This IS my field of expertise. I have a degree in economics, and I’ve had past discussions with Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, over dinner on this subject many years ago. He was a monetarist who was not at all a supporter of the Fed. The Federal Reserve loans money into existence with a built in discount. The borrowing bank can only pay off that borrowed money with Federal Reserve Notes which ALSO must be borrowed into existence with a built in discount.
This is Zeno’s Paradox writ large. To pay off your debt, you always have to incur more debt. . . and since the currency is ALWAYS discounted there can never be enough currency to pay off the debtor currency in circulation because they don’t ever issue enough currency to cover that discount. . . they keep that! It keeps growing. It’s even easier when it’s just magnetic domains on a computer memory ledger. Each step you take to paying off what you borrowed from THIS money monster lender increases what you have to pay back. Paying off the principal grows the principal. It’s a GREAT magic trick for the FED, but not for us. You can’t pay it off!
Exaggerated, each $100 note incurs a book debt of $110 to retire the note. Expenses are $1 to print a nice engraved cloth paper C-note, $1 for overhead for salaries, bribes to politicians, etc., heat and light, and fancy offices, no need to set aside for income taxes, the FED is tax free, $8 for the families. As I said, that $10 on a c-note is exaggerated, but the take away is that to PAY BACK the $100 that was just created, $110 is required in the form of fresh, newly borrowed Federal Reserve Notes, or you can pay in Silver, Gold, or OIL. . . But it must be $110 worth. Most times it’s reborrow more discounted fiat money and deeper in debt. . . and you owe your soul to the company store!
Of course we are talking bank and government level borrowing here, not individual retail borrowing. . . But it is of such compound monetary borrowing that $21 trillion deficits are built and massive bureaucracies are created.
Ditto!