this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
5 points (85.7% liked)
Economics
2060 readers
27 users here now
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Banks don't really create it out of thin air. Banks are letting you borrow money they otherwise hold, meaning they can't lend indefinitely. This is the exact same way say a library works, they can only lend you books they have, and while you are using that book they cannot lend it to others. Paying back the principal on your loan doesn't make the money disappear, it's you giving back the amount you borrowed, plus extra to compensate the bank for lending you the money. This all matters a bit more in non-fiat currencies since those are backed by something intrinsically valued (such as gold), but even in fiat currencies banks that lend more money than they have access too are over extended and generally need to borrow themselves from either other institutions or the Fed in the US. This is why the Fed interest rate impacts loan rates.
They really do.
.
It really does. You know what else makes money disappear? Paying federal taxes.
There used to be a reserve requirement where this was partially true on a fractional basis, but they got rid of it if I'm not mistaken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMMTDYFlLc
Also central bank interest rates do not have any effect on a loan you take out. Interest rates were near 0 for ages did you get any free loans? In Japan they were negative, do you think that Japanese consumers were getting paid to take loans? During the inflationary period were you suddenly getting paid to save more? Even though central bank interest rates went up?
That’s a great four minute explainer.
It’s true. Even US government created money is debt. When we pay our federal taxes, that money is destroyed, just like when we pay down the principal on our bank loans.
Yes I find his channel pretty useful for basic economics stuff, I’m a dumbass and didn’t go to university so I love channels like that.
It seems he’s Wikipedia famous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Murphy_(tax_campaigner)
And a Quaker as well. I have a soft spot for them.
I don’t know how good you are at maths but I also found this guy to be interesting but I don’t have the technical expertise to verify or debunk his claims
https://youtu.be/_h4U5SMrwag
Keen is amazing. Eventually I plan to try out his Ravel application. I’m a software developer, and only recently became interested in economics through Marxist economists like Michael Hudson, Radikha Desai, and Yanis Varoufakis. They all subscribe to the fundamental tenets of MMT.
Yeah they’re all great, I read Engles synopsis on capital to get an intro to Marxism and I’ll try actually get through all of capital someday I really want to try the new English translation because I’m not amazing at reading in German.
If you’re a software guy then I definitely want to recommend you check this guy out: https://www.youtube.com/@paulcockshott8733
He’s super approachable and he did a lot of work on economic planning along with Moshe Machover and a couple other guys.