I just started reading National Debt for Beginners by Simon Johnson and James Kwak (of Baseline Scenario). I haven't got very far, but I suspect it is going to irritate me as it has not started well. Early on they introduce the simplistic monetarist argument:

Another way to close a budget gap is for the Federal Reserve to "print" another $100 billion or so, but that can lead to inflation. Imagine there were the same amount of stuff in the world, but suddenly everyone had twice as much money: The price of everything would simply double, and no one would be any better off.

This is, of course, an unrealistic scenario that which provides no real insight into macro-economics. There can never be "the same amount of stuff in the world" under different government spending scenarios, since "stuff" includes all economic activity generated in exchange for money: goods and services. Since the level of economic activity varies with, among other things, changes in government fiscal activity, it is simply not meaningful to say that if the government had spent less there would have been the same amount of "stuff" but less money in the system, therefore less inflation. In situation such as the one the US currently faces, with government inaction there would be a lot less stuff too, and it should be pretty clear that inflation is the least of the US's worries at the moment.

Anyway, I will keep reading and see if the article improves.