Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Economics => Topic started by: hunterWood on January 10, 2020, 05:02:39 PM



Title: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: hunterWood on January 10, 2020, 05:02:39 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: chip1994 on January 10, 2020, 05:30:42 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
It's definitely not the best way to solve the problem, buddy. You may have seen the tragedy of Venezuela when they were insolvent and they had to print money to pay off their due debts, resulting in a persistent darkness. All have systems to control the amount of money a country has. The extra print will not hide anything, the natural impact will come if you abuse the printing of money. then people will have more and more money, they will buy more and stimulate demand, then surely inflation will rise to thousands of percent.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: abhiseshakana on January 10, 2020, 06:05:52 PM
Printing new money without being accompanied by withdrawing old money in the community will have negative implications because if too much money is in circulation, then the money will weaken and consequently inflation rises.

Based on the history of the barter system has failed, barter contains elements of exploitation, injustice and various economic diseases. A good barter is to exchange goods that have the same quality and value. but it will be very difficult because each individual wants to barter to complement each other's needs.

A good system is buying and selling, not bartering. To facilitate the buying and selling process we need money (real money with intrinsic value). But the concept of money here is really as a means of payment not "money demand for speculation". Do not hoard money because it directly means reducing money in circulation. Money must flow so the economy can spin.

In a trading system, money here functions as:

- Value storage media.
Sale and purchase occur in different types of goods, different goods needed "fair judge" for two parties to the transaction. This justice is demanded from the types of assets that last a long time because of the need for transactions that are continuous, the types of assets that last the most are mining (gold and silver).

- Standard measure of price value
When someone has trouble finding the value of similarities between different items, make gold and silver coins to measure it.

- Universal transaction media, money becomes a legal transaction medium that must be accepted by anyone in the world.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: mersal on January 10, 2020, 07:44:48 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
Lack of convenience and getting actual market value for the product we want to exchange let the fiat system to be evolved  so barter system is not the best way to solve.If a country want to pay the debt they have to increase their production and make profits for their government then the debt should be paid with that money to presrve their value of money,printing the money needed will simply cut off its total value for each unit.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: tenakha on January 10, 2020, 09:16:50 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
The money in everyone's pocket has no value. Look at the US, despite being the only producer of the leading currency, it owes trillions. Well, I ask you: can not government pay by producing as much as it wants? It can, but at the end the USD falls repeatedly below its value. Moreover, this result is such that in the US, this may even cause starvation in any other country with a small economy.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Heisenberg_Hunter on January 10, 2020, 09:19:32 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?
Printing money to pay for the debts is never a good way for the nation and for the currency overall value in the global economy. Consider that an item is being sold for $10 and when there is twice the money which was printed, the item will become expensive and would be worth more than what it is intended to be. Here when the item becomes expensive, we would be seeing an inflation where the item is worth more than the money itself. This would counter the purpose of money and moreover repeated incoming of money in the form of newly printed notes would further rise the price of an item quite frequently.

We should be well aware of the inflation problems in Weimar Republic (Germany) where money became totally worthless and was abundantly found in the streets. Money abundantly found and printed would create further problems which would defeat the purpose of money on the whole. Gold is worth the cost only when they have limited supply, if there were unlimited supply it would get devalued like Dogecoin.  :D

As abhiseshakana said, barter would always serve the purpose when the opposite party who is involved in the trade is in need of the good which we are willing to trade with them. Money has become digital with the invention of bitcoin and can be stored in a mobile and can be very handy but barter doesn't go by the way.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: adzino on January 10, 2020, 09:27:03 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
Printing money randomly to pay off debt is never a good idea. Look how worthless the currencies of Zimbabwe and Venezuela was back then because of reckless printing of money. The inflation killed their economy! The more money you print,  the less valuable your currency becomes thus increasing the prices of goods and services causing heavy inflation in the country.
Barter system also won't be a good way to settle debt. Think about the imbalances they will suffer when weighing the values of different goods to exchange.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: tabas on January 10, 2020, 11:11:48 PM
No, it won't be a decent way to pay debts. If that's literally a good idea then most of the countries did this already but there's an inflation each year and if a country prints more money, their economy will be negatively affected.
Law of supply and demand can also be applied to this, think of what will be the effect of too much supply of printed money in the circulation.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: pugman on January 10, 2020, 11:45:35 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
Not really, no. US follows this to a larger extent, since their debt keeps exacerbating by the second, and one of the many things they do to try tackle it, is print more notes. It doesn't help the situation whatsoever, rather it escalates it to a much worse scenario. The money in the market increases, yet there's no return of that money in the hands of the government. Most people don't pay the taxes, and the factor of Rich get richer, and poor get poorer comes into play.  Printing more money only weakens the economy, not otherwise. Even if you try to print the equivalent amount of notes to the amount of global debt, it still won't make a difference. What will rather happen is, it will fuck up the demand and supply of the global economy, and things will go back to the same. Fair possibility is, the value of 1$ now, will be equivalent to value of 1000$ if more notes enter the economy.

