Your thought experiment is, I believe, invalid. The bank does not hand around five dollar bills. The bank simply changes a number, and in doing so changes the

Your thought experiment is, I believe, invalid. The bank does not hand around five dollar bills. The bank simply changes a number, and in doing so changes the contents of an account, increasing it by five dollars. Five dollars that can now be spent. I would argue that this five dollars has effectively been printed. It was magiced out of thin air. How is it not five dollars? I can spend it. I believe your thought experiment should be worded thus: Have a friend write "ten dollars" on a piece of paper (bank account), and give it to you. Everyone will accept this as ten dollars. Write "five dollars" on another piece of paper (bank account), and give it to another friend. Everyone will accept this as five dollars. All the other pieces of paper (bank accounts) that existed beforehand still exist. You now also have two new pieces of paper, which will be accepted as fifteen dollars. Fifteen dollars, magiced out of nowhere. This is how the banks do it; they just write on the bank account how much money is in it.