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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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Asklemmy
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A government can create unlimited currency via an act of congress. Can a corporation create unlimited money when it wants to?
Anyone can create their own money. Consider Bitcoin. The hard part is getting people to use it.
Corporations can print corporate shares, though the more shares they print, the less each share is worth. You can’t buy a pack of gum with corporate shares, though, so I wouldn’t call it money or currency.
Private banks can print money, but not an an unlimited amount. They can only print as much as the government allows, and it can only be created as the principal of a loan, and the money is destroyed as the borrower pays down the principal.
Governments can create as much of their own sovereign currency as they want. Governments can levy taxes corporations can't.
Yes.
Corporations try to all the time. It's only through an effective use of law that they don't. And lately, it hasn't been very effective.
But also a government can't print "unlimited currency". Eventually it would be worthless. They are effectively only permitted to print currency proportional to what their creditors allow.
Governments can do it, but you’ve explained why they don’t do it.
A government with fiat monetary sovereignty has no need to borrow its own money, because it already can create as much as it pleases. The purpose of government securities is not to fund spending but to give the rich a safe place to park their capital with interest.
Taxes shrink the money supply after the government creates new currency. Taxes help to create a demand for a currency.
Yes. This is covered in one of the YouTube videos I posted in this thread yesterday.
You have a source on this? I find it difficult to believe that it is ever a good idea to just take out a loan for the sake of making the interest payments. Especially using public funds, that sounds pretty close to embezzlement.
Rather, a country's budget should always make use of debt, because its reputation has value and should be invested, not left sitting on the table.
You’re still mistaking a state with monetary sovereignty for a business. It’s nothing like a business or a household or even a province or municipality. Money works completely differently at this level. Previously:
But you understand that everything you linked are examples of why a govt can't actually print infinitely and can't just pay interest to rich people....right?
Also it's a red flag to me that all of your sources are youtube videos.
We already agreed on why governments don’t print infinite money.
We know it can because we know it does. The wealthy buy US Treasuries for risk-free returns on investment.
The reason I link to YouTube videos is because most people don’t read. They’re not going to read Karl Marx or Michael Hudson.