How will Barter System help? It won't work even in an ideal world, let alone in a worsened imperfect world. Barter system's lack of providing the right value to the good/service was one of the main reasons it failed. The only way I see barter system coming back is through pure form of desperation, when the recession is killing the world and printed notes won't work. This was portrayed beautifully in Mr. Robot, where the whole corrupt banking system went down, and people had to resort to using crypto, and it was a catastrophe struck and no one saw it coming.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: stomachgrowls on January 11, 2020, 02:42:48 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

No, it wont solve out the problem but rather it do worsen up the economic state of that random country.It isnt a valid reason nor does have a sense
just because of the plan on paying up the debt.We have seen the worst when it comes to inflation and no government will tend to go with that option.
We wont surely go back to that barter system and i dont see on how it would be relevant unless if there would be no option left/entire banking system failed totally.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: CryptoBry on January 11, 2020, 03:16:44 AM

Printing money can be the most convenient and quick solution to a country's financial problem but the side effects can be felt especially in the long run. This is just like robbing money from the people unless the printing is backed by value like gold or any other commonly accepted commodities. There is a big chance that if unchecked and uncontrolled this strategy can be a disaster as proved by a number of countries now suffering run away inflation rates. The solution is not barter, either because that is not already applicable in the global village that we are in. Actually, there is not a single solution on this regard because successful countries are usually using many sets of tools under their disposal, and they are implementing proven strategies suited to their circumstances.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: karanggatak on January 11, 2020, 03:57:46 AM
paying off state debt by printing more fiat money is a very bad idea. as you said this will cause hyperinflation and a monetary crisis. in my opinion the best way to pay off state debt is to increase state revenues. by increasing exports from imports, trying to increase the yield of natural resources and trying to use and maximize domestic products. using barter systems I think it's very outdated and inefficient. rather than bartering, it's better to return to gold and silver or switch to using cryptocurrency.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: panganib999 on January 11, 2020, 04:01:34 AM
No. Printing money was never a way to combat debt, more like, it increases it instead. There's the fact that it pushes the economy forward, but nonchalantly printing more money is not the way to go. Inflation is helpful for the economy but it must be managed and controlled to helpful levels.

As for bartering, nope. The currency system was developed because of the fact that Barter system involves unfair judgement most of the time. It involves the factor that the buyer "Needs" the item, which causes the item to go above the market price, which in the end ultimately defeats the concept of "fair trade".


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: AniviaBtc on January 11, 2020, 06:59:58 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

No, it wont solve out the problem but rather it do worsen up the economic state of that random country.It isnt a valid reason nor does have a sense
just because of the plan on paying up the debt.We have seen the worst when it comes to inflation and no government will tend to go with that option.
We wont surely go back to that barter system and i dont see on how it would be relevant unless if there would be no option left/entire banking system failed totally.

That's not a solution for a wide economic problem in a certain country. Producing more money is not the answer and will not help solve a country in debt. In a sense that, producing more money will lose the value of a price of a certain thing. In other words, it will lose the value of money. If there are a lot of money and all of us have money then, what's the sense of having it and paying other people when they don't need it already? The government should make their own way on how to overcome inflation.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: leyton11 on January 11, 2020, 07:34:34 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
How to print money is not a good way to solve debt problem quickly. I feel that it is of little help but to reduce the value of the country's money. In addition, the impact of hyperinflation may destroy a country's economy, this is not the way we should choose. Even money printing needs to be minimized for many economic years. Zimbawae lost everything because it printed too much money to pay off the debt and now the result is that people there cannot grow anymore.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: blckhawk on January 11, 2020, 08:26:43 AM
If such country would do such act, not only it would produce worse inflation rates, but the institutions in which it took loan would lose trust on the government (US in your example), and alerts other lenders not to accept loans from US, since they would pay them worthless paper money. And trust is much more important than paying debt easily, since once US is in need of something that isn't available to them, they would have a hard time finding sources for such.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Wexnident on January 11, 2020, 09:48:54 AM
Not really a good way. It is a way, but not a good one. A bit of inflation in the economy of a country is actually good, since it let's the market develop and all of that, but exceeding a certain threshold would do more harm than good, which is not what the countries government is trying to do ( or at least, what their supposed to anw). That's why banks take and loan money, and not nonchalantly loan them towards the public. They use the money that is stored to them to loan to others, and profit off of that.

Bartering isn't really a good system, we can easily see that from it being almost non-existent these days. A value of an item is highly dependent on who the buyer is, so Bartering is kind of you taking advantage of the guy who needs the item.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Sadlife on January 11, 2020, 09:59:49 AM
That would result in money losing its original value then taking in more debts to pay than actually solving it. That's the law of inflation and deflation, if there's to much printing money in circulation then the price will drop and the product's prices and commodities, will start to increase and eventually weakens a country's economy that could lead a finally crisis.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: TheCoinGrabber on January 11, 2020, 10:28:17 AM
Like most people here, I too believe just printing and extra $100 would just make the current $100 pretty much worthless. I don't see how barter can be conveniently used to counteract inflation. Sure you get an item more or less of the equivalent value of what you are giving away if you are good at appraising and negotiation but it's too much trouble and also inconvenient if you are going to do it several times for basics.



Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: alyssa85 on January 11, 2020, 10:30:26 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

The answer is "Only if the velocity of money is decreasing".

