An interesting argument, Carol, but I can't agree with it.

Here's the essential difference: Gold and silver and all other metals derive their worth through their scarcity and the expense of mining them and refining and extracting them from the ore (or other medium) in which they are found.

Anything that is found in nature, yet is scarce...hard to acquire...yet found in nature and also attractive or useful in some respects (which is definitely true of both gold and silver)...any such thing becomes valuable simply BECAUSE of its rarity and because of the work that must be done to acquire it.

A bank does not have to do ANY work when it creates (BINGO!) $30 million magically in the form of debt in the moment it makes a new $30 million dollar loan to someone on paper. It doesn't have to even print 30 million dollar bills or mint any coins. It doesn't have to go and get the money out of the vault. It doesn't have to do anything except print a sheet of paper saying "We hereby loan X Inc. $30 million at such and such a rate of interest for such and such a period, bla, bla...)

That $30 million was not mined or refined or extracted or printed or minted or anything. It HAS no corporeal existence. It cost no effort. You can't touch it. It's an idea...nothing more. Because people "trust" the bank (ha ha) they assume that the $30 million msut be real. It isn't.

Stuff you can create instantly out of thin air whenever you desire isn't rare, Carol...not to those who have the authority to create it...and the banks do. Nor is it real. Nor does it possess intrinsic value in its own right.

It isn't rare, it isn't physical, it came from nowhere, with no effort, it isn't fucking REAL.   But everyone assume it's real, because we all play the game.

The physical paper money that you are speaking of, is physically real, yes, although it's just a symbol of value, and we've all agreed to pretend it's worth something....but it comprises probably less than 1 % of the digital and balance sheet money that appears on the balance sheets and bank statements of the nation. There's just enough of it to allow people to do their many daily small transactions at stores and so on....although mostly they would rather use credit cards or bank cards. The amount of real paper money in circulation is miniscule compared to the phony "money" that's in play in the economy...and that's why if everyone made a run on the banks on the same day that they'd have to close their doors after 1 or 2 per cent of their depositors had withdrawn all their deposits in paper money.

You see, it's not the paper money itself that is the real issue here, though it's part of the issue...it's the fact that simply vast amounts of other money have been created by banks NOT IN THE FORM OF PAPER MONEY BUT IN THE FORM OF DEBT through fractional lending. There isn't anywhere near enough PAPER money to back up all that debt. Not even close. There's practially nothing there, comparatively speaking. That's why we have these periodic boom-and-bust scenarios, because it is just a pyramid scheme. The government just bailed the banks out of the last big BUST phase, but they didn't bail the public out. That's because the banks have the power here and the public doesn't, when it comes to this scenario....

The public can't have the power, because the public does not create this phony money on which the whole thing is based...we just use it, that's all.

The banks create it. NOT in paper money. They create it in the form of debt.

The paper money is just there so that you and I can go to the movies or the milk store and buy something with our paper money...but it comprises a tiny fraction of the enormous level of debt that's out there now, and the debt has been created quite willfully by lending institutions that are so big that "they can't be allowed to fail". Thus the government bails them out. And the national debt grows.

What a deal! (if you're on the inside track) What a disaster if you're not.