Governments cannot create but merely redirect. When the government spends, the money has to come from somewhere. If the government doesn’t have a surplus, then it must come from taxes. If taxes don’t go up, then it must come from increased borrowing. If lenders won’t lend, then it must come from the printing press, which is where all these bailouts are headed. But each additional dollar printed diminishes the value those already in circulation. Something cannot be effortlessly created from nothing.

Eddy

I’ve always been perplexed by messages saying ‘you must save for the future’ that are immediately followed by ’spend like there’s no tomorrow’.

The government punishes savers in 2 ways.
1) The Fed keeps interest rates artificially low. Borrowers love low interest rates, but they are a scourge for savers. The lower interest rates are, the lower the interest rate savers get for putting money in banks.
2) Government taxes savings when they should encourage it. Whatever meager interest people earn gets chopped even further by income tax.
Once you account for inflation savers actually lose money. The Government knows this is bad for the country but in the short term they’d rather have us spend our money down at the mall.
Whelp… the borrow/spend economy finally melted down. Despite their best inflationary efforts I doubt they can revive it.

the Republican congress and president aren’t and weren’t responsible people

Believe me, the Democrats aren’t even 1% better. Since the late 1980s the USA has been on a collision course with this meltdown. We borrow and spend way too much and our economy finally blew up. It is going to take years, maybe even a decade to dig ourselves out of this mess. If we inadvertantly destroy the Dollar we are pretty much finished.