The velocity of money is the rate at which the money circulates. So say you get a loan from the bank (so money is being created with the loan), then you spend it on a car, that money goes to the salesman and the manufacturer, they in turn spend it on their mortgage and so on, and the money circulates.

The faster the money circulates, the greater the velocity and the greater the tendency to lead to inflation. In cases like that, the central bank will raise interest rates, to deter borrowing, and the whole cycle will slow.

If the velocity slows down (people arn't borrowing, and the money they earn is used to pay down their debts, this destroying money), then you can print money without causing inflation.

But if you print money while the velocity is high, then you end up like Germany in the 1920s or Zimbabwe now - with triple digit inflation.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Eclipse26 on January 11, 2020, 02:38:38 PM
For the nth time of discussing it, printing money to pay debts isn't a good solution. If it's only that easy, why most countries are still in debt right? It's because they can't do that. Economically speaking, when you print too much money, it will lead to a big inflation or hyperinflation. Their money will start to lose its value because of too much money circulating the community. That situation already happen in some country in the history and it didn't brought a good result to their country. Printing too much money was never a solution for debts. They have to maintain the circulation of money.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: davinchi on January 11, 2020, 03:43:38 PM
This has been talked about a lot and you can find answers with a small google search but lets assume you will get the right answer here, even that right answer is not enough to cover all the information we can give you here and even if the answer we give is right, a president usually holds the power to do the wrong thing (seen many times) whenever they want as well so they can actually do the wrong thing.

Normally, nobody does that for the same reason everyone said, inflation. If you print out trillions of dollars to cover your debt, you will have a huge huge inflation and your money will be worthless, everyone will have insane amount of your money and will exchange it for another nations money and suddenly your money worth very little, nobody wants that for their own currency.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: ssamotoev on January 11, 2020, 04:58:53 PM
This has been talked about a lot and you can find answers with a small google search but lets assume you will get the right answer here, even that right answer is not enough to cover all the information we can give you here and even if the answer we give is right, a president usually holds the power to do the wrong thing (seen many times) whenever they want as well so they can actually do the wrong thing.

Normally, nobody does that for the same reason everyone said, inflation. If you print out trillions of dollars to cover your debt, you will have a huge huge inflation and your money will be worthless, everyone will have insane amount of your money and will exchange it for another nations money and suddenly your money worth very little, nobody wants that for their own currency.

Yeah right, but what are the solutions for govs in such situations?
I'd say they can delay the payment and stimulate the economy by focusing on it, whether it is domestic or foreign one.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: airdnasxela on January 12, 2020, 04:57:54 AM
This has been talked about a lot and you can find answers with a small google search but lets assume you will get the right answer here, even that right answer is not enough to cover all the information we can give you here and even if the answer we give is right, a president usually holds the power to do the wrong thing (seen many times) whenever they want as well so they can actually do the wrong thing.

Normally, nobody does that for the same reason everyone said, inflation. If you print out trillions of dollars to cover your debt, you will have a huge huge inflation and your money will be worthless, everyone will have insane amount of your money and will exchange it for another nations money and suddenly your money worth very little, nobody wants that for their own currency.

Yeah right, but what are the solutions for govs in such situations?
I'd say they can delay the payment and stimulate the economy by focusing on it, whether it is domestic or foreign one.
There are various ways on how the government pay off their debts. Countries can reduce its debt by manipulating the interest rate. Some country also have tried reducing debt by instituting budget cuts. These are some ways to reduce debts without increasing the tax. But I think most of the time, governments are increasing taxes just to pay their debts. That's why paying proper tax is important for the government.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: fiulpro on January 12, 2020, 06:06:13 AM
I don't think printing more money is any solution , since it decreases the bus of the country's own money and therefore the people would eventually have to use up more money and they will slowly deplete what they have and it will turn out to be a big recession , therefore I think it is not the solution.
Solution is improving education , jobs , everything which would eventually take time but it will improve the quality dramatically.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: mindrust on January 12, 2020, 06:12:33 AM
Printing money is a good idea only if your currency is a reserve currency. Otherwise like the others said, you will end up like Venezuela.

How do you think USA get away with it? It is because no matter how much they print, there is still demand. (Or was)

The danger is, now countries like Russia, China, Iran and even some European countries want to use something else. (Euro or gold backed crypto) When this happens, USD will lose its demand.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: mu_enrico on January 13, 2020, 01:58:43 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.
You should be more specific about what kind of debt it is? Is it foreign debt or domestic debt?
For foreign debt, you should know that the currency exchange rate is affected by the increase/decrease of the local currency supply. So a country could print more (domestic) money, but it would trash its exchange rate, it's the same.

For domestic debt, the government could repay its bond with newly printed money. However, in the end, it will only reduce the country's wealth because of hyperinflation. So no point in doing that. A good government is not likely to scam its own people.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
No, barter is a means of trade, not related to debt and repayment.
Maybe if the debt is pegged to gold (or something stable), then you have a case.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: mamahdedeh on January 13, 2020, 07:32:36 AM
Printing money is a good idea only if your currency is a reserve currency. Otherwise like the others said, you will end up like Venezuela.

