immibis 9 hours ago

All money in the bank is created by the bank. When you deposit $100 of physical cash (money) into the bank, the bank creates a $100 bank deposit (also money) and holds $100 of physical cash (money) in its vault. There is now $200 of money.

The bank may buy a government bond with it. In that case there's $100 of physical cash (money) that the government has, a $100 government bond (also money) that the bank has, and a $100 bank deposit (also money) that you have. There is now $300 in total.

Stacking money on top of money is fundamental to the economy. Normally (and enforceably in cryptocurrency systems) the different layers may not be confused, nor may different assets at the same stacking level. But it benefits whoever is creating the higher layers when you confuse them with the lower layers. When people widely bank deposits with base money, this benefits the banks because now the money they print becomes almost as good as base money. When people widely confuse government bonds with base money, this benefits the treasury because now the money they print becomes almost as good as base money. If people were to widely confuse Apple stock with base money, it would benefit Apple and its existing investors.

(Base money doesn't have to be gold by the way. It's anything that's issued without underlying value and widely accepted as a store of value. Fed notes serve as base money just fine. They have about as much actual real-world value as gold bars, which is none.)

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Jarwain 7 hours ago

Another way to see it is that physical $100 has $300 of value.

But eventually, Alice wants her money back, the bank cashes in the bond, the government repays the cash.

So part of that value is the value of trust as a function of time. Trust in the bank, trust in the government, trust that they'll pay back their debts on a defined schedule. Plus interest.