You seriously think we are that dumb to think they press a button and just print money when we talk about the printing press? That’s funny.

When the U.S. entered the world war in the early 1940s and began massive deficit spending (partially monetized by the Fed buying a lot of Treasuries). The Fed capped all Treasury yields well below the prevailing inflation rate to inflate away part of their purchasing power.

After the war, the federal debt never really deleveraged much nominally, but they held nominal debt relatively flat for a while, as nominal GDP caught up, partially from growth and partially from inflation, with interest rates capped by the Fed below the inflation rate.

In such a scenario of massive deficits and financial repression like the 1940s had, holders of currency and bonds were effectively partially defaulted on in real terms (often not nominal terms, especially at the sovereign level) and only got part of their purchasing power back. On the other end, debtors effectively got bailed out and only have to pay back a portion of the purchasing power that was owed, even though they largely paid back the full nominal amount in many cases, but in weaker currency units.

That’s stealing from creditors via the printing press.