Where Is All This Money?
It appears that the government, after buying banks and automakers, is going to further stimulate the economy through a variety of spending measures. Perusing a list of these reveals that each has some dollar amount that includes more zeros than any figures I have ever seen related to currency. Surely that much money moving around would certainly stimulate something. What I, as a non-economist, can't figure out is who has all that money? Where is it? The storage problems alone for that much currency would be a nightmare.
Maybe nobody actually has that much money. If so, then the government could print it, but the amount of raw material needed would be staggering. Currency paper is 75% cotton and 25% linen. I don't know what industries use linen, but if we stop making blue jeans, I guess we'd have enough cotton to get started. Printing is probably a bad idea because it seems like with everything else, the more you have of something, the less it is worth.
If I personally need money, at least in the past, I'd go to a bank and borrow the amount I needed. The bank would give me a check. The check represented money that the bank loaned me - but the bank did have at least some real money or the bank had assets to back up the value of the check. Is the government going to borrow all this money from itself? If so, the government doesn't have any money to pay back the loan unless the government tries to get more money from us through increased taxes. The problem with that is I'm not sure whether any of "us" have any money either. That leaves the government without any loan payments. I heard the government is going to sell treasury bills to get money. Does anybody have the money to buy the treasury bills?
Maybe the government can just make up money. Just write big numbers on checks and hand them out to other parts of government. Would this stimulate the economy? The government gives money to the government, so that the government can fix economic problems by spending money, and all that spending was decided by the government. That can't be right, it's not logical. I'm sure I am just not grasping the larger view of the situation, since so many other people think that only the government can stimulate the economy. I have no problem being wrong, but I'd still like to know - where is all this money?
I do know one way to come up with a lot of money that would immediately start moving into the economy. Since the government has no money, but "we the people" do have some that we spend all the time to keep our lives going, maybe the government should just not have any of our money. If the government didn't tax us, we would have a lot more money. I bet that would stimulate the economy. And, once the economy was doing better, we could hire a new government and pay them only enough to read the Constitution and follow the rules in it. I'm sure that won't happen. So, since the government can make up money to stimulate the economy, why can't we make up money to pay taxes? I have plenty of checks in my checkbook, so I must have all the money I want. Right?
Maybe nobody actually has that much money. If so, then the government could print it, but the amount of raw material needed would be staggering. Currency paper is 75% cotton and 25% linen. I don't know what industries use linen, but if we stop making blue jeans, I guess we'd have enough cotton to get started. Printing is probably a bad idea because it seems like with everything else, the more you have of something, the less it is worth.
If I personally need money, at least in the past, I'd go to a bank and borrow the amount I needed. The bank would give me a check. The check represented money that the bank loaned me - but the bank did have at least some real money or the bank had assets to back up the value of the check. Is the government going to borrow all this money from itself? If so, the government doesn't have any money to pay back the loan unless the government tries to get more money from us through increased taxes. The problem with that is I'm not sure whether any of "us" have any money either. That leaves the government without any loan payments. I heard the government is going to sell treasury bills to get money. Does anybody have the money to buy the treasury bills?
Maybe the government can just make up money. Just write big numbers on checks and hand them out to other parts of government. Would this stimulate the economy? The government gives money to the government, so that the government can fix economic problems by spending money, and all that spending was decided by the government. That can't be right, it's not logical. I'm sure I am just not grasping the larger view of the situation, since so many other people think that only the government can stimulate the economy. I have no problem being wrong, but I'd still like to know - where is all this money?
I do know one way to come up with a lot of money that would immediately start moving into the economy. Since the government has no money, but "we the people" do have some that we spend all the time to keep our lives going, maybe the government should just not have any of our money. If the government didn't tax us, we would have a lot more money. I bet that would stimulate the economy. And, once the economy was doing better, we could hire a new government and pay them only enough to read the Constitution and follow the rules in it. I'm sure that won't happen. So, since the government can make up money to stimulate the economy, why can't we make up money to pay taxes? I have plenty of checks in my checkbook, so I must have all the money I want. Right?
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