Re:Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI
by cloverich on Monday March 28, 2016 @05:57PM
(#11377737)
Thats a good description. I may just be getting hung up on (meaningless?) semantics, but its still not quite the same as money but more like credit -- even though $170 is in play, nobody can actually go and get $170 dollars (well, other people's deposits at the bank notwithstanding). I guess fiat is also credit in a sense; but I wonder if the scenario somewhat conflates credit and money. That is I wonder if the bank "expanding credit" really means anything, or if that's simply the nature of credit itself. Thanks for the comments.
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Re:Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI
by thaumasiotes on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @05:05AM
(#11380316)
> even though $170 is in play, nobody can actually go and get $170 dollars
This is running the bank. As long as everyone uses a bank account, it's not a problem. If the depositors all try to withdraw their money in cash, the bank will be immediately destroyed, because it doesn't have the cash.
As explained in It's a Wonderful Life:
> You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's house...right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's house, and a hundred others. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can.
A lot of work gets done without cashing out the money banks create.
What are the properties of "money", as conceived of by you, that "credit" does not share?