How do you think USA get away with it? It is because no matter how much they print, there is still demand. (Or was)

The danger is, now countries like Russia, China, Iran and even some European countries want to use something else. (Euro or gold backed crypto) When this happens, USD will lose its demand.
right, basically printing excess money is not good for the country's economy. especially with the existence of a global currency that can be used throughout the world, of course it will reduce the demand for the USD, especially the one that began to legalize it is in developed countries, of course it has a big impact



Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: abhiseshakana on January 13, 2020, 03:34:19 PM
This has been talked about a lot and you can find answers with a small google search but lets assume you will get the right answer here, even that right answer is not enough to cover all the information we can give you here and even if the answer we give is right, a president usually holds the power to do the wrong thing (seen many times) whenever they want as well so they can actually do the wrong thing.

Normally, nobody does that for the same reason everyone said, inflation. If you print out trillions of dollars to cover your debt, you will have a huge huge inflation and your money will be worthless, everyone will have insane amount of your money and will exchange it for another nations money and suddenly your money worth very little, nobody wants that for their own currency.

Yeah right, but what are the solutions for govs in such situations?
I'd say they can delay the payment and stimulate the economy by focusing on it, whether it is domestic or foreign one.
There are various ways on how the government pay off their debts. Countries can reduce its debt by manipulating the interest rate. Some country also have tried reducing debt by instituting budget cuts. These are some ways to reduce debts without increasing the tax. But I think most of the time, governments are increasing taxes just to pay their debts. That's why paying proper tax is important for the government.


If based on the textbook we learn in school the answer to good debt management is a way to pay off debt. Simply put, in order to be able to repay debts, the state must have a surplus of its budget, if it is a deficit, how can the state repay debt? Talking about government income usually relies on taxes, exports of goods abroad, grant funds, or like Malaysia where the people contribute to repaying government foreign debt. All policy instruments are equally important in achieving development goals. All of the above policies must work together effectively to achieve national goals.

Taxes in many developing countries are made the country's backbone not only to pay taxes but to improve economic facilities and infrastructure development so that GDP also rises. Most importantly for a country's economic cycle, the government must be serious in improving the investment climate, so that investment and economic competition and export power increase. As a result, investment ease scores are getting better and a country is the most attractive investment location in the world.

There are more extreme ways, especially for poor countries or developing countries to pay debts, namely through the mapping of sovereign wealth funds. SWF is a financial vehicle owned by a State that owns or regulates public funds and invests them in broad and diverse assets. Simply put, SWF is state savings. It is hoped that with this SWF there will be no idle and unused state revenue. The revenue can be invested appropriately and with the quality so that a large return can be obtained. There are 2 types of SWF fund sources, the first comes from the results of non-renewable resources (oil and gas) and the second comes from funds in the form of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property, precious metals, and financial instruments.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Cacingkemi on January 13, 2020, 05:22:33 PM
paying off state debt by printing more fiat money is a very bad idea. as you said this will cause hyperinflation and a monetary crisis. in my opinion the best way to pay off state debt is to increase state revenues. by increasing exports from imports, trying to increase the yield of natural resources and trying to use and maximize domestic products. using barter systems I think it's very outdated and inefficient. rather than bartering, it's better to return to gold and silver or switch to using cryptocurrency.

of course printing more money to pay off debt is a very bad idea, because it can have an impact on the country's own currency so that it can become worthless. increasing the results of natural resources for export or import is an efficient way to increase the value of a country's currency, this way has been done to date by most countries by establishing cooperation between one country with another country that has agreed on an agreement. and the barter system is not an effective way because it is an old-fashioned way before currencies were created to make transactions


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Gozie51 on January 13, 2020, 11:44:36 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

I think the printing of money in a country that is in debt will further increase the problem. It could lead to inflation.
This is because a country that is in debt means there is hardship.  Debt repayment is not usually solved by printing of new currency.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: BuNga_cute on January 14, 2020, 04:30:14 AM
It is not advisable to pay debts with printing money, because it will have a bad impact in the future. One of them will be high inflation,
if this happens fiat will lose its value. Then the government would rather increase taxes than pay debts with printing money. So no
wonder for the government tax is very important, because tax is one solution to pay debts.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: cryp24x on January 14, 2020, 07:11:16 PM
Definitely, Printing money to pay debt has an bad impact to the whole country's economy. It will surely cause inflation and the value of money will be reduced. That is why there is a regulatory body which prevents to print money faster that the growth of the real fiat.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Kyraishi on January 14, 2020, 11:35:18 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?



Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Kyraishi on January 14, 2020, 11:37:19 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

That's why inflation is considered by some as an invisible tax.

This is completely possible and evident in countries such as Zimbabwe, Germany in the past and countries like Venezuela now. Printing money to pay back old debt at the expense of fiat currency holders, specifically middle income earners is nothing new.

Why does it affect the middle class the most? The poorest hold little currency to begin with while the richest own factors of production, whose value will rise in nominal terms in line with inflation. That's also a reason why I think decentralized cryptos is a good hedge against this phenomena ever happening in your country.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Wexlike on January 15, 2020, 12:22:40 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

That's why inflation is considered by some as an invisible tax.

