PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
Your theory on money is too narrow, and comes off as overly influenced by the Mises crowd (not actual Austrian economists).
A widely believed myth. There has been fractional banking since before the birth of the country. The Federal Reserve didn't bring it. The business cycle predates fractional banking by thousands of years. The cycle is inevitable, and was just as bad or worse before the creation of the Federal Reserve. There were many depressions before and only one since. We attempt to minimize it, and, we'll call them the Ron Paul crowd, wrongly blames the cycle on government. Sure government can compound or reduce the sway, but it doesn't cause the cycle.
Truth be told, "sound money" still employs the fractional reserve mechanism anytime any loan is made, whether the loan is in gold, cattle, land, or anything else. Think about this: you loan your neighbor a gold coin, she invests it in a new parlor dress for her prostitutin' bidniss, the taylor then loans it to a drunk. Two loans are outstanding from one gold coin. It's all fractional, man.
Fractional banking creates and destroys money. If we didn't have this mechanism then the government would have to get money into circulation another way. Saying "sound money" sounds nice, but it's a baseless concept with not much thought behind it. Our money is a medium of exchange. The value comes from the economic powerhouse that backs it. It's given further validity through taxing power. I'll take this system over gold any day. All gold does is get thrown in a vault and worshiped, where it does nothing to better humanity. Money is used for the benefit of all. Gold is an idol, and I'd be happier if all the world's reserves were dumped into Eyjafjallajokull.
I'm sorry but your loaning example doesn't translate to fractional banking.
Speaking of loaning to prostitutes and drunks. That is what has been happening since CRA was implemented, except they are lending out someone else's gold coin (<---ultimately the responsible tax payer ), and 20 more fake ones created out of thin air, to people who have no means to pay it back.
Our current system is nuts. Right now money=debt. The more money there is the more debt there is. If there were no debt in the money system there would be no money.
The last time our national debt was paid off was under Jackson in 1835 when he shut down the central bank.
He said, "The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it."
A better system would be where a bank could only lend out actual deposits, 1 gold coin to 1 person or a 100% reserve requirement, AND the government couldn't increase the money supply.