> The Eurozone would offer a counter example. The Eurozone is special case, because the Euro is not any countries "own" currency. I'm not an expert on the moda

> The Eurozone would offer a counter example. The Eurozone is special case, because the Euro is not any countries "own" currency. I'm not an expert on the modalities, but as far as I'm aware Euro member states can print their own money, but that would of course cause conflict with other members. In any event, the ECB did avoid defaults of its member states. > I don't think something stops being fractional reserve banking just because the money is put into low risk loans, its the same overall business model, paying out less in interest then you get in. Fair enough, we're having an argument over semantics. To be precise, what Facebook is doing is neither banking nor fractional reserve banking and I'm really just looking to draw a parallel here. As far as actual banks and their reserve requirements are concerned, domestic bonds may well be "as good as cash", but it depends on the particular monetary policy. Whether that's good policy is debatable of course. > Good question, depends on the risk though. Theres a very high risk that you'll lose out to inflation in the long term, so there's a argument that stocks are safer in the long term. Bank deposits in my country are govt backed up to a certain amount and pay slightly more, so that's as safe as, and has a better chance of beating inflation. It's not a "good question", it's a rhetorical question. The answer is none, especially not stock. Bank deposits don't count, as they're limited. Imagine you're a bank yourself and you need minimize your risk exposure.