May 27th, 2010

Reliving the 1930s

by

Why is the money supply dependent on interest rates and government spending?

It turns out the great economist Irving Fisher told us back in the 1930s: banks create and destroy credit money by granting and calling loans. As Fisher wrote:

“Thus our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks; and our thousands of checking banks are, in effect, so many irresponsible private mints.”