Legal counterfeiting

March 21, 2007

Printing money does not increase the amount of products and services available in the market. It only increases the prices in the long term, in the short term it creates an illusion of increased wealth before the slow adjustment of prices catch up.

“The services money renders are conditioned by the height of its purchasing power. Nobody wants to have in his cash holding a definite number of pieces of money or a definite weight of money; he wants to keep a cash holding of a definite amount of purchasing power.”
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 3rd rev. ed. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1966) p 421.

Read Gary North’s The Official Counterfeiter.

Frank Shostak explains global liquidity and whether there is such a thing: The Yen and Monetary Liquidity