it is also possible for a government to print its own money at 0% interest without using a central bank and to not have a fractional reserve system at all.

Such a thing does not exist though...any country that tried it will find itself at war.

Inflation is a tin foil hat conspiracy theory obviously lol..I mean banks don't inflate the money (and therefore debt) supply right...

A study by Lloyds TSB Private Banking reminds us that the value of our money has fallen by 67% over the past 30 years. In other words, you now need £299 to have the purchasing power which £100 had in 1982. The study points out that even if inflation stayed in line with the government’s 2% target, our would decline in value by more than half by 2042.

While nominal wages increased by almost 10% between 2007 and 2012, CPI prices rose by 17%, meaning that real incomes declined by 6.3%.

However, Morgan points out, the costs of a string of essential purchases have risen much more steeply. In those five years, vehicle tax and insurance has gone up 88%, petrol 56%, electricity and gas 46%, bus and rail fares 32%, food 30% and water 24%. These are not discretionary items but unavoidable costs and inflation numbers ought to reflect this.

Mike wrote: As I say, if you don't understand it by now, you never will. There isn't any point in discussing it any more. If you're getting hit over the head with a hammer, and afterwards need someone to explain to you what a hammer is, there really isn't any point.

novum wrote: I'm sure there is an element of this going on, but some genuinely seem to believe that essentially everything is fine economically, and the last few years have just been a bit of a blip.

Private banks can only increase circulation, they can never create money because they can no longer add a credit without accounting for a debit as they did for centuries under the goldsmith theory of banking. Today only the Fed can credit without debiting and they can only do so under the authorization of Congress who give them that authorization in big blocks such as the $2 trillion authorized 2008 to early 2009 to support the shaky banking system.

, you've dodged the question about five times now if memory serves.

Today only the Fed can credit without debiting and they can only do so under the authorization of Congress who give them that authorization in big blocks such as the $2 trillion authorized 2008 to early 2009 to support the shaky banking system.

If they assume everyone is happy to keep spending and indebting themselves up to their eyeballs i could see that, yes.

Problem for them is when people arent wanting to anymore... or even worse, they actually cant keep spending as they have nothing to spend.

"Maybe we can dangle a -ive interest rate carrot in front of em" (and convince them to keep slaving for us)

Do you three guys agree with this:

If the banks could NOT exceed their fractional reserve then why would they need bailing out?

Did all banks need bailing out then?
I thought it was just some banks that needed bailing out, perhaps the one's who lent more recklessly, ie to people who couldn't repay.

Why the hell is there a picture of JFK being shot in this thread?

Novum are you Luxor on the Ickestag, nice attempt at blowing my cover the other day no0b.

Novum are you Luxor on the Ickestag, nice attempt at blowing my cover the other day no0b.

"ecause as a result of their alienation as use-values all commodities are converted into linen, linen becomes the converted form of all other commodities, and only as a result of this transformation of all other commodities into linen does it become the direct reification of universal labour-time, i.e., the product of universal alienation and of the supersession of all individual labour."

"Commodities, which exist as use-values, must first of all assume a form in which they appear to one another nominally as exchange-values, as definite quantities of materialised universal labour-time. The first necessary move in this process is, as we have seen, that the commodities set apart a specific commodity, say, gold, which becomes the direct reification of universal labour-time or the universal equivalent."