America alone has printed more money in the last few years than the world has ever seen, and that’s only part of the money-printing worldwide. Milton Friedman economists used to insist that printing money was the source of inflation, and hence devaluation of the dollar, but several decades of huge deficits and zero inflation proved them wrong, the value of the U.S. dollar stayed strong. On the other side are the Modern Monetary Theorists who insist the U.S. can print itself out of any financial problem, and for the most part they’re correct because money is imaginary and most financial problems are too; it’s not like a bank going broke stops chickens laying eggs.

However, there is a direct connection between money and reality: inflation is caused scarcity. If there’s need for a dozen eggs but there are only 11, the cost of the 12th egg will be whatever the richest person will spend on it. Before endless money, prices could only go up so much, but with vast amounts of concentrated imaginary money and insane wealth inequality, the price of things is immaterial and can raise stratospherically, devaluing the dollar to almost nothing, taking a wheelbarrow full just to buy a loaf of bread, just like when this happened all the other times before.

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