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The US government does not print more money when it wants to spend more; ... As an economy grows, and ours has been for many years, the need for currency expands. There are also other factors to consider, such as the velocity of the currency. There are many variables, but your little cliché world of how it works is superficial and inaccurate.

And when the need for currency expands where does it come from - who prints it? The government or some backstreet print shop? What happens if they print too much? If they only print what the economy "needs" explain this chart to me:

How do they know how much more currency the economy "needs."

Until you explained it to me I really had not guessed that our economy has been growing at 14 and 16 nay 18% per year. If that is how it all works, shouldn't we just print some more and it will grow even faster.

All those exploding mortgage CDO's with the exploding interest rate, currency and default swaps hidden in the package, the high flying real estate valuations, now collapsing, the collapsing dollar and rising price of gold and oil couldn't possibly be explained by the fact that maybe a pit too much of this really valuable currency was printed, making it kind of a glut in the vaults of central banks around the world. Naah. Couldn't be.

Monetary policy is not set by a bunch of third graders as you seem to think.

I am glad that when Greenspan was running around telling everyone how all the smart people were taking out 1.75% exploding ARMS that would destroy their equity, credit, lives and the real estate industry to boot, he was being an adult with full knowledge of forethought.

when the need for currency expands where does it come from - who prints it? The government or some backstreet print shop?

Kids have the idea that money always comes in stacks of tens and twenties, and by the time they grow up they learn to deal with checks, banks, and wire transfers.

The total amount of US currency (dollar bills, coins, etc.) is less than $800 billion. All the bank accounts (checking, savings, CD, money market accounts) total close to $6,000 billion.

For every dollar that gets printed, seven or eight are what people say they got in the bank.