I was reading a debate between two people who disagreed on whether fractional reserve banking was bad. I wanted to get to the root of why it is bad. Would it be correct to say it's only bad to the extent that it requires the central bank to print more money to meet redemption requests? For example, if I deposit $100 in a bank that lends $90 of it to someone who spends it on a product and the seller of the product then deposits the $90 in another bank, as long as I don't redeem my deposit before the loan is repaid, the central bank doesn't have to print money and lend it to my bank in order to repay me, right? Or is this an impossible situation because the loan cannot be repaid without some sort of monetary expansion in order for the borrower of the $90 to cover the interest that accrues on the principal? Thanks!
FRB is not bad at all. It is central banking that is bad. Prior to the Federal anti-Reserve system in the US, banks were locked in a dog eat dog world of trying to keep their reservers high enough to pay off runs on the bank while at the same time lend out enough money to maintain a profit. Also quite a few organizations acted as fractional reserve banks. It is the central bank that mucks it up. Without the Federal anti-Reserve the largest banks would be Microsoft, Walmart and Exxon as these have the largest reserves. But the central bank stops these organizations from participating in giving borrowers cheap loans. Instead they steal money through inflation and give it to their friends. Absent the central bank lending would be much better for the borrowers.
There's one key point that people are missing. I can't legally boycott the Federal Reserve.
If I want to set up my own private monetary system based on gold or silver, that's practically illegal. It's theoretically legal, but the taxes and regulations I would need to follow make alternate monetary systems effectively illegal. The cost of complying with all the taxes and regulations would make such a business unprofitable.
Plus, the income tax effectively bans alternate monetary systems. If I use an alternate monetary system, income taxes must still be paid in Federal Reserve Notes. I can't boycott the Federal Reserve unless I also boycott the income tax.
If you follow the full trail, the immoral agent is the government violence that bans alternate monetary systems. For example, the Liberty Dollar had their assets seized by the FBI. People who attempt to set up alternate monetary systems find themselves the victim of government violence. (The Liberty Dollar is a bad example, because that has its own issues, but e-Gold vendors have come under similar regulation/seizures.)
If there were no government violence backing the Federal Reserve, people would just boycott it and use sound money instead. Similarly, back in the days of the gold standard, government violence protected banks from the consequence of their misconduct. Government violence and regulation of banking prevented sounder banking models from competing with fractional reserve banking.
There's really two separate fractional reserve banking systems that are being cricitized. There's the present system of fiat debt-based money, which is totally fraudulent. There's the pre-1913 system of fractional reseve banking based on a gold standard.
In the present, I'm legally barred from boycotting the Federal Reserve. Government violence prevents sound banking systems from existing. The people who say "Fractional Reserve Banking isn't immoral" are ignoring the fact that violence prevents me from using alternate forms of money.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
DriftWood: [...] Banks exist to connect borrowers and lenders. Its the middle man, so that borrower dont have to go looking for lenders and vice versa.
[...]
Banks exist to connect borrowers and lenders. Its the middle man, so that borrower dont have to go looking for lenders and vice versa.
Banks can and have done exactly this without fractional reserves. And back when they did this without fractional reserves, the economy was much more stable, and prices tended to go down over time, not up.
DriftWood: Banks are not warehouses. A warehouse can not lend out anything, it can only store stuff. If you stored gold with a warehouse, you can get out the gold on request, but you would have to pay it a storage fee. If you payed the storage fee, with some of the gold you had stored.. it would work like a negative interest, your stored gold would grow smaller and smaller. This is why warehousing gold or money is not a popular option.
Banks are not warehouses. A warehouse can not lend out anything, it can only store stuff. If you stored gold with a warehouse, you can get out the gold on request, but you would have to pay it a storage fee. If you payed the storage fee, with some of the gold you had stored.. it would work like a negative interest, your stored gold would grow smaller and smaller. This is why warehousing gold or money is not a popular option.
Then why is the government actively trying to make this supposedly unpopular option illegal?
DriftWood: The free market came up with a better way.. it came up with the concept of a bank. What do savers want? To be able to get back their gold on request, and not pay much of a storage fee. What do borrower want? To get to borrow money on the long term, and not pay much of a fee for doing so. Fractional reserve banking is the method that makes all short term savers, into long term lenders. Its a wonderful free market innovation. [...]
The free market came up with a better way.. it came up with the concept of a bank. What do savers want? To be able to get back their gold on request, and not pay much of a storage fee. What do borrower want? To get to borrow money on the long term, and not pay much of a fee for doing so. Fractional reserve banking is the method that makes all short term savers, into long term lenders. Its a wonderful free market innovation. [...]
