[danielmarkbruce]

The banks can't print anything. "Money" is a stupidly defined term in econ/finance.

You and I could create IOUs to each other out the wazoo. You owe me $10 mill. It's an asset to me. I owe you $10 mill, it's an asset to you. You and I could go around saying we have $10 mill each in assets. It's not even a lie.

It's why when you enter into a contract for a loan from anyone sensible they want to see your assets and your liabilities. Because our little game above resulted in a net change of 0 for each of us.

[User23]

Not just that, but I'm going to have a hard time using your $10 mil IOU as collateral for another loan. On the other hand I'd have no trouble whatsoever using a $10 mil IOU from the US Government as collateral. The question is do your liabilities have currency?