Still, having come to power promising to restore affordability, the new crop of Democrats are soon to discover that there is not much they can do over the next couple of years to alleviate angry voters’ stress over pricey gas and groceries, exorbitant mortgages and unaffordable healthcare.

Democrats would do well to recall that the affordability strains that helped deliver them to power are not dissimilar to those that delivered the presidency to Trump two years ago. And they could again quickly become their enemy.

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[–] 21 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Even the low-hanging fruit hangs rather high. While it may seem easy to reinstate federal subsidies for health insurance programs under the Affordable Care Act, or undo or postpone cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Democrats will be hard-pressed to find the money, given a budget deficit that is already running at a whopping 6% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

"Find the money?" It's not the fucking ark of the covenant, it's money. Money is everywhere. It's not a limited resource. In fact, we can literally create an infinite amount of it. No exploratory expeditions or tomb raiding necessary, we can just make it. We do it all the time.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 days ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago (2 children)

    I have, yes. Money creation itself doesn't cause inflation. Prices go up when the demand for products and services exceeds the supply. Typically the more money there is in the money supply the higher demand will be, as any money people can get their hands on will likely be spent. So it is important to manage the amount of money in the money supply. During periods of deflation, more money creation may be appropriate and during periods of inflation money would need to be taken out of the money supply. Income taxes are one method for taking money out of the money supply during periods of high inflation.

    One of the reasons we have persistent inflation today is that all money creation currently happens with offsetting debt that has to be repaid at interest. So when a bank creates a $1M business loan, for instance, it isn't only the original $1M that needs to be repaid, it's the original $1M plus a significant amount of money in interest. This necessitates more money creation, and leads to our persistent inflation and to our ever increasing debt load, as all new money that's created has its own, new associated debt.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 days ago (1 child)

    So it is important to manage the amount of money in the money supply.

    So we can't just create an infinite amount of money? We actually have to manage it in a way that prevents inflation?

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