Study your history. Markets came up with banks. They didn't come up with fractional-reserve banking, which is only possible when governments do specific thing to force people to use the notes of the politically-favored banks. People may want to be able to get back their gold on request, and not pay much of a storage fee, but in 1913, after years of political maneuvering and propaganda, the banks got the federal government to grant the Federal Reserve a government-enforced monopoly on bank note issue. And in 1929, when people called the banks on the fact that there were twice as many bank notes in circulation as there was gold on deposit, the government's response was to outlaw gold:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14509
Now days the ratio of debt-based money to 'real' money is something like 100-to-1, only now 'real' money is Federal Reserve notes, created electronically at the whim of the Treasury. This is a massive transfer of wealth from the economy to the banks and the government. They can only get away with it because people know next-to-nothing about economics and history, and the government controls education to make sure it stays that way.
But this is mises.org. There is tons of material on the topic here. Start with this:
http://mises.org/money.asp
hjmaiere:And in 1929, when people called the banks on the fact that there were twice as many bank notes in circulation as there was gold on deposit, the government's response was to outlaw gold:
The gold confiscation and default on the dollar occurred in 1933, not 1929. In 1929, the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates, causing a money supply crash.
fsk: hjmaiere:And in 1929, when people called the banks on the fact that there were twice as many bank notes in circulation as there was gold on deposit, the government's response was to outlaw gold: The gold confiscation and default on the dollar occurred in 1933, not 1929. In 1929, the Federal Reserve jacked up interest rates, causing a money supply crash.
The default on the dollar began in 1929. It was merely made official in 1933. It wouldn't have happened at all were it not for the Federal Reserve's artificial expansion of the money supply, only made possible by its monopoly on bank note issue. And the official story is that the Great Depression happened because the Federal Reserve didn't expand the money supply fast enough. The truth is that the Fed desperately tried to expand credit but couldn't.
hjmaiere: The default on the dollar began in 1929. It was merely made official in 1933. It wouldn't have happened at all were it not for the Federal Reserve's artificial expansion of the money supply, only made possible by its monopoly on bank note issue. And the official story is that the Great Depression happened because the Federal Reserve didn't expand the money supply fast enough. The truth is that the Fed desperately tried to expand credit but couldn't.
If you're going to be really technical, the default on the dollar occurred in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created. Before 1913, the paper dollar was a warehouse receipt for gold in the US Treasury. Every 20 paper dollars correlated with an ounce of gold in the Treasury. After 1913, the Federal Reserve was allowed to print more Federal Reserve Notes than actual gold was in the Treasury. Legal tender laws meant that Federal Reserve Notes traded at parity with gold.
Allowed to print more paper dollars than it had physical gold, the Federal Reserve caused an inflationary boom in the 1920s. The Federal Reserve was 100% responsible for the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a massive loot and pillage operation by politically connected insiders. It wasn't an accident or incompetence. They knew exactly what they were doing.
histhasthai: Any FRB scheme impies issuance of more reciepts, or notes, than there is physical gold backing them, but not necessarily a pure fiat note that has no backing at all.
Most everybody here is arguing that FRB iteself is the cause of these problems, my counterpoint is that it is the monopolization of currency issuance that allows them to abuse FRB without any market discipline that is the cause of the problems, not FRB itself.
Juan:In which case the receipts will be traded at a discounted rate, reflecting how much backing they have.
So you can apply a formula to an inflated currency and know the exact level of prices it would produce? If I'm not mistaken, that runs counter to Mises.
Anyway, the fact that they are redeemable means that the discount would not be to the amount of backing, but a percentage based on the perceived risk of default.
Juan:when bankers realized they could not really cheat the public
Enough already. Fraud and cheating are off the table, and you're simply lying every time you refer to what I have been talking about as fraud or cheating.
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
So you can apply a formula to an inflated currency and know the exact level of prices it would produce?
Fraud
Wouldn't the question of fraud depend on the specific contract?
Maybe I'm missing something, but if one has a contract with a bank stipulating that gold is redeemable on demand would not failure to produce that gold result in breach of contract? And wouldn't a representation by a bank that gold is redeemable on demand contstitute fraud in such a case where the bank knows full well they may not be able to produce the gold?
On the other hand, if the contract stipulates or implies that gold may not be immediately redeemable, or if the bank makes it clear that they use the fractional reserve system, then there would be no breach of contract and no fraud. Why anyone would want to trade in dollars/pounds/whatever that would not be backed by 100% gold, I don't know.
(**Just the two cents of someone who knows nothing about econ)
On the other hand, if the contract stipulates or implies that gold may not be immediately redeemable, or if the bank makes it clear that they use the fractional reserve system, then there would be no breach of contract and no fraud.