if we have the money printing machine then why poverty??
By shalu89
@shalu89 (17)
India
February 5, 2007 6:05pm CST
the thing that bothers me always is that every country has a money printing machine and the paper needed.. then why not keep printing and use it for eliminating poverty?? my dad says it'l become black money.. am still not able to accept it
6 responses
@howard96h (11640)
• New York, New York
6 Feb 07
I can't believe your asking this question becasue I have always had that same thought in my mind. Why not print enough money to end poverty. Though we share the same question, I too have no answer.
@berlynn1975 (737)
• United States
7 Feb 07
As "Vacant" said, you cannot just print money and have nothing to back it up. Money is currency. It needs to be earned (or received as a gift or maybe charity). It needs to hold value, and if there were an endless supply, there'd be no value to it. As it being a currency, that's for EXCHANGE. Meaning, it's exchanged, earned and spent. You cannot just go to a spot, pick up $1000 (stealing) and have your needs met.
@berlynn1975 (737)
• United States
6 Feb 07
Printing isn't or wouldn't be the problem of poverty. It's not a lack of money in society. It's who holds the money. It's who's earning it and who's not.
@hitzphillygirl (1235)
• United States
6 Feb 07
If money never existed, there never would've been poverty. There would've been nothing to cause it. Money's pretty stupid if you think about it. We're all walking around handing pieces of paper and coins to each other and they mean something? Right.
@ilunice (946)
• Netherlands
10 Feb 07
I guess you will have to get a good dose of economics into your brain to understand your dad. Poverty and money are not necessarily related. Money can alleviate poverty but when money is in excess, it leads to inflation. Inflation is the situation where the demand is in excess of supply. That is, there will too much money in circulation and few goods to buy or few thing to do with the money. Again, when money is in excess in circulation, it is not a guarantee that poverty would go. The excess money in circulation will probably end up in the purse of a rich few who would become richer at the expense of the poor masses.
@DocterDew (902)
• United States
10 Feb 07
Well if they just kept printing money, the value of the money goes down, way down. So if the amount of money in the USA doubled, guess what happens to the price of everything in the USA. Correct it doubles. The more money in your country, the lesser the value of it. That's what led to the Great Crash in the 1930's. They were printing to little, when the country kept expanding and then the crash happened. So does that clear it up a bit? Hope so.
