Curiously, many people have argued that it would be impossible for banks to make money if they were to operate on this “100 percent reserve” basis (gold always represented by its receipt). Yet, there is no real problem, any more than for any warehouse. Almost all warehouses keep all the goods for their owners (100 percent reserve) as a matter of course—in fact, it would be considered fraud or theft to do otherwise.
WalMart regularly promise its stores some good that may not be in storage. WalMart is betting on the finite reliability of its supply chain. There are a lot of people owed a Leaf hybrid car that is not in the warehouse. Rothbard makes a distinction without a difference. Betting on the coincident arrival of two separate goods must presuppose that one of the goods might not be in the proper warehouse at the proper time interval.
The only reason we have warehouses is so we can bet on their contents. See Nick Rowe's latest post, and my comment
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