This is completely possible and evident in countries such as Zimbabwe, Germany in the past and countries like Venezuela now. Printing money to pay back old debt at the expense of fiat currency holders, specifically middle income earners is nothing new.

Why does it affect the middle class the most? The poorest hold little currency to begin with while the richest own factors of production, whose value will rise in nominal terms in line with inflation. That's also a reason why I think decentralized cryptos is a good hedge against this phenomena ever happening in your country.

But if the middle class would start to invest in stock companies shouldn't that help a lot with the devaluation of their fiat money ? There is always some kind of path to safe some of your wealth for the long-term.

Lately Germany changed their maximum amount of gold you can buy without identifying yourself to only €2k, there were lines of people in the end of 2019 who were trying to transfer some of their paper money anonymously to some gold coins.

The regular inflation is "okayish", because you don't really notice it immediately. It is like the boiled frog, who just never jumps out until he is cocked.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: abhiseshakana on January 20, 2020, 03:55:38 AM
That's why inflation is considered by some as an invisible tax.

This is completely possible and evident in countries such as Zimbabwe, Germany in the past and countries like Venezuela now. Printing money to pay back old debt at the expense of fiat currency holders, specifically middle income earners is nothing new.

Why does it affect the middle class the most? The poorest hold little currency to begin with while the richest own factors of production, whose value will rise in nominal terms in line with inflation. That's also a reason why I think decentralized cryptos is a good hedge against this phenomena ever happening in your country.


In my opinion, inflation puts a relatively far greater burden on the poor than the middle class. Simply put the poor class has low purchasing power and usually, shopping is done for primary needs. With inflation, their purchasing power will decrease even more so if what rises is the price of food, the effect is certainly greater for the poor than inflation for non-food products.

The higher the inflation rate means the greater the rate of poverty. Inflation causes the real value of money held to go down. When prices increase, money to buy less (purchasing power goes down). people's purchasing power can be said to decrease if the income earned decreases or vice versa, the price of goods and services increases so that the ability to consume decreases. The decline in purchasing power has resulted in people becoming poorer than before.

Indeed the magnitude of the influence of the inflation rate in each economy class and in cities and villages is different. The classification of economy class is based on the amount of income and the effect of inflation is different in each class depending on the increase in expenditure. Inflation will increase spending on the poor class but will reduce spending on the upper class. Whereas the middle class does not immediately feel the effects of inflation, why?

The middle-class is concentrated in urban areas, the middle-class patterns of consumption are secondary and even tertiary needs, namely durable goods and services which tend to be prestige and comfort. So the expenditure of the middle class is not for basic needs so it will not be too influential.

The use of cryptocurrency, especially bitcoin is indeed a preventive measure to protect the value of your money before inflation occurs. The middle class is also starting to have an awareness to save and invest and the middle class is now a millennial generation who is certainly more understanding about the benefits of the digital economy.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Hallmader on January 20, 2020, 04:03:32 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

The barter system was a primitive way of doing things that could hardly be applicable to the kind of commerce we have in this modern times. The large-scale commercial transactions of today cannot be supported by a simple barter system. And that is perhaps how it is being replaced with a more efficient means of doing transactions a long time ago. We used gold, silver, copper, and other precious stones to make things easier.

Printing money out of thin air is a rampant problem. And the solution is not barter. The solution is crypto. There is no cheating or faking in crypto.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: TastyChillySauce00 on January 20, 2020, 05:59:32 AM
The barter system was a primitive way of doing things that could hardly be applicable to the kind of commerce we have in this modern times. The large-scale commercial transactions of today cannot be supported by a simple barter system. And that is perhaps how it is being replaced with a more efficient means of doing transactions a long time ago. We used gold, silver, copper, and other precious stones to make things easier.

Printing money out of thin air is a rampant problem. And the solution is not barter. The solution is crypto. There is no cheating or faking in crypto.
I could also see that using the barter system for now is just solving problem with another problem. The fact that crypto is limited supply could bring an end to the massive money printing and therefore saving the whole economy from being overly inflated as well as eliminating any worry that lingers around the people. But, if the crypto being used have a little value and just stuck there, I doubt it will be any better for the whole economy compared to paper money.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: criza on January 20, 2020, 06:06:27 AM
Like most people here, I too believe just printing and extra $100 would just make the current $100 pretty much worthless. I don't see how barter can be conveniently used to counteract inflation. Sure you get an item more or less of the equivalent value of what you are giving away if you are good at appraising and negotiation but it's too much trouble and also inconvenient if you are going to do it several times for basics.



We can simply put it as a product when the supply for a certain product is high the demand for it would be low causing for the price to go down. Now, think of that product as the money, when the volume of printed money is unctrolled and numerous many people would turn into buying goods and services causing it to be insufficient for the whole people and in return increasing the price for each goods and services.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: webtricks on January 20, 2020, 07:48:52 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

Not barter but a universal credit rating system can help in facilitating foreign exchange market. Every item of international importance should be given some fixed rating for example, one gallon of petrol worth 5 ratings while 100 kg of onion worth 4 ratings, etc. These ratings could be periodically adjusted due to variation in supply/demand.
Now any country can import goods from any other country without paying real money. The whole system will work on credit system. Debt of one item can be paid off using the credits earned by exporting other items.
If any country is in need of cash flow then it can sell the credits to certain mediator like IMF/World Bank which pay the equivalent amount in fiat currencies by assessing the country's economy. Stronger economies will get better exchange rates for their credits as compared to weaker economies.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Hallmader on January 20, 2020, 10:25:40 AM
The barter system was a primitive way of doing things that could hardly be applicable to the kind of commerce we have in this modern times. The large-scale commercial transactions of today cannot be supported by a simple barter system. And that is perhaps how it is being replaced with a more efficient means of doing transactions a long time ago. We used gold, silver, copper, and other precious stones to make things easier.

