Quote from: minor-transgression on April 23, 2014, 07:25:06 AM

Hmmmm. I would see government as the parasite, favouring stable ongoing symbiotic relationships that enable the maximum to
be extracted from the host without killing it. Banks then function as a competing parasite or as a predator, with the dynamics
favouring the predator (IMHO.) I do not have a reference to hand, but some have suggested that parasite-host-predator systems
accelerate evolution, and that perhaps these systems are "a natural part of" the ecosystem.

I cannot comment on Minsky, and I cannot recall Keen speaking specifically on fractional reserve banking. My own view is
that fractional reserve lending ended when "we" broke the link to gold as the benchmark for money and replaced it with the
US dollar (FRN). Also, when "light touch" regulation was applied, governments gave the "market" the power to decide what bank
leverage ought to be. We now know how well that worked.

I agree with your analogy of Government and Banks as competing parasites. My next post Finance Part III will cover the role of government. I will have it up in the next few days.

Arguing whether fractional reserve ended after the link to gold was broken is a matter of semantics. Banks can now lend out near unlimited funds without being limited in any real way by the the amount of reserves they have. In effect what we now is is a fractional reserve system with a 0% reserve requirement. To prevent runaway inflation central banks still require "reserves" which banks must now buy when they want to lend. Central banks raise and lower the price of these "reserves" as an effective tax on lending and use this mechanism to control inflation.

Quote from: johnyj on April 23, 2014, 11:14:11 PM

There is no secret regarding modern money creation, I like the explanation on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

That Wikipedia article is outdated and wrong.
If you want to read an accurate explanation of money creation read this paper on money creation just published a month ago by the Bank of England's Monetary Analysis Directorate

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf