I'm annoyed by the common belief that China can call on our debt at any time. People need to understand that governments create debt by selling bonds that come due after a particular amount of time. Saturday Night Live has had skits in which the Chinese premier was angry about us owing them so much money, but that scenario is just ridiculous--for the wrong reason.

A related aspect that I'd like some right-wingers to learn is that the low interest rates we have right now are allowing the U.S. government to pay off old high-interest bonds with new low-interest bonds. So while the debt is growing, the overall interest rate on it is going down.

Caller Joe is full of crap.Workers can't counterbalance the power of business owners by being good workers. I'm about as good a worker as anyone can be, but I'm stuck in a temp job with no chance for even a raise to keep up with rising expenses. If I bought health insurance, I'd go broke in just a few years, and that's without actually using the insurance. Meanwhile, I can't afford to buy a home or start a family.

What if there were only 100 lbs of gold in the world and it were the basis of our currency? Then as the population increased the value of the gold would go up astronomically. The gold standard itself depends upon an increasing supply otherwise it becomes extreemly inflationary due to demand. Yet this would be an artifical inflation imposed by the monetary medium itself.

As a mind exercise, I wonder what would happen if the money supply grew with population? Say the government would print $100,000/person. This means the money supply per capita and should not cause inflation.

This is a long way of saying that as long as supply and demand are in balance, there is no inflation.

Of course a healthy economy with nearly full employment vs a poor economy will certainly have big impacts. Employees who are secure enough to switch jobs will upset the balance of power, demand more benefits, etc. That is inflation caused by a power shift. We can't have that.