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Thats a good description. I may just be getting hung up on (meaningless?) semantics, but its still not quite the same as money but more like credit -- even thou

Thats a good description. I may just be getting hung up on (meaningless?) semantics, but its still not quite the same as money but more like credit -- even though $170 is in play, nobody can actually go and get $170 dollars (well, other people's deposits at the bank notwithstanding). I guess fiat is also credit in a sense; but I wonder if the scenario somewhat conflates credit and money. That is I wonder if the bank "expanding credit" really means anything, or if that's simply the nature of credit itself. Thanks for the comments.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> even though $170 is in play, nobody can actually go and get $170 dollars This is running the bank. As long as everyone uses a bank account, it's not a problem. If the depositors all try to withdraw their money in cash, the bank will be immediately destroyed, because it doesn't have the cash. As explained in It's a Wonderful Life: > You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's house...right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's house, and a hundred others. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can. A lot of work gets done without cashing out the money banks create. What are the properties of "money", as conceived of by you, that "credit" does not share?