Printing money out of thin air is a rampant problem. And the solution is not barter. The solution is crypto. There is no cheating or faking in crypto.
I could also see that using the barter system for now is just solving problem with another problem. The fact that crypto is limited supply could bring an end to the massive money printing and therefore saving the whole economy from being overly inflated as well as eliminating any worry that lingers around the people. But, if the crypto being used have a little value and just stuck there, I doubt it will be any better for the whole economy compared to paper money.

The value of crypto will be determined by the people itself. So if it is low, it does not matter much for as long as it is quite stable. Even if the price of Bitcoin will reach stability at around $5,000 or even $1,000, it does not mean to say that paper money is going to be better than it. However low the value of Bitcoin in USD is, it still does not take away the features which makes it a world better than fiat. It remains decentralized, borderless, fairly anonymous, and so on.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: coinfinger on January 20, 2020, 05:56:40 PM
The easiest way to solve your debt as a nation has always been selling stuff you have. Many nations in the world has debt and they found the solution to actually sell the "company" that they have, not every country is like USA where nothing is nationalized, some of the biggest airlines in the world for example is owned by their nations because going into it requires too much money so they end up doing it as a governments.

However, that only slows down the issue, you can no longer have any debt at all, back to zero, however if the issue why you had a debt still continues there is a level where you won't have anything to sell and you will still have debt. If you could limit the things you buy from other nations and start selling more and more to them, you can recover the difference as well.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: drachman on January 26, 2020, 03:02:54 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?
Unless there is a world war we are not going back to the barter system, what a country is doing by printing currency like that to pay their debts is the equivalent of fraud, they were lent a certain amount of money that at the time bought a certain amount of goods and now they are repaying their debt with money that is worth a lot less, and by doing this they are stealing from all the people that have worked hard to make the economy of the country a success.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: NathanJB on January 26, 2020, 03:16:15 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

That is already happening right now but that printing of questionable extra bills are exclusively done by the governments and their banking cohorts. It is not done for the sake of the people who don't have enough to even pay their personal debts and basic needs.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: julius caesar on January 26, 2020, 12:34:57 PM
If you are going to print an additional money just to pay the debt of the said country, the value of the money that the country has might become a trash or might lessen its value since the volume or the supply of that money is high. Meaning, the higher the supply, the more chances that its price might go down like what happen in the Venezuela. The value of their money became useless that is why they decided to have their own cryptocurrency.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: senne on January 26, 2020, 01:12:22 PM
If a government prints its state currency to pay off international debts which are usually in the form of T-bills, then that money will enter the country only. The value of your currency will fall down and at the end the excess currency will lead to inflation.

This won't at all work without avoiding inflation and lower fx rate. Moreover, most of the debts are in the form of dollars and printing dollars isn't legal everywhere. 


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Paycoinzzz on January 26, 2020, 01:57:55 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

  Money printing can be applied but that is certainly the worst way I have ever known. Venezuela has been insolvent due to too many people and too much investment in social security. At that time, their public debt was too great and Maduro decided to print money and now their country seems to have nothing left. we should pay our debt in other ways, by economic contracts and other things. never deal with cash, it will make the economy go down.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Brunus on January 26, 2020, 11:06:55 PM
There is always someone who does not understand that money is not value, but only a representation of value.
Money - if it is not based on real wealth - is only paper.
So, no: printing money is absolutely useless, only to create problems for citizens.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: criza on January 27, 2020, 12:11:53 AM
There is always someone who does not understand that money is not value, but only a representation of value.
Money - if it is not based on real wealth - is only paper.
So, no: printing money is absolutely useless, only to create problems for citizens.
If money printing can be the solution, there would be no country in the world that would have debt. Certainly, the impact of printing excess money would cause undesirable effects to ones economic status. Printing excess money to pay debt would only damage the integrity of it, losing its value and in return, would cause economic crash. A country must solve the problem by not adding more problem like, continuous innovative strategies and attracting foreign investors to increase economic income to lessen debt.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: deisik on January 27, 2020, 07:07:19 AM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less

It would be bordering on insane not to use this to your advantage

However, it would be unwise to print that $100 bill and pay the debt back in full. If you do that, you indeed pay out the debt, but you also destroy your printing power, the power of your money, and that makes no sense at all. What makes sense, though, is printing the interest on the debt. In this way you make your creditor happy as he receives interest, while you are also keeping your debt manageable without seriously devaluing your currency

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

If by that you mean paying the debt with some real asset, well, it may pan out, to varying degrees. But you should also take into account and thoroughly examine the possibility that this particular asset becomes dirt cheap in the future


