January 7th, 2010 by Alex

I made a few minor changes to the book for 2010. The main thing I changed was the section titled “Fractional Reserve Lending” on page 64. What I put in that section originally, I put in for the sake of simplicity because I didn’t want to have to get into the subject of capital requirements (especially since those kinds of details are subject to change). However, I broke down and chopped that section up and now talk about the total capital requirement of 8% of total risk-weighted assets (loans) imposed by the the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks). Since modern banks don’t really loan out deposit money, the 8% capital requirement is the primary limit on bank money creation. The only other notable change is on page 111. I now talk about how infrastructure dollars could first be implemented by states. All states would have to do is create their own banks (like North Dakota has) and make their own interest-free credit to fund infrastructure. I also updated a few charts, but that is about it.

The book should become a bit more widely available within a few months.