Irving Fisher Quotes

If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.

Having examined the nature of fractional reserve and of central banking, and having seen how the questionable blessings of Central Banking were fastened upon America, it is time to see precisely how the Fed, as presently constituted, carries out its systemic inflation and its control of the American monetary system.

There is another method of obtaining money... It does not presuppose the existence of accumulated results of previous development, and hence may be considered as the only one which is available in strict logic. This method of obtaining money is the creation of purchasing power by banks. The form it takes is immaterial.

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing.

If you've taken Econ 101, you know that the quantity of money rises only when the banking system makes a net loan.

Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.

Commercial banks - that is, fractional reserve banks - create money out of thin air. Essentially, they do it in the same way as counterfeiters.

Then came the second Amsterdam discovery, although the principle was known elsewhere. Bank deposits...did not need to be left idly in the bank. They could be lent. The bank then got interest. The borrower then had a deposit that he could spend. But the original deposit still stood to the credit of the original depositor. That too could be spent. Money, spendable money, had been created. Let no one rub his or her eyes. It's still being done-every day. The creation of money by a bank is as simple as this, so simple, I've often said, that the mind is slightly repelled.

In truth, money is not created until the instant it is borrowed. It is the act of borrowing which causes it to spring into existence. And, incidentally, it is the act of paying off the debt that causes it to vanish.

The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way.

The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today.

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create and destroy money. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.

Whoever owns the means of credit controls the industrial life of the nation.

The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value.

It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system for, if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

The Federal Reserve Board is indefensible in theory and indispensable in practice.

The institution of a bank has also a natural relation to the regulation of trade between the States, in so far as it is conducive to the creation of a convenient medium of exchange between them, and to the keeping up a full circulation, by preventing the frequent displacement of the metals in reciprocal remittances Money is the very hinge on which commerce turns. And this does not merely mean gold and silver; many other things have served the purpose, with different degrees of utility. Paper has been extensively employed.

There is a means of producing a uniform currency throughout the United States, and thereby greatly facilitating the commercial intercourse of the country, perfectly consistent with free competition in banking, and infinitely preferable to the resort to a National Bank.

Give me the power to issue a nation’s money; then I do not care who makes the laws.

We have, in this country, one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government. It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it

I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people

The essence of the contemporary monetary system is creation of money, out of nothing, by private banks’ often foolish lending.

The Federal Reserve System is nothing more than legalized counterfeit.

There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System