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: yulionoo on January 27, 2020, 10:49:21 AM
printing more money to pay off debt is not a good solution because it will make the value of the currency go down as happened in zimbahwe. and using a barter system is also not a good solution. because the barter system is very inefficient and it will be difficult to determine the value of an item. in my opinion the solution so that the country can get out of debt bondage is to increase domestic industry so that state revenues increase and reduce imports.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Captain Corporate on January 27, 2020, 11:33:31 AM

 Barter system is usually better for developing countries, the major ones do not really posses too much that they own that they can give away in exchange of their debts. For example in developing nations, there is not much money in the private sector so the government has to take things in their own hands and with the taxes they collect they build business that will help the public, however after a certain period they realize they have too much debt that they are having trouble even paying the interest on it so they give their governmentally owned business to someone in exchange for a lot of money and pay their debt so they can get a breather and at least not have trouble with their interest rates at least, they think they may solve the rest better after the interest goes down a lot, some succeed it, some fail even afterwards.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: bitbunnny on January 27, 2020, 12:15:03 PM
Printing money is a good idea only if your currency is a reserve currency. Otherwise like the others said, you will end up like Venezuela.

How do you think USA get away with it? It is because no matter how much they print, there is still demand. (Or was)

The danger is, now countries like Russia, China, Iran and even some European countries want to use something else. (Euro or gold backed crypto) When this happens, USD will lose its demand.

Printing money is never a good idea. At any circumstances that could only lead to economic devastation. Once you're deep in debt the only sustainable solution is growth of business and industrial production but for such countries that is very slow and painfull process, often without results.
Btw. to my opinion Euro is strong and stable enough to fully support european economies.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Amel on January 27, 2020, 02:09:09 PM
The answer is very simple, if you ask whether such a method is good? then you just see if there is a country that implements the system as you say now? certainly not. Every country has thought about the risks before taking action and I think something like that is suicide, maybe you want it to be like a crisis in Venezuela.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: CarnagexD on January 27, 2020, 04:59:30 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

Not barter but a universal credit rating system can help in facilitating foreign exchange market. Every item of international importance should be given some fixed rating for example, one gallon of petrol worth 5 ratings while 100 kg of onion worth 4 ratings, etc. These ratings could be periodically adjusted due to variation in supply/demand.
Now any country can import goods from any other country without paying real money. The whole system will work on credit system. Debt of one item can be paid off using the credits earned by exporting other items.
If any country is in need of cash flow then it can sell the credits to certain mediator like IMF/World Bank which pay the equivalent amount in fiat currencies by assessing the country's economy. Stronger economies will get better exchange rates for their credits as compared to weaker economies.
This could be the solution to Venezuela's hyperinflation rate as of the moment. The country's been in a bad debt lately and their money pretty much is worthless right now. They have little to none to work out, so basically what they could just do to alleviate this is to sell stuff they already have. I don't further details regarding the issue in Venezuela's economy but as I was saying thsi could be a viable solution.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: worle1bm on January 27, 2020, 05:12:45 PM
The answer is very simple, if you ask whether such a method is good? then you just see if there is a country that implements the system as you say now? certainly not. Every country has thought about the risks before taking action and I think something like that is suicide, maybe you want it to be like a crisis in Venezuela.

Smart answer. Setting off debt with something in return could disturb the economy lot more than inflation does. There are lots of complications in substituting current debt set-off method with barter, among which the most prominent is double coincidence of wants. If country A doesn't produce anything worth significantly to country B then A will never able to take debt from country B.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: webtricks on January 29, 2020, 03:48:36 PM
If a random country is in debt, is printing money a good way to pay it off at the expense of the citizens?

For example, lets say you owe an entity $100. If you print an extra $100 bill you pay off your debt, but unbeknownst to the entity the $100 that they lent you is now worth less.

Would the barter system be a good way of combating this?

Not barter but a universal credit rating system can help in facilitating foreign exchange market. Every item of international importance should be given some fixed rating for example, one gallon of petrol worth 5 ratings while 100 kg of onion worth 4 ratings, etc. These ratings could be periodically adjusted due to variation in supply/demand.
Now any country can import goods from any other country without paying real money. The whole system will work on credit system. Debt of one item can be paid off using the credits earned by exporting other items.
If any country is in need of cash flow then it can sell the credits to certain mediator like IMF/World Bank which pay the equivalent amount in fiat currencies by assessing the country's economy. Stronger economies will get better exchange rates for their credits as compared to weaker economies.
This could be the solution to Venezuela's hyperinflation rate as of the moment. The country's been in a bad debt lately and their money pretty much is worthless right now. They have little to none to work out, so basically what they could just do to alleviate this is to sell stuff they already have. I don't further details regarding the issue in Venezuela's economy but as I was saying thsi could be a viable solution.

This system won't work for selective countries. It has to be adopted by all countries unanimously. I just took a hypothetical case but in order to make this system anywhere near reality, there are lots of adjustments needed to make. First of all, current debts for every country from every country should be accounted for. It is wrong to start with zero credit for every country.

