have the ability to repay (otherwise who would do the lending?). Therefore, this implies that production increases at a rate that is at least the same as, if not higher, than interest rate charged.

[neilwilson]

It’s no different from money. It just has a longer duration.

Overnight money is repaid every day and replaced with a new loan for the following day. That also happens with so called “debt”.

Money and debt are fundamentally the same thing. They are issued by the same entity which has the same lifespan. Necessarily the debt can never be “paid off”. All that happens is the assets are swapped around.

Lending happens automatically as a function of accounting for a payment journal. The only people who get excited about it are those who are hard of accounting.

Money is debt. Time to accept that.

[chii]

Never denied that money and debt are the same. I am denying that printed money is the same as debt money.

[kelipso]

You are talking about printed money as in real world coins and paper/cloth cash? That's just not relevant at all in this age.

[mejutoco]

I am not so sure debt has to be repaid.

Debt is supposed to be repaid, or should be repaid, or comes with great declarations of an intention or obligation of being repaid, but debt can be kept indefinitely.

Cases from the top of my head:

- IMF lends money to country. Later the country is insolvent, and the credit is renegotiated to a lower amount (same for mortgages) as opposed to getting nothing.

- Parents "lend" money to children for house downpayment. Parents died without debt having been paid.

- World ends tomorrow by $reason_of_your_choice. All the existing debt gets cancelled.

- Friend lends some money to another friend. They fall out and never repay the debt, and everybody lets it go.

[xyzzy123]

- Ideally, your economy grows faster than the debt grows. In the best case your debt can sustainably grow forever.

[notahacker]

Nothing you've said disagrees with the OP. The new "money" is literally credit, which literally is someone else's debt obligation which disappears when repaid.

[epups]

I think it does, actually. Every time I see a comment about "money printing", it makes me think of the author holding the opinion that the government literally created money, as in wealth, out of thin air.

[PeterStuer]

No, that privilege is reserved for the private banks. In the US the cunningly named FED. Presidents that actually tried changing that ended up killed.

[RandomLensman]

Yes, but then the banks need to borrow that money as soon as it moves off the balance sheet.

[Sharlin]

Government debt is, in general, not expected to be repaid. Ever. Only the interest, and often not even that.

[mejutoco]

> If you actually printed money, which does not have interest to be repaid, then the amount of circulating money would've increased permanently. Therefore, the expectation is that each printed dollar is worth less.

I understand this logic, and I am trying to square it with the following:

When there is instability investors flee to the dollar (like during covid), and the demand for it increases (dollar goes up), also from other countries increasing reserves. So If when the dollar goes up the US prints more dollars, are they really getting into debt? It seems like a different case form other countries.

[RandomLensman]

Dollar going up isn't the same as more dollars being created, it is the same dollars being worth more.

[mejutoco]

Uhm... I know?

OP said printing dollars makes the dollar worth less

> expectation is that each printed dollar is worth less

And I said in times of instability the demand for dollars increases (dollar goes up).

What I am saying is the "every dollar is worth less" of printing dollars might be offset by the higher demand of dollars in times of crisis.

[RandomLensman]

There isn't necessary printing of dollars in a crisis - that is my point.

[mejutoco]

I was originally addressing this comment form OP. Below for your convenience.

> > If you actually printed money, which does not have interest to be repaid, then the amount of circulating money would've increased permanently. Therefore, the expectation is that each printed dollar is worth less.

So I really do not understand the relevance of what you are saying. It seems disconnected from the actual comments I made. I did not mention "necessary". I think you might be responding to the wrong thread,

[glimshe]

Your statement applies to the entirety of the developed world, not only the United States. Please don't tell me that countries like Japan, Germany and France don't get the same sort of subsidy. No matter where you live, it's the poor that bear the cost of deficit spending, which is a worldwide problem.

In poor countries, as you pointed out, deficit spending is a more acute problem, usually felt through currency collapse that mainly hurts the largely poor population.

[Zufriedenheit]

Germany actually has the second highest tax rates of the developed world. [1] Also it is written in our constitution that the budget has to be balanced except in extreme cases like pandemic, natural disaster or war. Our problem is that companies are leaving because of high tax and energy costs. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/185987/umfrag...

