Reply #16: You seriously want to end modern banking and replace it with government?

[Kagemusha]

Isn't that called, communism?

I guess I was too subtle earlier. The rationale for banks charging profit, the service they believe they are providing to mankind, is risk management. That's why bankers go to university to get degrees as if they're supposed to be doctors or lawyers. The bankers manage the risk of credit allocation, partially backed by assets, and believe themselves to, on the whole, do a far, far better job of allocating that money than a centrally managed government system.

And the government does not simply print the money because then the dollar would not be loosely connected to reality, but wholly disconnected from reality. The feedback of the market, interest rates, and so on, is intended to keep the government in check, inflation under control, and to maintain a rough, relative balance so that the government does not borrow so far beyond its means that the country's finances are seriously threatened.

I have taken the time to respond like this because laughter would have seemed wholly uncivilized.