Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing.
Ralph M. Hawtrey, Former Secretary of the British Treasury

Who controls the money, controls the world.
Henry Kissinger (1973)

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.
John K. Galbraith - "Money: Whence it came, where it went"

Money is the most important subject intellectual persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and its defects remedied very soon.
Robert H. Hemphill (circa 1939), former credit manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford

The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing
William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England, 1694

Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities, intrinsically; a ‘dollar’ bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries.
Modern Money Mechanics Workbook, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 1975

Commercial banks - that is, fractional reserve banks - create money out of thin air. Essentially, they do it in the same way as counterfeiters.
Murray Rothbard

All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith

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