[glimshe]

The stability you describe is relatively recent, the country has catapulted itself to development through deficit spending, and today still has a debt-to-GDP of ~66%. This isn't bad but still is a big subsidy partially financed by poorer countries. Germany, in particular, has been extensively accused by less developed EU partners of unfairly benefitting from the single currency.

[bobthepanda]

Also at this point the drag on infrastructure investment is starting to hurt the German economy.

[olalonde]

Indeed, money printing is a hidden tax on all currency holders. That's partly why Bitcoin is appealing to many people.

[knorker]

Printing more bitcoin is a tax on everyone and their electricity costs, their environment, and the existence of free tier compute.

[olalonde]

Bitcoin mining in itself doesn't damage the environment. It's the electricity generation that sometime does, but that's not a problem unique to Bitcoin. Bitcoin works perfectly fine with clean energy.

[knorker]

Whataboutism will not convince anyone.

The rest is advanced mental gymnastics. It's hard to convince someone when their greed depends on them not understanding it.

[olalonde]

I am not trying to convince anyone, just stating facts.

[mrjin]

I'm wondering how much longer it can play such game. If current trend does not changes, its revenue will soon unable to cover the interests.

[smitty1e]

Revenue hasn't covered costs in decades.

If the BRICS overthrow the U.S. dollar, there will be a come-to-Beevis moment in the U.S.

[throw0101c]

> If the BRICS overthrow the U.S. dollar, there will be a come-to-Beevis moment in the U.S.

Yeah:

> Pretty straightforward really. You combine Brazil's history of monetary stability, with Russia's respect for property rights, India's domestic tranquility, China's financial transparency, and South Africa's investment opportunities - and hey presto, you've got a new global money

* https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1665053372402081792

How anyone lump China and India, not exactly the best of friends, together is beyond me.

[enterprise_cog]

Why would anyone care what lying David Frum says about BRICS?

[kmlx]

> If the BRICS overthrow the U.S. dollar

imo there is zero chance of BRICS ever amounting to anything more than a photo-op every couple of years.

[ChatGTP]

Will there?

I think what's behind all this reckless spending is the fact that the US armed forces are the biggest and most powerful in the world. While they have the most guns and are prepared to use them, it's not going to be easy to change this world order.

Like, who's going to stand over the 7ft 300lb thug?

The US wont just sit around while their position is eroded,at least in my opinion.

We're also relatively good allies and I think this goes a long way too.

If China had a 10x more powerful military and Navy than the USA, had experience in combat and was willing to use it. It wouldn't take long for the Yuan to win.

[bobthepanda]

China does not want the yuan to “win.”

The Chinese state views control over capital flows as more important than the prestige of reserve currency. They can, and have, clamped down significantly on foreign outflows when they deem it necessary.

[RandomLensman]

You need a currency that buys stuff and that other people want to have - military might alone isn't sufficient at all. The ruble was never a great currency, no matter how mighty the USSR was, for example.

[6nf]

Inflation fixes that

[ejb999]

not if interest rates go up at the same rate, or higher than inflation

[6nf]

I mean historically

[laboratorymice]

Fully agree, and it's probably intentional. It's not entirely fair, but I suppose most countries would do the same given the chance. Clearly it's not how you want to get ahead as a country, since all it takes is for the world collectively to decide it no longer wants to bear that cost, and then you can only keep it through force. Inflation becoming a well-understood phenomenon with the general population also threatens it.

If China plays its cards right, the US is going to start having a bad time still this decade. The US should be aggressively trying to reach a more balanced economy. The distribution of not just wealth, but of the ability to generate wealth, leaves the US on very shaky ground.

[maroonblazer]

Despite its many problems, the U.S. still enjoys the largest consumption of any country. People are banging down the door/wall to move here; we don't see people clamoring to emigrate to China. China's demographics spell doom for the foreseeable future.

Not only would China need to play its cards right, it'd need to win the lottery to overtake the U.S.

[tomohawk]

You could raise taxes to 100% and not pay for everything the US is obligated to at this point. It's totally insane. The 2 ways out are to somehow grow the pie bigger to get more revenue while stopping the constant increase in obligations, or to inflate the money and pay off the debt with worthless paper.

It's also the backdrop of the infighting over the Speaker of the House. It's the Speaker who has control over the budget, not the President. If you look, for example, at the R votes against Jordan, it is mostly those on the appropriations and defense committees who want to keep the spending going at any cost.