Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Given that the UK/US can just print more money, why is large government debt such a problem?

Government Debt
Tez asked:


Also, why does having large government debt threaten the UK’s triple A rating, given that the UK could create money to pay off debt?

Interesting final thought, as the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, surely the US has more scope for “printing money” to pay off its national debt?

4 Responses to “Given that the UK/US can just print more money, why is large government debt such a problem?”

JOHN G Says:

You cannot create wealth by just printing money if you have no goods to sell, if the US did that the value of the dollar would plummet down very quickly

bharathi bhaskaran Says:

hi.. economic management is not so easy my frnd. more money in circulation wd add to inflation. it means that for a small quntity of goods, we will have to pay more. it may ultimately lead to a basketful of money to buy a pocketful of goods. thank u for the gd qn.

bozgand Says:

Quantities of money are relative to their value, that is what they can buy.

Cash notes are just the physical representation of this value.

If more notes were printed, the value of each unit would decrease. More money equals the same value, and since debts are dynamic, the debt would also increase.

WarrenBB Says:

Ahhh, the Argentinian strategy! :)

A government bondholder (someone who buys government debt) cares about 2 things when buying bonds: 1) inflation and 2) currency exchange movement since both affect the real returns of the bond.

Let’s say you are a German buyer who is evaluating a 1 year UK bond yielding 5%. If next year, you think UK inflation will be 6% and the pound will drop 1% in value, your investment will yield a -2% real return (1% loss due to inflation and 1% loss to due currency depreciation).

When a country prints money, it causes inflationary pressure and pressures that will depreciate its currency. So printing money never solves issues with debt. Rather, it exacerbates the debt problem by resulting in fewer international lenders who will demand much higher interest rates. When this is mismanaged (as it has been in the past), it usually leads to debt spiral that usually results in country default and a collapse in its currency.

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