Ten men are stranded on an island.  Some learn how to fish, others how to grow crops, and others how to find fruits.  We survive OK.

I come up with a brilliant idea.  Bartering with each other is so messy.  Why not use the tickets I issue in exchange for goods?

Somehow, I find myself owning a lot of tickets.  If a few people don't like this, I use a few tickets to get the popular guys to talk some sense into them.  Anyway, what big problem can arise, if only one man receives freely issued tickets for this innovative service to the community, and all others must earn theirs with real labor?

This system does make everyone more productive.  People spend less time planning and trading, and more time working.  So productive, that after I hire someone to cook my food, and someone to make me clothes, there is still more than enough food to go around, and everyone over-feeds himself.

By this time, I hear that there exist so many tickets around the island that people are beginning to trade goods for goods, fearing the tickets won't hold their value.  My plans must change.  I stop issuing tickets.  Hearing the news, people suddenly want those tickets again, and they begin to buy just enough to eat.  There is fear in the air and everyone has trouble selling things.  I will be OK since I have stored up so many tickets, but, for prudence's sake, I have to dismiss my cook and my tailor.  These men are in trouble, since they have sold their fishing gear and farm land, and have invested so much time learning their new trades.  They will barely survive, if they treat every ticket they own like their last.

In the meantime, I hear of a hut someone has built during the good times.  The man, having sold his land too, is trying to sell the hut to buy food.  I pick up the hut at a more than reasonable price.

The psychology that "tickets are valuable" thus firmly established, I start issuing them again.  This time, maybe I can get someone to sing for me while I eat!

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This is not to capture the entire essence of the modern system (which would be pretty hard to do,) but only to showcase how the state-bank alliance uses *both* inflation and deflation to strip the rest of the economy of its wealth over time, using a process that seemed familiar to Thomas Jefferson.