[removed] is not a money printer go brrr sort of story

**Context: I work for a medium-sized company that handles the entire production chain of a product; we design it, build it, distribute it, etc. In our case, we're in the manufacturing industry, but I think what I have to say below applies to any company in general.**<br><br>I think the sort of "unpopular opinion" I have is that governments cannot just "print money". Often you hear people say stuff like "if a billionaire were to pay his fair share of taxes, we wouldn't have poverty anymore in the country", or "if the government printed X amount of money, we wouldn't have poverty anymore", etc. I don't think that's the case. I'll try to explain why:<br><br>Suppose that one day, out of thin air, the government printed 1B dollars and gave it away to everyone. If you previously had 0 dollars, you now have 1k dollars. You're richer, yay. But now imagine that you want to use that money to buy a loaf of bread. So you go to the supermarket, but bread is 5x more expensive than it was yesterday, so your "newfound wealth" didn't make you richer. All you have is more cash that's worth less. In other words, if everyone has more money but production hasn't actually increased, prices will skyrocket and your money will be worth less than it was before.<br><br>But why is production so important? I think this is the key point that most people don't really understand; there's a gigantic amount of work that goes into even the smallest of things. For example, take a t-shirt. I'm sure most people know by now that textile manufacturing is a very polluting industry, but I was very surprised to learn that almost every single part of the t-shirt manufacturing chain is an entire industry in and of itself. For example:<br><br>* Ginning: this is the first industrial process of the manufacturing chain. You need huge buildings full of machines to turn the raw cotton from the fields into strings. This is usually done in a different country than where the fields are, since it's easier to transport the cotton than the finished goods.<br>* Carding and combing: ginning produces strings of a certain thickness. Carding and combing are necessary to turn these strings into a thinner yarn. This requires another huge building full of very expensive machines somewhere else in the world. You can't just make yarn on your own; it's incredibly capital-intensive.<br>* Dyeing: the yarn needs to be dyed. This is a different factory somewhere else in the world, with its own production line, workers, equipment, etc.<br>* Texturizing and knitting: once the yarn is dyed, you need to use another gigantic machine to turn the yarn into a textile. This is a very complex process that requires a lot of capital, different dyes, chemical treatments, etc.<br>* Finishing: after knitting, the textile gets a chemical treatment to change its texture, which can be very expensive.<br>* Cutting: this is the process by which we turn the raw textile into patterns that can be stitched into a t-shirt. This requires a lot of machines, trained workers, etc.<br>* Sewing: this is the process that actually turns the raw textile into the finished t-shirt. This can be done in a different country than the previous step, since it's easier to transport the raw textile than the finished goods. This requires a lot of manual labor and specialized machines.<br>* Printing and treating: once the t-shirt is made, you have to print the designs onto it, which requires a lot of capital and labor. The t-shirt also has to go through a heat treatment to make sure the ink doesn't fade with time.<br>* Distribution: you need to hire tons of workers to actually get the t-shirt to you. You need to build huge warehouses, hire drivers, etc.<br>* Sales: these are the people that actually print the barcode onto the finished product, take it out of the box, fold it, and put it into the storefront.<br><br>But this entire chain also depends on a ton of different things: machines, workers, energy, water, raw materials, treatment chemicals, dyes, etc. The raw materials need to be transported, and to do that, you need to hire workers, build ports, pay rent for the buildings, pay for huge amounts of energy, etc. And all of those workers that are handling the t-shirt at every step of the way need to be paid.<br><br>So what I think a lot of people don't understand is that if you were to magically print 1B dollars out of thin air and distribute it among the population, you would inflate the currency by 1B dollars. Some people would be lucky and spend their money before prices skyrocket, but that doesn't actually increase production. The same amount of t-shirts is being produced as before; the only thing that changed is that now everyone has more money that's worth a little less. It's a zero sum game. Sooner or later, prices will skyrocket and you're back to square one.<br><br>It's also a big hassle, since people that get to spend their new money before prices rise will be winners, but people that don't will be losers.<br><br>I think the only case in which printing money actually works is during a recession, when a lot of people lose their jobs and stop spending money. In that case, printing money allows those people to keep spending, which can actually help increase production. But when you have an economy that's doing fine, printing money is the same as increasing wages without increasing worker productivity. It's a zero sum game, and it doesn't really accomplish anything.<br><br>I'm not sure if this makes sense, but I hope we can talk about it in the comments.