| The relative value of different currencies is not at all related to "how much is printed". Heck, even internally the actual value of money is unrelated to how much is printed. Main drivers of exchange rates are international trade of all kinds and its requirement to use specific currencies in specific places (you can accept payment in JPY when your company is in USA, but you need to pay your taxes in USD!), and speculation. Essentially for FOREX, the exchange rate is essentially determined by entities needing specific currency for something - for example to pay for purchases or services, pay wages, taxes, etc. - when you have money in different currency. The rest is plain market - you put an offer like "I will buy 100k USD in exchange for 11m JPY", but others were willing to offer more, and thus the averaged (I know, simplification) exchange rate goes up. But you might be able to catch a trade at lower price because someone might need JPY right now (or other forex-compatible asset you have) quicker than it could sell USD at higher prices, etc. You can of course also purely speculate on the prices and make money from "nothing", pure financialization, pure capitalism, close to zero value being produced. Printing money can be used to artificially change the exchange rate by offering "cheap" money for other currencies. The reason why you might want to do is simple - your currency being "weaker" tends to benefit exports (at the same time exports drive currency "stronger"), while stronger currency benefits imports (but imports drive currency "weaker") |