In theory, the US mint could print a several-trillion-dollar bill and pay off that debt, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

by Anonymous 12 years ago

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Because that worked so well for Germany.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Before anyone says anything about money being backed up by gold like in every other one of these posts: we don't do that anymore.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No. Putting more money into circulation decreases the value of your money.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

OP said one, singular, multi-trillion dollar bill.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's the combined value of the money, not the amount of bills.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

What a WONDERFUL idea! One which has NO downsides whatsoever

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If that could work, don't you think someone would have thought of that by now?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

That is what you call inflation. Being that there would be more money available in circulation, the value of the US dollar would go down.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think this is trying to be ironic? I think? That's what the states have been doing for years, so why not more of the same? Out of money? Make more! jk lolz.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Lrn2Economics

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If the Gov't does it secretly, yeah, it'll work.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In theory, yes. In reality... *shakes head disapprovingly*

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The problem with that idea is that Mexicans/unemployed people will spend all that money on unimportant items, because they don't have enough education to know any better. For every dollar we print, we'll just go $2 more in debt, and then we'll run out of trees to print money with. We'll have to buy money from Iraq/Iran, further fucking our economy. Or I suppose we could steal the money from them, but then that would extend our war efforts over there, which probably costs more money than we could recoup from it. And we're too pussy to go with the smart option, which would be to just nuke them so we could grab their resources. We won't be able to get out of the recession until every Mexican is gone and every person is back working.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

The Truth? Is that you? Also, though this is hardly the only think wrong with what you said, if we ran out of trees (printing money being the least of our worries should that happen) then we could just print money on something else, like plastic.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Mexicans are way smarter than Americans, at least economically. They work harder, for less, and don't indulgently overspend. Americans spend money on unimportant items, definitely not Mexicans. And now I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you were serious and didn't actually know this: If we nuked the Middle East, it would be a nuclear wasteland, and there would be no resources.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Okay, I'm fourteen; I'm young and stupid and don't know jack shit about how this economy functions, but even I know it doesn't work like that.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think not too many years ago we had enough money to cover our debt, it was only recently that it grew.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If we had the money to cover our debt, we wouldn't have debt. Herp.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

...

by Anonymous 12 years ago

"In theory". Don't you mean, "On paper"? cool

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Someone failed Econ.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In theory, yes, they could. It is theoretically possible. The negative repercussions of it would be drastic and enormous and bad, but it is theoretically possible. They do have the power to do that. But it would be bad.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, it would work perfectly if we could convince our debtors to accept it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

It's sad how 95 people agreed.

by Anonymous 12 years ago