“Not much demand in a free market” I something and “should not be practiced, even if there’s demand” is entirely something else. The former is Mises’ idea of a free banking system, the later is Rothbard’s advocacy of 100% compulsory reserves.
It seems to me that if you just concentrate on you, the individual,and your own bank accounts safety, then its perceived safety or unsafety is wholly dependent on what the individual [you] thinks they know about the existing banking system.
If you feel that your money is safe within the system [i.e stored in a regular bank account] , then that [i.e. in regular bank accounts] , is where you will keep some, or most, of your money - rightly or wrongly [ from another individuals point of view].
If not, then you, the individual, will look for ways to insure against what are usually perceived as events/circumstances harmful to the safety and value of your bank account(s) real value [eg. ongoing inflation, bank runs/ mass withdrawals, account seizure by government agencies, etc. etc.]
Although no one system is perfect, there are many self-initiated ways to offset possible future “regular” bank account losses and insure valuable savings against inflation, bank runs/ mass withdrawals, account seizure by government agencies, etc. etc., many of which do not involve relying on government [i.e F.D.I.C.] “insurance”[:P] for their success or failure.
Either way, ultimately, the success or failure of your attempts at greater safety are your responsibility and yours alone, not the banks, nor “the systems”.
Regards, onebornfree.
In a free market, my wellbeing and wealth will not be affected by actions of fools, so I don’t much care what others do with their capital. Personally, I think “free banking” will be as prevalent as “free car-dealing”, where you’re offered a discount of X% for a probability of Y% that the car you just “bought” may NOT be there at time of pick-up. Since such “free car-dealing” doesn’t seem too prevalent in the current market without a “car printer” of last resort, I’m willing to assume that such would be the destiny of “free banking” without a central bank behind it.
In a free market, money is merely the commodity (among all others) that is preferred as a medium of exchange. Cars could also be money if only they weren’t so bulky and hard to divide into smaller amounts.
To answer your “objection”. There’s not much that can be made “compulsory” in a free market/society. If a victim of a crumbled Ponzi scheme (such as FRB) could make the case for fraud against the schemer in court, then I wish him luck, and I hope he wins.
Z.
Don’t tell me, rather tell strict Rothbardians.
“Not really, the depositor owns no money.” i guess a depositor could own money if they wanted too.
are you saying money doesnt exist? or only after cash or checks are deposited they dont own any money?
my wells fargo account agreement claims something as ‘my account’?
what is an account…wells fargo says they make funds from cash or check deposits..from accounts i guess. the word money is never mentioned.
what deposits are you talking about?
the wiki entry for federal reserve says:
Conducting the nation’s monetary policy by influencing monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
monetary policy covers what??? monetaries?
it seems that the difference would be insurance companies take payments (money…) for a service, and like many other services, has varying levels of done-ness…ie, most of the time your paymets will cover the service or coverage,…but some services are done better than others.
that seems economically different than circulating a claim to money as the money. insurance > paid for service money > medium of ex
if the fractional system/fed/fdic that writers at these sites have told me about is true???..while there is a fractional aspect to the current ‘money’ supply..as published by the govt it seems to me that it is only a fraction or ratio of regulated paper/coin currency to regulated bank credit currency…but not so much a reserve issue. the reserve sort of exists in name only..if i understand it correctly.
[i.e stored in a regular bank account]…what do you mean by this??
a demand deposit account??? how many of those would you say there are???