From the Community Blog: The Perils of Printing Money

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This week in GOOD's community blog, reader MMBTKS explains and evaluates the Federal Reserve's plan to buy up $1.2 trillion in government debt by printing the money. It might not be the most exciting story-macroeconomics is a pretty dry discipline-but it still matters way more than the AIG bonuses. MMBTKS writes:"The only reason Saudi Arabia, China and the rest of the world accepted U.S. debt as payment is that they had confidence in the fact they would eventually get their money. With the U.S. having over $10 trillion in debt, desperate bailout plans, and no hope of returning to surpluses in the foreseeable future, how can the rest of the world have any confidence in being repaid at all? The answer is, they can't, and they're starting to realize it. The U.S. is too. That's why they had to buy the debt themselves."Also check out Veronica Egger's post on visual stereotypes. Why do we picture financial "fat cats" as actually being physically fat?Image of $1 trillion from PageTutor.com