by Peak_Plus » Wed 17 May 2006, 09:50:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', '
')If money is spent on goods...
Remember, this is borrowed money, right?
You borrow $100 for interest, say 5%, to buy a couch. Not only do you (as spender) no longer have any right/chance of recollecting the money from the seller of the couch (meaning that the "bank"-chain is COMPLETELY broken - It doesn't matter TO YOU in the slightest what the next person does with the money), you ALSO have to pay back the bank next year - no longer $100 but $105. This extra $5 is extracted from the normal economy. So you can even claim that the banking system steals money from the economy.
Right?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', 'T')he only way the chain gets broken is if people are paid in cash, hold on to the money and keep it out of the banking system under a mattress or whatever.
What you're trying to discuss is the flow of money. If the money doesn't flow, your economy is DEAD.
Look. Let's try this a different way. Let's forget about banks. Go back to the year 1000 before the Italians began using credit slips in Europe, ok?
Instead of spending the extra money I made this year at the wool market (the most lucrative resource market in most of Europe), say 10 Ducats, on beer and wine this year, I lend it to my brother who needs help buying a horse. He promises to give it back to me by Christmas, and since I'm a Christian and don't believe in usery, I ask him not for interest - his wife can bake me one of her wonderful loaves of bread instead. (oops, what would the tax office think of that 'gift'?)
He takes the money, thinks it over and decides he could do something better with it than buy a horse. He has a friend who promises to pay him back 12 Ducats by Christmas, if he is given 10. (These were usual rates btw at the time - yes, between 10% and 50%. Aarg!) My brother is obviously a tick less "christian" than I am because he isn't shying away from usury. And he lies to me, saying he hasn't quite found the right horse yet. Even less christian, don't you think?
Now, my brother doesn't know anything about fractual reserve banking or not. He doesn't lend out 90% of "my" money, he lends out 100%. And the next bugger does the same. And so on.
Who needs a bank?
Fractual reserve banking is a way to PROTECT the people who put money into a bank, not a way to multiply their money.
For what happens, for instance, if my brother borrows 10 Ducats from 10 people and lends it all to 10 different friends, hoping to get 120 Ducats back??? Well, obviously not everybody is going to be able to pay the money back, especially not on time. Two people can forfeit payment before my brother has problems with his own creditors/depositers.
In fractual reserve banking, assuming that the bank charges 5%, there is also enough "security" that up to 3 people (a $10) can forfeit on payment without threatening the other peoples' money, because $10 are STILL in reserve. Smart, huh?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', 'B')anks [...] receive deposits and create credit against these deposits.
And what do they pass out to the next bank or borrower? Fictional money??? What do they "create"? They can only pass money out the back door which went in the front. It may not have the same serial number as the stuff you gave it, but it's already existing money!
In order to test any of your hypotheses (or in this case definition/understanding) put five people in a circle and try it out...