PM:
Thomas Grant Edwards writes:
Banks "invent" money on a daily basis.
Really? Since when?
since we left standards that tie money to things physical with value. i.e.-- the federal reserve was created, supposedly moving to a gold standard, but which was given up, and then we moved to silver, which was then thrown away by Nixon or whoever. TGE was obviously referring to the way that all banks are authorized to lend money that they don't actually have in assets based on our banking system. they are all "tentacles" of the federal reserve, so to speak. <g> people say, "so what if we don't use gold. money is just an abstraction". perhaps so, but think of this: if an economy collapsed such that money no longer had any psychological value, would you like to go to your bank and have them say, "sorry, we don't guarantee our money"? or would you like to go pick up your few pounds of gold or whatever that the money represented? I can guarantee you this: the latter scenario is not possible in our current system, and if you think it is, perhaps you will encounter a reality check (like the crash of '29 was). a long time ago a "banknote" referred to gold, and that banknote could be traded for that gold. manipulations in our system caused us to lose that standard. few people will understand this, and those that control the money supply and benefit therefrom would prefer it that way. the power of printing and creating money is far more significant than most people understand. again, those that do understand it would prefer that it stays this way. a somewhat amusing book called "Last Waltz of the Tyrants" might interest some. there are many more substantial books on the subject as well. these issues are going to come to the forefront if digital money ever gets off the ground. again, I expect that there are a lot of people secretly working against digital money because it has the potential to interfere with monomaniacal power structures already in place. sure, I'll be flamed by some for writing this, but what is the cpunk list without a little delicious conspiracy theory?