I really enjoyed this whole thread. I would love more of the same, riddles of this sort.
The answer is obvious [after the fact] and enlightening.
Thx!
Oh, one lil thing. Say the asset was paid for in cash that was not in a bank, but under a matress or anywhere but a bank. So the magic of fractional reserve banking doesn’t apply to it. But once it’s put into a bank, Fractional reserve banking blows it up into ten times as much. Isn’t that a partial justification for Bernanke’s statement?