David Hines
Print for prosperity
FacebookTwitter
By David Hines
April 24, 2009

Whenever you hear ordinary people discuss economic stimulus, someone is likely to suggest that rather than give money to corporations, each citizen should be given a million dollars. Government Keynesians never take such suggestions seriously. Why not? It makes as much sense as their proposals.

If printing money backed by nothing is the solution, there's a much better way: Let us print our own money.

This plan would save the government a fortune in printing costs. It would be a wonderful economic stimulus, tremendously increasing demand for paper, ink cartridges, printers, computers, and copiers. Meeting the demand would put a lot of people to work.

Sure, there are problems to overcome. For example, who would go to work to make or sell all that stuff when they could stay home and print money? President Obama could assign military personnel to man the unworked sales counters and factories, assuming they haven't gone AWOL in order to print and spend their own million-dollar bills. He might have to re-institute the draft, ensuring a labor force to serve those who are printing the money. He surely wouldn't get enough volunteers.

Such a system would grind to a halt if everyone is printing money and nobody is supplying paper and ink. The government's current system, also, must grind to a halt. Printing money produces nothing of real value. My plan has the advantage of working through the inanity more quickly, so that a real resolution can be attained.

From the president to the welfare recipient, people confuse money with wealth. Money is no more wealth than a tape measure is waistline. Money is merely a measuring stick. Changing the inch markings on the tape measure, making them further apart, does not mean that you have suddenly become slim and buff. Neither does inflating the money supply mean that we have become wealthier.

A person who has stocks of food or bolts of cloth has wealth even before exchanging any of the commodity for money. A person who has money but nobody willing to exchange real goods for it has no wealth. A Zimbabwe dollar won't buy you a piece of bubble gum. At the rate the Fed is printing, the US dollar shall not fare much better.

But at least with a full ink jet and a stock of paper we could live well today, right?

© David Hines

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

Click to enlarge

David Hines

Note: David Hines passed away on April 1, 2017.


Born in a mill town, David Hines has seen work as a furniture mover, computer programmer/analyst, and professional musician... (more)

Subscribe

Receive future articles by David Hines: Click here

More by this author

 

Stephen Stone
HAPPY EASTER: A message to all who love our country and want to help save it

Stephen Stone
The most egregious lies Evan McMullin and the media have told about Sen. Mike Lee

Siena Hoefling
Protect the Children: Update with VIDEO

Stephen Stone
FLASHBACK to 2020: Dems' fake claim that Trump and Utah congressional hopeful Burgess Owens want 'renewed nuclear testing' blows up when examined

Steve A. Stone
The Slow Coup, Part 8

Jerry Newcombe
Killing Christians in Syria

Curtis Dahlgren
'Greatest quotations' by the greatest liberals (of all time?)

Pete Riehm
When you have no ideas, just curse and pout

Bruce Deitrick Price
AI reveals which reading method is best

Selwyn Duke
Without God, There is no TRUE respect for human life

Tom DeWeese
Hang onto your seats! The curtain is being pulled back everywhere

Paul Cameron
Suspension of U.S. aid is ‘catastrophe’ for global LGBTQ rights movement

Peter Lemiska
Champions of justice or criminal accomplices?

Michael Bresciani
Trump’s speech to Congress: Democrats, sullen, unresponsive, dark and demonic

Jerry Newcombe
Let freedom ring

Linda Kimball
The sacrificial fall of Lucifer and the evolutionary rise of the death cult’s global Luciferian religion
  More columns

Cartoons


Click for full cartoon
More cartoons

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites