It’s so simple I dunno why we didn’t start years ago…
We just print more money! Put the presses on a 3-shift schedule, buy more printers, paper and ink as necessary, and don’t stop until we’ve paid all our debts and put a couple trillion away for a rainy day.
I’m just guessing, but just maybe there’s a few stumbling blocks I haven’t thought of. Fill me in and maybe I’ll think of equally clever ways to avoid them.
Just a few: inflation, devalued dollar relative to other currencies, increased price of imports, higher interest needed to sell future US bonds…
Those all sound like they can be handled by more printing. 
How about this: cash in all the gold, at locations all over the world, but all at once at a synchronized time, so there’s no hit in profit from an instantly crashing gold market. Then, buy back all the gold, all at once at places all over the world at a synchronized time, at the new dirt cheap rate, PLUS twice as much more gold on top of it, using the profits made from selling off the gold initially.
Then, wait for prices to adjust to their new sky high rate, due to the sudden lack of gold, and then sell off the excess, to places all over the world, all at once at a synchronized time.
We now have the same amount of gold as we started with, but enough cash to pay off the debts, right?
I think some of us have a future at the central bank in Zimbabwe!
I do like the idea of selling all the gold in the world once, and then buying back twice as much. But you forgot Rinse and Repeat.
You’re over complicating it. If you have the ability to sell all the gold in the world and then buy twice as much back, then you clearly have the ability to create gold. Just create it and sell it.
-D/a
Are you suggesting that the last gold buyers destroy their gold in order to return to pre-miracle levels? Sounds unpatriotic.
Seems like the printing would need to be done secretly. And what gets printed shouldn’t be counted – kind of like observer interference in quantum physics.
The thing you oversaw is called hyperinflation. Thevalue of the dollar would crash (and doubly so because it’s a reserve currency, meaning that there are tons of dollars out there both in central banks and in the hands of people who use them in international trade). Everybody would try to get rid immediately of all those soon-to-be even more worthless dollars.
If you have any savings, they’ll be soon worthless too, while prices raise 400%or 500% or some equally ludicrously high inflation. So, american people will try to get rid of their own dollars (like those savings), further fueling the inflation.
However, you would have indeed paid off the public debt (note that part of this debt is owned by american citizens, american corporations, american pension funds, etc… )
Economists have two key phrases: “On the other hand” and “All else being equal.”
If you print & introduce into circulation enough currency to double the money supply – all else being equal – then the overall price level doubles.
According to the Fed (Federal Reserve Board - Money Stock Measures - H.6 - July 25, 2023), the M1 money supply (basically, currency plus travelers checks plus checking accounts) on January 3, 2011, was about $1.87 trillion. Put an extra $1.87 trillion into circulation and watch prices double to achieve stability.
Also, debt rolls over in multiple overlapping tranches, the longest of which are decades long. Sure, we could screw over a single cohort of lenders by printing tons of money; we’ll pay this year’s deficit on the cheap. But next year, nobody’s going to want to lend to cover our budget deficit - and we still have a huge backlog of debt to pay off.
Have federal officials go up to dumb-looking people and ask if they have two tens for a five. Repeat as needed.
Raising interest rates is akin to taking money out of circulation. When the fed determines that inflation is a risk, then interest rates are hiked up. This takes a huge am’t of cash out of the economy, and it will usually slow inflation.
It works in reverse, too. Lowering interest rates usually spurs the economy. The interest rates were pushed to all-time lows because the challenge to spur the economy was at an all-time high.
All sorts of things, such as a housing crisis and people putting more into savings than planned, can counter various efforts.
The biggest issue with the economy is centered around growth, not buying power of the employed. A huge chunk of employment is based on growth: Jobs that exist because various parts of the country/economy are growing. Sans growth, 10% will remain unemployed. Cash won’t help, because it doesn’t create growth anywhere, because it’s short lived and it increases demand, which directly impacts prices (they go up), and the wipes out the cash and you wind up with a minus (the cost of printing the money) and all the fallout in the economy to go with it.
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The states will be pissed about the feds horning in on their lottery revenue.
This reminds me of an Italian politician (the Futurist Party if I remember correctly) who was elected to the Italian parliament in the 1920s on a platform which consisted of four planks: (1) Sell all the art works in Italy to foreign countries, (2) Take the money from these sales and build the strongest army in the world, (3) Conquer the rest of the world, and (4) Take back all the art works. It might work.
The genius of this is breathtaking.
If Uncle Sam contracted with me to do a job I would not be inclinded to do a very good job when I found out he was just printing up paper in the back room to pay me with. Sure, I could probably pass the paper off to the Home Depot and my workers but I wouldn’t want any of it for myself. And I would never work for him again.
I guess I’m saying I’m OK with the idea of just printing more paper money if I can be in on the scam.
The money Uncle Sam prints to pay you will be worth exactly the same as the money you have in the bank to pay your workers – possibly near zero, according to a bunch of buzz killers around here.