Banking

"Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrowers IOU."

"The use of money does not disestablish the normal process of creating credit. Money, it is true, is always being paid into the banks by the retailers and others who receive it in the course of business, and they of course receive bank credits in return for the money thus deposited. But for the manufacturers and others who have to pay money out, credits are still created by the exchange of obligations, the bankers immediate obligation being given to his customer in exchange for the customers obligation to repay at a future date. We shall still describe this dual operation as the creation of credit. By its means the banker creates the means of payment out of nothing, whereas when he receives a bag of money from his customer, one means of payment, a bank credit, is merely substituted for another, an equal amount of cash."

"The modern banking system manufactures “money” out of nothing; and the process is, perhaps, the most, astounding piece of “sleight of hand” that was ever invented. In fact, it was not invented. It merely “grew”. … Banks in fact are able to create (and cancel) modern “deposit money”, just as much as they were originally able to create, or call in, their own original forms of private notes. They can, in fact, inflate and deflate, i.e., mint, and un-mint the modern “ledger-entry” currency."

"The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. As noted earlier, demand liabilities of commercial banks are money. … Confidence in these forms of money also seems to be tied in some way to the fact that assets exist on the books of the government and the banks equal to the amount of money outstanding, even though most of the assets themselves are no more than pieces of paper..."

"Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good."

"The best way to rob a bank is to own one."

"Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion."

"But please do not think that I am not fond of banks, Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks."

"I am just a banker "doing God’s work"."

"Bankers have no right to establish a customary law among themselves, at the expence of other men."

"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

"The 12 regional reserve banks arent government institutions, but corporations nominally owned by member commercial banks."