Banking

“The modern banking system manufactures “money” out of nothing; and the process is, perhaps, the most, astounding piece of “sleight of hand” that was ever invented. In fact, it was not invented. It merely “grew”. … Banks in fact are able to create (and cancel) modern “deposit money”, just as much as they were originally able to create, or call in, their own original forms of private notes. They can, in fact, inflate and deflate, i.e., mint, and un-mint the modern “ledger-entry” currency.”

“The best way to rob a bank is to own one.”

“I am just a banker "doing God’s work".”

“Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.”

“Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good.”

“The actual process of money creation takes place in commercial banks. As noted earlier, demand liabilities of commercial banks are money. … Confidence in these forms of money also seems to be tied in some way to the fact that assets exist on the books of the government and the banks equal to the amount of money outstanding, even though most of the assets themselves are no more than pieces of paper...”

“Commercial banks create checkbook money whenever they grant a loan, simply by adding new deposit dollars in accounts on their books in exchange for a borrower's IOU.”

“The 12 regional reserve banks aren't government institutions, but corporations nominally 'owned' by member commercial banks.”

“Bankers have no right to establish a customary law among themselves, at the expence of other men.”

“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”

“And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

“So limited is our knowledge that we resort, not to science, but to shamans. We place control of the world's largest economy in the hands of a few elderly men, the central bankers.”

“With money every form of intercourse, and intercourse itself, is considered fortuitous for the individuals.”

“But please do not think that I am not fond of banks, Because I think they deserve our appreciation and thanks.”

“Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.”

“There ain't nothin' to it. You go into the fancy meeting room and you just sit there and never open your yap. As long as you don't say nuthin' they don't know whether you're smart or dumb. When the question of a loan comes up, if it's a friend of yours, you vote to give it to him and if he ain't a friend, you don't.”

“The banks do create money. They have been doing it for a long time, but they didn't quite realise it, and they did not admit it. Very few did. You will find it in all sorts of documents, financial textbooks, etc. But in the intervening years, and we must all be perfectly frank about these things, there has been a development of thought, until today I doubt very much whether you would get many prominent bankers to attempt to deny that banks create credit.”

“There is no group of people on the planet more stupid than bankers. They should be called bonkers. Look at the famous banks that are suddenly losing billions, because they handed out loans like lunatics.”