THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS CANDID
The Federal Reserve itself is amazingly frank about this process. A booklet published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tells us: "Currency cannot be redeemed, or exchanged, for Treasury gold or any other asset used as backing. The question of just what assets 'back' Federal Reserve notes has little but bookkeeping significance." Elsewhere in the same publication we are told: "Banks are creating money based on a borrower's promise to pay (the IOU). Banks create money by 'monetizing' the private debts of businesses and individuals."
In a booklet entitled Modern Money Mechanics, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago says: In the United States neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities. Intrinsically, a dollar bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries. Coins do have some intrinsic value as metal, but generally far less than their face amount. What, then, makes these instruments--checks, paper money, and coins--acceptable at face value in payment of all debts and for other monetary uses?
Mainly, it is the confidence people have that they will be able to exchange such money for other financial assets and real goods and services whenever they choose to do so. This partly is a matter of law; currency has been designated "legal tender" by the government--that is, it must be accepted.
*my comment*(in other words tthe BELIEF that paper can be exchanged for food or a house for instance. That's why CONSUMER CONfidence is such a big deal now)
In the fine print of a footnote in a bulletin of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, we find this surprisingly candid explanation: Modern monetary systems have a fiat base--literally money by decree--with depository institutions, acting as fiduciaries, creating obligations against themselves with the fiat base acting in part as reserves. The decree appears on the currency notes: "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." While no individual could refuse to accept such money for debt repayment, exchange contracts could easily be composed to thwart its use in everyday commerce. However, a forceful explanation as to why money is accepted is that the federal government requires it as payment for tax liabilities. Anticipation of the need to clear this debt creates a demand for the pure fiat dollars.
MONEY WOULD VANISH WITHOUT DEBT
It is difficult for Americans to come to grips with the fact that their total money-supply is backed by nothing but debt, and it is even more mind boggling to visualize that, if everyone paid back all that was borrowed, there would be no money left in existence. That's right, there would not be one penny in circulation--all coins and all paper currency would be returned to bank vaults--and there would be not one dollar in any one's checking account. In short, all money would disappear.
http://www.globalallianceassnnew.org/html/the_mandrake_mechanism.html*pouf*
Who benefits from all of this? Certainly not the average citizen. The only beneficiaries are the political scientists in Congress who enjoy the effect of unlimited revenue to perpetuate their power, and the monetary scientists within the banking cartel called the Federal Reserve System who have been able to harness the American people, without their knowing it, to the yoke of modern feudalism.