>banks can lend money that didn't exist until they lend it to you and that stops existing the moment you pay it back Of course. How else should the money supp

>banks can lend money that didn't exist until they lend it to you and that stops existing the moment you pay it back Of course. How else should the money supply increase but to create it out of thin air? All of it is. Imagine not being able to buy a house until Fred paid mortgage his off? This is a reason why getting off the gold standard was a good idea. What's the point of having a dollar be equivalent to the price of an ounce of gold (which itself is an arbitrary peg), along with all the mechanisms required to maintain that peg? If you want something equal to the value of an ounce of gold, buy an ounce of gold. This is what Bitcoin proponents get wrong about its use as a currency; a static supply is a problem. Why would you want to limit people's ability to perform transactions in the unit of account? If you can't increase the supply as needed, then you have to find ways to further divide what's out there (which is just the other side of the same coin).