Recently, I came across a very interesting topic—if printing money could really solve problems, then Mugabe should have already won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Zimbabwe should have become the world's strongest country long ago. But the reality is, this Zimbabwean leader casually printed money, which eventually led to people needing a cartload of cash just to buy bread. What is the logic behind this?

I want to explain from one perspective—why can the US print money freely, while other countries cannot.

Imagine a village with "families" representing the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France, and Vietnam. The US produces reproductive supplies, Russia produces tools, China makes clothes, Germany manufactures car parts, France makes perfume, and Vietnam grows rice. Each family needs to buy things from others to survive.

Initially, everyone traded with gold, but gold is too heavy and inconvenient to carry. One day, the strongest family in the village—the United States—stood up and said, "Everyone, from now on, use the money I print. I call it the dollar, and all dollars are linked to gold." Because the US has good credit and strength, everyone agreed. So, US printing money became the international standard currency.

But here’s a key question—can other countries also print money? Theoretically, yes, but no one recognizes it. Germany wants to import food and needs dollars; France wants to import clothes and also needs dollars. If Germany prints its own marks, Vietnam won't accept them. So, countries either export goods to earn dollars or borrow dollars. That’s why all countries hold "dollar foreign exchange reserves."

Now, the question is—why can the US print money infinitely? The answer is, they can, but with limits. The US’s money printing process has three steps: Federal Reserve prints money → spends it on military and public projects → foreign countries receive dollars and use them for global procurement, causing dollars to flow back to the US. This is called "quantitative easing," essentially making the world pay for US money printing.

But the US can't just print recklessly, because printing too many dollars causes rapid devaluation and triggers global inflation, which would harm the US itself. So, the US only prints within a range acceptable to the global economy. This is why the US controls the world's money-printing power, yet is also the most indebted country— the world bears the cost of US money printing by purchasing US bonds.

Zimbabwe’s story is a cautionary tale. In the 1980s, Zimbabwe was actually quite wealthy, with a high level of industrialization, and agriculture accounting for 12.2% of GDP. Asians wanted to move there. The turning point came in 1997 when veterans demanded subsidies, and Mugabe decided to print money to solve the problem. As a result, the more money printed, the faster prices rose, and people couldn’t afford things, so he kept printing.

In 1980, 1 US dollar was equal to 0.678 Zimbabwean dollars; by 1997, it was 10 dollars; in 2002, 1,000 dollars; and in 2006, 500k dollars. Inflation soared from 55% in 2000 to 220,000% in 2008. Eventually, people had to pull carts to carry money to buy bread.

Why did Zimbabwe fail while the US succeeds? Because the dollar is recognized globally as a reserve currency, and the cost of US money printing is shared by the entire world. Zimbabwe’s money devalued only the Zimbabwean dollar. This is the reality of monetary policy—when no one wants your money, you can only watch it depreciate.