[danielmarkbruce]

Continue down the chain on your house example. Imagine in each case instead of transferring money in bank accounts, people do the work on credit. Add up all the credit at the end of the chain. Then go back and add up all the bank account balances in the "pay with money transfer". It'll be the same (except for the fraction). Now, go look at a bunch of public company balance sheets - you'll see payables and receivables all the way down from mining companies to retailers. One long chain of credit. They could have all borrowed money from banks instead and have zero trade receivables throughout the entire chain.

The point of "money creation" is to enable economic activity. Credit does the same thing. In fact, your "money" at the bank is just a receivable from the bank. Ray Dalio has a quarter decent explanation of it here: https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0

[jgilias]

I see. You use "money" in a kind of a metaphysical 'total value' sense. That's fine, but very confusing when talking about "money creation", because that term typically means the particular mechanism by which units of a particular currency come into existence. In particular, M2 money growth, and where that line comes from.

You're right when you say that it's all debt all the way down, but you're very much wrong if you really believe that new fiat units appear in the system just because you took a loan at a non-bank entity.

EDIT: To illustrate my point a bit.

Let's assume that there are no fractional reserve banks, and only cash exists as a form of money. Only government issues cash, in total 10k USD have been issued, and the next issuance will be in 2 years.

Let's say you need 10 USD, and I have a 10 USD banknote. The banknote is debt money in the sense that it's a direct liability on the central bank balance sheet. For me it's a 10 USD worth asset.

Now we sign an agreement that you're going to pay back 11 USD in a year. I give you my banknote. Now I have exchanged one asset (a 10 USD bank note) for another asset (your promise to pay back 11 USD in a year). Depending on your character, history, and point in time between now and in a year my new asset is worth between 0 - 11 USD.

Let's assume you have stellar character, and are a well respected member of the community who always pays their bills. It's likely my new asset is now worth 10.5 USD, and someone would be willing to buy your debt from me.

By issuing a loan to you, we haven't created additional 50 cents in the system. The system only has 10k in it, and the next issuance is in 2 years. Anyone who would be willing to buy your debt from me would need to already have 10.5 USD.

Now the government decides that fractional reserve banking is pretty nifty, and is made legal. The fractional reserve requirement is set at 10%.

A neobank that has 3 USD cash (central bank liability) in their vaults approaches me and buys your debt from me by opening a 10.5 USD deposit in my name. Now the bank has a liability of 10.5 USD (my deposit), a 3 USD asset (cash), and an asset worth approximately 10.5 USD (your debt).

Congratulations, we have now all together created 7.5 USD of additional money in the system. The theoretical M2 money maximum in our system is now 100k USD. How much is actually in circulation depends on how much debt people are taking on. At the moment we're the only ones having done this, so amount of M2 money in the system is 10 007.5 USD.

[danielmarkbruce]

M1 (and thus M2) money includes checking accounts - a checking account is literally credit. You have lent the bank money and you have a receivable.

I never said "fiat" - you seem to be conflating things. In my example you call out "no new fiat" (which is true) and in your example you say "more M2!"(which is true). Make a valid comparison. The best way is by comparing the total assets and liabilities in the system and the total amount of economic activity driven by those.

In the end, a receivable is a receivable. The only difference is that we've created a very neat system to trade bank receivables, and tend to call them "money". When you hear someone say "money was created" mentally translate it to "receivables were created". "M1", "M2", "fractional" etc make it all sound so sophisticated when it's just ideas from 100,000 years ago, and you and I can create receivables too.