[CrazyStat]

> but we don’t care as long as the illusion is maintained — and it is.

> as long as the illusion is maintained (and it is)

> a good enough illusion is actually real.

> As long as the illusion works at least.

> But in practice the illusion

> maintain the illusion.

You sure like that word.

It's not an illusion. The money is real. It's real real. It's real real. There is nothing fake or illusory about it. It is just as equally real as a $100 bill straight from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Stop pretending that it's not.

> But in practice the illusion is so important that the state steps it an make it real: by creating actual central money to compensate for the bank run. Heck, often just the promise of doing so is enough to prevent the bank run in the first place, and maintain the illusion.

This is false. FDIC is insurance. The money that is used to step in and rescue a bank is real money that comes from banks that pay insurance premiums to have their depositors' money insured. It's not "central money" created by the state. It's exactly the same kind of money that banks lend out to you and me. Banks pay insurance premiums to the FDIC and when a bank fails the FDIC uses those insurance premiums to step in and insure the deposits.

> Strictly speaking money hasn’t been created.

This is also false. Money really is created when banks give out loans based on fractional reserves. This is called the money multiplier effect, and it's a really important economic factor. But it's not fake money, it's real money. Real real money.

[loup-vaillant]

Yeah, the money is real. Yeah the money has been created. But you can't start from there when explaining it to a sceptic.

And there's still is one way the money isn't real: if everyone runs to the bank to retrieve their money they can't. Not all at the same time. But they never do, so the money is real.

> This is false. FDIC is insurance. The money that is used to step in and rescue a bank is real money that comes from banks that pay insurance premiums to have their depositors' money insured.

Oh, I see. A tad more complicated than I though, but the effect is the same, so my central point remains.

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My step dad used to work in banks, and you, he, and I agree on how this all works. Interestingly though he didn't want to see it as "creating" money. He didn't quite accept the connotation, and I suspect the full consequences of fractional reserve. His exact word was that banks are authorised to transform money (which I suspect is a legal term in France).