What Economic Crisis? Just Print More Money!

When I was six I thought I had the worlds financial situation figured out. If we were short on money; simply print more. Just hand out newly minted $100’s to the people and countries who need it. 

Of course as I got older I realized it was a really stupid plan. You can’t just print more money like a bad game of Monopoly. 

The problem is apparently my six-year-old inner child got a job in politics and he has lots of friends that share the “print more” mentality. Forget about the bad economy for a moment. Printing more money will never work. It is debt plain and simple and it is the taxpayers that will have to pay it back. 

Should we incur more debt by literally printing more money and handing it to the people that lost it in the fist place? Sure, why not?! Heck, lets go buy a recovering alcoholic a couple beers while we are at it. 

Bail out private companies and have the government take over? Sure, as long as you like Socialism. 

Oh, and since we are in such a gift giving mood with our newfound wealth…Fire the old board members but be sure to give them great severance packages in the process! Why not?! I mean if there company had gone under (which was the natural order of things) they wouldn’t have millions in their personal bank accounts [insert shallow tear here]. 

Perhaps I need to tap into my inner child for some other great ideas that will better mankind…apparently their time has come. Foot Long Pop Tarts. Check. Two-headed Cats. Check. Print a Trillion dollars of what will soon become play money. Check. 

Godfather Added: An actual up-to-date explanation about why we can’t print more money can be found here. 

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What?! Everyone Owes $531,472 to the Government?

Well, here is a surprise. Our government is overspending again…by a lot!

The U.S.’s long-term financial obligations grew by another $2.5 trillion from last year. That means, if you factor in all the obligations such as Social Security, Medicare and other government programs, the debt is about $531,472 per household. (and you thought your Visa bill was high didn’t you?!) 

The big liabilities from 2007… 

Civil Servant Retirement: $106 billion

Social Security: $900 billion

Medicare: $1.2 trillion 

The numbers are actually much worse when you get into accounting methods. 

Corporations and states are required to count new financial obligations, even if the payments will be made later. Spoiler alert: Our government will not follow those accounting rules. 

What does this mean? Medicare, for example, has an unfunded liability of $30.4 trillion. I guess the government better start looking under seat cushions in a real hurry. 

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