Smart contracts absolutely can, just like regular contracts can. A bank granting a line of credit backed by future sales unsold gas station inventory is money showing up from 'thin air'. Move that to a smart contract and you've got money - that is, a promise to deliver future real value - getting generated.

Try and write a loan on Etherium via a smart contract.

I apply, get eth, cashing out by selling it to someone else, then get hit by a buss or just ignore you.

Now, in what way can the system enforce that loan?

If you can get the eth from someone that gave me money then they are not going to give me money in the first place. If you say, sue someone in the real world that's fine. But, the smart contract did not actually do anything. If you say I need to put up eth as collateral then you did not give me a loan.

I don't know much about ETH, but would it be possible to write a contract using an escrow concept? I.e., there would be a wallet that eventually would pay out to one party in one circumstance, and to some other party in some other circumstance. (If you want to get complicated, it could even blend payouts among multiple parties.) We wouldn't have to trust you not to get hit by a bus, because the value wouldn't be in your wallet.

If they went to the work of creating digital contracts and didn't consider escrow, that seems to be a fairly significant omission.

If the value is not in my wallet then how do I get cash to pay for a house etc.

Escrow accounts are fine if I am doing contracting work, but that are not a loan.

Ah, ok, I think now I better understand the point you made above. I can accept that value per se is only created by one or more parties, but the coin itself can make it easier for them to do so profitably.

How is this any different than someone trying to get a loan from a bank without providing their identity?

First of all, yes they can. Proof of stake coins pay dividends. Second of all, dividends from companies don't show up 'from thin air'. They show up from the economic activity of the company. Which is facilitated by their capital investments. Just like staking in cryptos.

Think about this really carefully. Smart contracts can pay out coins but not money.

If every year your coin splits so now you have 2 coins then 4 etc no money was added. I can have 10^1000 in a database, but that's not new value.

You don't actually know much about cryptos, do you? Here, read this:

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ

Staking doesn't produce new coins. It pays dividends from transaction fees. I.e. actual economic activity.

I said pay out coins not create new coins.

Lets say I Buy '1,000' tokens including a 10 token payment for a transaction fee for 1$. Now A had 1,000 tokens and now has 1$, I have 990 tokens and another group get's 10 tokens. But, notice that other person(s) got tokens not money.

If I got to keep 1,000 tokens or someone else get's those 10 tokens nothing changes because nobody who has tokens got any money. The only way people with tokens get money is if they sell some number of tokens minus a fee to someone else. It does not matter of all 10 tokens go to a miner, or miners get 5 tokens an 5 go to 'investors' or what not.

It's still a (edit: negative sum game) and contracts don't change anything about this.

Money is just another form of token. I'm not sure why you're making this distinction between 'money' and 'tokens'. They are the same thing.

Bitcoins and USD may both be tokens, but they are not the same token. The same is true of say WoW gold and ISK (EVE Onlines money). I can farm WoW gold all day, that does not turn into ISK unless someone is selling ISK.