I'm very confused.
What about credit? Is it true that every bank has every cent in deposit for every cent it gives out as credit, including checks? And what about the credit companies?
And the gold reserves? Didn't the United States go off the gold standard many decades ago?
And when the American government stopped buying gold at $35 dollars an ounce--it's what, $350 an ounce now--what happenned to gold holdings? (Didn't the government sell it?)
And about those banks. As private companies, aren't they like some sort of private government? They issue credit in ways they decide, to whomever they decide.
And the Federal Reserve, it is not a government agency, for all that it seems so, but it is run by the private banks, and they determine its policies.
Further, it doesn't give banks money really, it determines how high the interest rate that the banks must charge everyone who doesn't own a bank, and what the rate is for overnight borrowings. This is how the Fed stops an economic boom when too many workers are beginning to get ahead--must prevent inflation you know; inflation lowers the value of those bank stocks.
Whe I reflected upon this question many years ago, it blew my mind--almost literally: I couldn't find anything behind money.
Fort Knox is empty! It wasn't Goldfinger who emptied it. Why bother keeping gold, if it isn't needed.
Money, what a concept!