[zrail]

That isn’t how fractional reserve lending works. An example will probably help.

You walk into Friendly Neighborhood Bank and ask for a loan, and since they’re friendly they make the loan. Now, what does that mean? From your perspective you now have a liability (the loan) and an asset (money in a bank account). From the bank’s perspective, they now have an asset (the loan), a liability (your bank account), and an income stream (the interest payments).

The bank didn’t have to move any money around from the Fed or other people’s savings accounts to make this happen. They just entered the debits and credits into their system and boom the money appears in your account, just as good as any other money. They literally created it out of thin air.

[kybernetikos]

> That isn’t how fractional reserve lending works.

I'm not sure which part of the GP you're disagreeing with.

Fractional reserve is exactly that banks lend out a fraction of the deposits that they take in (the rest is kept in reserve).

The only reason it looks like money is created is because people (and economists) think of 'money in their account' as real money, when in fact it's just a IOU from the bank to you (possibly guaranteed by the government).

If you think of money-in-your-account as actually a debt the bank owes you, then it becomes quite clear that banks don't create money any more than lending money to a friend creates money. And there is a sense in which it does - lending money to a friend results in your friend having money and you having an asset (an IOU from your friend) that you expect to be able to use at some point in the future, so there is a sense in which the sum total of wealth has increased by the value of the IOU.

[kybernetikos]

According to wikipedia, Standard and Poors, and the Bank of England the view I give above is considered outdated and wrong. Oh well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Credit_theory_o...

http://www.kreditordnung.info/docs/S_and_P__Repeat_After_Me_...

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...

[spdionis]

> Fractional reserve is exactly that banks lend out a fraction of the money that they take in

Isn't it a multiple instead of a fraction? Banks are required to keep in reserve a small percentage of the actual amount being lent, which means that they can lend a multiple of the money they take in.

[zrail]

Correct. In the US the required capital reserve is expressed in terms of daily net transaction amount. Wikipedia has a good breakdown[1], but for large banks the Fed requires 10% of NTA to be swept into the bank's Fed account overnight. There are also capitalization requirements for all banks, which are more stringent for nationally important "too big to fail" banks and bank-like entities.

[zrail]

What is “real money” in our current system?

[jussij]

For every debit there has to be a matching credit so nothing comes out of thin air.

If you go to your Friendly Neighbourhood Bank for a loan they are giving you their money, so you can then give that money on to someone else.

Now the bank is not so friendly that it gives you their money, instead they offer to lend you their money, on the proviso you pay it back in full and with interest.

For example lets say you want to buy a new car, so you go to the bank to get the loan.

The bank transfers the money to pay for the new car to the car dealership and you end up with a new car and a whole lot of debt.

[zrail]

> they are giving you their money

They create that money by crediting your checking account (their liability) and debiting your loan account (their asset).

[jussij]

But you missing one step where they credit your loan account by debiting their loan book account.

Also your loan account is not a bank asset, it is a bank liability.

It is money the bank might not get back.