A question regarding the government and money

I sincerely apologise if this is the incorrect section of the forum to post this in, please inform me if it needed to be posted elsewhere.

My question is:

Disregarding any conspiracies anyone has against the government, and given the apparent financial crisis the world is in, how hard is it for the government to print more money?

As an Australian, who is part of the Commonwealth, governed by the the Queen and the Royal family, who I believe are able to print money, I'm curious to know the procedure involved, whether it's to do with currency exchange, or what.

Money itself is man-made. If the world really is in a crisis, why can't they just 'make more money', for lack of better expression? I mean physically make more money.

My best guess is to do with the U.N., and conflicting countries.

Please do not take this as an ignorant question, I really want to know, and cannot seem to find any useful information.

reply to post by Ashtree


Basically the more money we print out and make the less the money is worth. This causes inflation.

Idealy the US isnt supposed to print money that it cant back up with gold according to the world net worth of gold. but thats not to say that the US mint dosent print more than the country is worth wich does cause inflation and makes the worth of a dollar less.

Increasing money supply does nothing in terms of goods.

And ideally, you want a country to have minimal unemployment and efficient methods.

The whole economic system is so complex and there are endless amounts of theories behind what certain actions do and do not do.

Increasing the money supply IMO does this.

Decrease unemployment, increase inflation. More people are working and producing, but your money is worth less and will require more work to purchase compared to before.

Now, that is not to say there is an increase in supply. More supply is almost always a good thing, as there are no dramatic adverse relationships.

Remember when minimum wage increases? I do not know if you witnessed this, but a lot of goods (ESPECIALLY FOOD) had jumps in their prices.

Sure there are more people working, but the people working already probably got hurt by such a move.

Minimum wage workers might get a 5% increase in income, but prices might go up 10%.

There is an ideal amount of unemployment that economist have. A recession normally equates to high unemployment, which ends up in govt/fed trying to increase the money supply, leading to inflation.

So yes...the government is probably trying to make more money. One would guess that they would try to do it the most efficient way, by getting the most results with as little money pumped in as possible.

The answer to your question is yes they can and they do.

You should study pre WWII Germany Weimer Republic and Zimbabwe.

Here is a brief explanation. if you have an economy based on 1 million dollars. nd you print another 1 million and introduce it into the economy you just diluted your money supply by 50% now all those dollars are worth 50 cents because you now have twice the money chasing the same amount goods and services so prices rise to compensate for it that is inflation.

The kicker is government is the first to get the money and spend it before the prices have risen so they get all thier goods and services at the lower priced before the money gets to you and dilutes the economy causing inflation. So if you have 10,000 in the bank it can now only buy 5000 worth of goods and services that it did before the inflation. So they just stole 50% of you accumulated wealth.

The bankers love this kind of expansion cause they know prices will rise so they buy all the positions in the stock market and in real estate to get rich off the rising prices. So you see it's a fixed scheme. They buy low then inflate the economy and sell high then delfate some and buy again then re inflate etc. Now days they don't need to print as much a lot of it is book entries on a computer. so it easier to inflate and deflate. Their main source of this is contrived loans and mortgages. They are created out of thin air with a computer book entry.

Of course eventually they dilute the economy so much that people can no longer afford to buy period IOW they have priced themselves out of the market. So they contract the money supply some to get prices to drop and then rinse and repeat. But they never contract the economy to where it previously was they maybe pull 10-15% out till it gets moving again. They do this to keep the illusion that prices will always go up so people keep investing in all their schemes. Look at all the people runing around buying depreciated real estate thinking its going to come back better then ever.

That's why 100 years ago things that cost a dime now cost several dollars. The over all trend is always up and but they can only do this so long and it all collapses. That is why they call it a bubble. You can only blow a balloon up so much before it pops. This one is about to pop for good.

But people think oh it will come back it always does because of the contrived over all up trend. These last few little contractions are signs of the strain and it will pop one of these times for good. In the meantime who ends up with all the property and debt holdings? The banks of course who are all agent banks for the Federal Reserve and their IMF masters and he people are screwed as usual.

And they will put a new dress and different color lipstick on the same scheme and try and sell it again to the people telling them they have to mke some sacrifies

[edit on 16-4-2010 by hawkiye]

reply to post by Ashtree


The government does indeed print money. It also burns money (literally) .. every year billions are taken out of circulation, and billions more printed.. the difference = inflation (or deflation, though deflation is very rare and only occures through economic contraction, not the Government not printing money.)

The US however does not "print" perse the entire amount we here as a deficit. The amount we actually print doesnt very to much, and is set by Congress/Treasury.

The number one way that we print money is through the Auction of Treasuries. This is a better method than printing because innitial capital originates from current cash.. the only amount "printed" technically speaking is the obligation, the interest rate.

But the single largest source of "printing" never gets printed at all .. it's called Fractional Reserve Banking. A bank, with a deposit, can loan out a large ratio of dollars to the amount in deposit (for instance, say 10 dollars can be loaned for every 1 dollar) .. if the ratio is relaxed and isn't watched, especially when interest rates are low.. we see a massive influx in "wealth" .. the number of Dollars expands even though the Gov never printed it... in effect, every bank prints however much it wants. As long as no one pulls their csah, every things fine.

A currency backed by Gold still has it's ratio change (dollar per ounce) .. effectively, the Gov still prints money. That is the way with all currencies.

Thanks for all the input guys. It generally makes a whole lot more sense in the way that money itself is just digits on a computer screen. And yeah, it's a whole lot more complex, with the stock market and all.
It makes me wonder how everyone would cope if the economic world had completely crashed and had to suddenly revert back to the old, simple 'workers trade' idea. You know, "I'll trade 8 cattle for 2 slaves and 5 chickens..."

< /sarcasm >

Originally posted by Ashtree

...

Money itself is man-made. If the world really is in a crisis, why can't they just 'make more money', for lack of better expression? I mean physically make more money.

'''

This is what they are doing, throwing money at the problem. They can, do, and are printing more money and assigning worth to individuals in an attempt to hopefully boost consumer confidence, which is abysmal right now.

That's the catch: Even though you have money flowing, if peoples are refraining from developing and expanding current placements, then there's an underlying problem.

It's crazy, but money alone won't solve it...as, there's a very large breech of trust right now, and no amount of pressed teeth beyond the face with blurbs of good will are going to fix it for some time.

Since WW2 the British pound (£) has depreciated 50% every eight years, house prices are even worse, a house priced at £250.00 in 1945 is now priced at £250.000! the ordinary working man/woman/couple have to win the lotto for a chance to buy!
The Queen does not print money, the bank of England orders it from a private printing firm, the name of which escapes me for the moment.

Originally posted by pikestaff
The Queen does not print money, the bank of England orders it from a private printing firm, the name of which escapes me for the moment.

Ah, I was always told that it was The Queen who gives the 'go-ahead' fro printing. Thanks for informing me otherwise.

In general conclusion, the economy is damn well screwed, and now I get why.

reply to post by Ashtree

I recommend watching atleast the part of Zietgiest: Addendum when they are talking about the monetary system we use. Its a total sham.



Its just a massive pyramid scheme, wealth goes to the top, and the debt accumulated gets passed down the chain to the third world.