Eh....I didn't realize I had hit post and didn't finish editing....I made some mistakes as I'm trying to do to many things at once.
Here is the corrected, easier to read version.
That is not analogous to creating money.
As John said, it's not a perfect analogy, no analogies are, but the premise is still the same. The Metro system issues it's currency, farecards, the fact that you purchase them with another token, the dollar is irrelevant, dollars are earned though, by most people that ride trains though work. In fact, as I'm sure you know, in the past there have been company towns that paid workers in scrip that could be spent in the town (skipping paying dollars). The point being that the relationship between the farecard and the dollar is similar in that they are fiat currencies used to buy a services (in the case of fare cards) and for dollars anything for sale in the dollar.
Farecards must be issued
first, before anyone can consume the product, rides on trains. Same for dollars. They must be issued before anyone can make purchases.
Inflation/ deflation can absolutely happen within a Metro system just as they can in an economy....
If the system artificially restricted the number of cards issued to, let's say, 20% less than the number of farecards sold. Demand for farecards would increase relative to supply. The result would be the system raising prices to prevent shortages. Price goes up.
Conversely, if the number fare cards issued wasn't restricted, but the subway cars in service is reduced by 20% and people couldn't get on the train when they wanted to, the value of the service provided would decline as fewer people would ride the subway resulting in selling fewer fare cards, potentially forcing the Metro system to lower the price and servicing less people. Price goes up.
These are really the same result, but the cause of price going up is different.
But what if the system lowered the price by 20%. Demand increases, and if the system has unused capacity and can hire more engineers to drive more trains, the result is prices go down.
Of course this example isolates a single currency to a single product, but the fundamentals are exactly the same.
Money is issued and people use it to make purchases in our economy (farecards). As long as the supply of goods and services (trains available to ride on time) that people need and want is available, prices (in a reasonably competitive system) prices will be reasonably stable. But if goods and services are restricted let's say by a global pandemic (the number of subway cars is restricted, or whatever reason, resulting in demand exceeding supply), then store shelves go empty (there aren't enough subway cars for all the people that want to ride), good and services (rides on subways) are harder to acquire, prices go up. Conversely, if the supply of money is restricted (fewer farecards sold than demanded), (which, in the economy is achieved by charging a higher price to borrow resulting in less borrowing and less money circulating),
which is what you want, then the capacity to create and supply goods will outpace the capacity and desire to consume them resulting in the value of money rising, at least until surplus goods turn into a deficit and the capacity to create more being destroyed (though downsizing, business failures and closings ect.). Eventually, supply and demand will come back into equilibrium, and the only thing you've accomplished is an increase in unemployment so that you can feel better about the number of dollars circulating.
The Metro system comparison simply allows us to view relationships between a currency and products in a narrow way, but the fundamentals are exactly the same.
. That isnt really improving our quality of life.