The U.S. cannot just print more money, right?

You can't create by value by printing more money because each unit of money is simply worth less. The only way you can create value is by investment in things that extract more productivity from existing resources. Examples: Your UPS driver can service more business in a day if technology allows him the organize and drive his route more productively. Technology that allows you to produce, say, aluminum using less energy would add value.

Printing more money does devalue the dollar. It is a hidden tax. The government forces us to use worthless pieces of paper as a medium of exchange. Whenever they want to pay for things like bailouts for corporate fat cats or wars they simply print more (or do it electronically). This diminishes the value of our savings and the cash we have in our pocket. One way to bring back true value would be to have private currency that was based on something of value like gold or silver. It wouldn't have to be gold or silver specifically, but these have been used historically. The only reason that US dollars have any "value" is just because so many people have bought into the public relations scheme that says that they do. If people all of a sudden woke up the this scam, all of your money would instantly be worthless.

they could print more money, but it will also make the dollar less worthy. to help re- create value, try to make less of something, whcih makes the object go down in worth.

so if the dollar is always re- created, the dollar may go down in price and worth

The best way to increase value of our currency is to increase demand for it. When everyone wants to hold USD, it's value is going up.

When our economy is growing, foreigners want to invest into the US (to get high returns). Thus, they need USD to purchase our stocks. So, they convert, say, Euros into USD thus increasing demand for USD, and driving it's "price" (usually measured by the exchange rate) up.

Bottom line: The only way for us to increase the value of our currency is to start growing again... Hope this will happen soon!