Last night on Chris Hayes on MSNBC they had a clip from a Trump interview where he walked back his bit about how the US could always negotiate a "haircut" for creditors as a way of getting out of a credit jam.  The way a bankrupt casino would. Or a tech startup that was having trouble making payroll. 

A very bad idea for many reasons. 

Then the next day, presumably after having been told by advisors about how bad an idea it was, he said something that was true that you almost never hear anyone say on TV. He said hey we can print more money any time we want. 

Not only is it true, but it shows why most of the talk about government finance on TV is nonsense. The only reason not to print money to pay debt is that it might cause inflation. But that is not even remotely a problem now. Maybe it will be later. This is a great time for us to be building infrastructure in the US. Money is super cheap. And with no inflation to worry about we don't even have to use tax revenue to pay it back. We can borrow and when we have to pay it back,  just use some freshly printed money. There's no catch. It works.

And btw, the total national debt is not a problem. The numbers are huge but our economy is even bigger. (If it were a problem, creditors would insist on a more interest. These days the interest rate on US govt debt is basically zero, meaning people are paying us to store money for them.)

But all this, while interesting is not my point. 

Hayes commented that Trump was being refreshingly honest for a politician. Here's the thing that's really totally outrageous. Why does Hayes need a politician to go first? Why shouldn't this be part of every analysis, every story he tells. Why should he perpetuate the myth that somehow US debt works like the debt of a country that doesn't control a currency, and not just any currency by the way, but the most valued currency, the one true safe place to store value -- our dollar? 

Amazing how much the reporters just go with the flow. Someday they might decide to go for broke and just tell the true story. It is their job.