Second and the most important step would be to fairly assign value/credits to every item. In 4th Ministerial Conference of WTO held at Doha, developed nations played smartly and reduced tariffs on raw materials including agricultural product significantly. However, tariffs on final products weren't included in trade negotiations. As a result, importing raw materials from developing nations become cheaper for developed nations but they still selling final products to developing nations at higher price. If such trade manipulations are made in calculating credits then the above said model will fail like inflation-based currency debt model.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: FanEagle on January 31, 2020, 06:34:55 AM
It’s not an easy task for any country to pay off it’s debt, there is no simple way to do that. If it was easy as most people think it is, then a lot of countries would have done that. It’s just like a business, it’s not everyday you’re able to trade your way out of the position.

But, one thing I have believed would help any country to be able to support themselves and get off debt is by doing more exports and less imports. That way more money will be coming into the country. This same topic was once discussed on a forum and someone suggested that the government shouldn’t tax high earners a lot, because they are the ones that create jobs, higher tax means they will be moving their Businesses out from the country and that will lead to high unemployment rate.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Janation on January 31, 2020, 07:59:07 AM
I also asked my teacher about this in the past.

She just smirked at me and asked me if I want to have another inflation, I'm confused. This could happen but the thing is that the money circulating in the country would increase and that would lead to inflation.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: Google+ on January 31, 2020, 09:01:41 AM
I also asked my teacher about this in the past.

She just smirked at me and asked me if I want to have another inflation, I'm confused. This could happen but the thing is that the money circulating in the country would increase and that would lead to inflation.
Economic inflation can indeed happen at any time because currency conditions are very easy to print and there are no restrictions when wanting to print local money will make inflation likely to happen again, in my opinion it is different if there are currencies that really have a supply limit and cannot added or subtracted again it will make inflation difficult to occur because the portion is clear.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: deisik on January 31, 2020, 09:40:07 AM
This could be the solution to Venezuela's hyperinflation rate as of the moment. The country's been in a bad debt lately and their money pretty much is worthless right now. They have little to none to work out, so basically what they could just do to alleviate this is to sell stuff they already have. I don't further details regarding the issue in Venezuela's economy but as I was saying thsi could be a viable solution

Hyperinflation is not a cause

It is an effect of and a consequence to some underlying problem (a host of problems) which reveals itself in many ways, while hyperinflation is only one of them (but probably the most conspicuous and telling). The point is, you can't effectively deal with it without dealing with this deeper problem as it would be like fighting with a symptom of a disease instead of overcoming the disease itself

And the main problem with that problem (pardon the pun) is such you can't solve a problem by relying on those who are creating this problem in the first place ("If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"). In other words, solving Venezuela's economic woes first and foremost requires dismantling the whole political system there, which is a grave problem in its own right


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: atjiat on February 02, 2020, 01:51:23 PM
This could be the solution to Venezuela's hyperinflation rate as of the moment. The country's been in a bad debt lately and their money pretty much is worthless right now. They have little to none to work out, so basically what they could just do to alleviate this is to sell stuff they already have. I don't further details regarding the issue in Venezuela's economy but as I was saying thsi could be a viable solution

Hyperinflation is not a cause

It is an effect of and a consequence to some underlying problem (a host of problems) which reveals itself in many ways, while hyperinflation is only one of them (but probably the most conspicuous and telling). The point is, you can't effectively deal with it without dealing with this deeper problem as it would be like fighting with a symptom of a disease instead of overcoming the disease itself

And the main problem with that problem (pardon the pun) is such you can't solve a problem by relying on those who are creating this problem in the first place ("If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"). In other words, solving Venezuela's economic woes first and foremost requires dismantling the whole political system there, which is a grave problem in its own right
According to research, oil reserves in Venezuela account for 18% of global reserves.  For example, you can bring Saudi Arabia, which has 16% of the total global oil reserves.  And now you can compare the standard of living of citizens of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, as well as the degree of development of the economy of these countries.  After analyzing all the available information, one can accurately answer the question posed that it is the shockless and corrupt government of Venezuela that does not allow the country's economy to develop and that it practically steals everything that should belong to the people of Venezuela.


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: deisik on February 02, 2020, 02:25:37 PM
After analyzing all the available information, one can accurately answer the question posed that it is the shockless and corrupt government of Venezuela that does not allow the country's economy to develop and that it practically steals everything that should belong to the people of Venezuela

You don't need to be an Einstein to understand that

It is interesting that the population of Venezuela is a few millions smaller than that of Saudi Arabia (31M versus 33M), so all things equal, Venezuela should be better off than SA. Apart from that, this Latin American country has far better climate which ensures better conditions for sustainable agriculture and a lot of other things. Compare that to SA which is mostly desert, and there's not much beyond oil (and natural gas)


Title: Re: Question about inflation and debt.
Post by: wack slacker on February 02, 2020, 06:15:42 PM
A country that owes foreign currency will force them to repay the debt in the foreign currency it borrowed, and the money cannot be printed by itself, forcing it to exchange to get the desired foreign currency.  The sell-off has no strategy to weaken their currency.  There are many ways to repay.  They may have to sell their reserves of other foreign currencies, metals such as gold, silver ... or sell the country's natural resources such as rare earths and precious metals...
All debts must be paid if they print the money themselves to repay the debt, then inflation will definitely occur.