Commentary
In my last column, I explained how both governments and banks create money. The basics are incredibly simple—so simple, in fact, that the great non-mainstream economist John Kenneth Galbraith once commented that:
“The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.”¹
Figure 1 shows the almost offensively simple actions that create money. Banks put dollars, per year, into the deposit accounts of their customers, matched dollar for dollar by recording dollars, per year, additional debt owed by their customers. Governments put dollars, per year, into the bank accounts of their citizens, and the same funds, dollar for dollar, into the reserve accounts of the banks….
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