Full Reserve Banking

Discussion

Ellen Brown:

"full reserve banking is liable to be deflationary, like the gold standard itself; and that it misconceives money as a "thing" that has to be borrowed or dug out of the ground to be acquired. I would see money as a transaction, a credit/debt arrangement, a monetization or advance against your own promise to repay. There can be as much "money" as there are people willing to trade -- just as in a digital community currency system, where people create their own debits and credits when they trade with each other. The function of a bank is to determine the creditworthiness of the borrower and monetize his credit, turning it into something fungible in the marketplace, not to "lend" some pre-existing scarce commodity belonging to someone else." (email, August 2015)