The rich rules over the poor,
And the borrower is servant to the lender. Proverbs 22:7
Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes its laws -- Attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild
… Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.
Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it all back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits. -- Sir Josiah Stamp (President of the Bank of England in the 1920s).
I set up a Rothbard Bank, and invest $1,000 of cash. Then I 'lend out' $10,000 to someone, either for consumer spending or to invest in his business. How can I 'lend out' far more than I have? Ahh, that's the magic of the 'fraction' in the fractional reserve. I simply open up a checking account of $10,000 which I am happy to lend to Mr. Jones. Why does Jones borrow from me? Well, for one thing, I can charge a lower rate of interest than savers would. I don't have to save up the money myself, but simply can counterfeit it out of thin air. Since demand deposits at the Rothbard Bank function as equivalent to cash, the nation's money supply has just, by magic, increased by $10,000. The inflationary, counterfeiting process is under way.