Quote from fhl:
The gov't printing it's own money and paying interest to itself sounds like a great idea, but in practice it would mean that we would be paying interest "to ourselves" and, while once again it sounds great, it's a rotten idea. Why? Because then it would be "free" money, since it had no cost. (that paying it to ourselves thing) If it had no cost, then there wouldn't be any constraint on gov't spending at all. You couldn't possibly think of a gov't program that wouldn't be funded if there was no cost to funding it. I know, you probably think that they do that now, but if there was actually no cost, it would make what is going on now look like pikers. The only way to have a responsible spending plan is for there to be a cost to spending, an interest cost, that prevents profligate spending. Does the benefit outweigh the cost. That's what interest expense paid to the lender does. Forces cost benefit analysis. Like I said, I know it looks like profligate spending now, but you won't have seen anything 'till you've seen these guys spend money when there is actually no cost.
diatribe over