Talk:Full-reserve banking

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 January 2020 and 30 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nathaniel Tolles.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Swiss Sovereign Money Initiative
A Swiss referendum on banning fractional reserve banking and the creation of money by commercial banks is to be held in 2016 after over 100.000 Swiss signed a petition to hold such a plebiscite in accordance with Switzerland's citizen-driven legislation process.

The proposal, if accepted by voters in a referendum, would limit the ability of commercial banks to issue money and reserve this power to the Swiss Central Bank (SNB). . This would create a system of Full-reserve banking in Switzerland.

Miscomprehensions about 100% Reserve Banking
In the article, there are mentions that Fractional Reserve Banking is fraudulent, or in some way wrong.

Opinions like this are profoundly ignorant, and blindingly wrong. I have seen many examples and forms of this complaint, none of which stand up to scrutiny.

There are already thousands of 100% Reserve institutions, worldwide. They exist mostly in the Payment Space, and it's a sub-Regulation form of a Banking License. It's for operators/operations that are not at the scale or sophistication of full banks.

Operators like this, are required to keep more than 100% of the value of all clients funds available at all times for withdrawal - and usually the excess of 100% - with a margin required for error or mistake. Companies exposed to this, are usually Foreign Exchange brokerages, Public Transport card operators, pre-paid Visa/MasterCard operators, etc. They are not of scale to offer full banking services.

Another form of 100% reserve banking are Safety Deposit Boxes. Boxes are stored, and the contented are retained in full.

So, if the people who write articles like this, feel the need to conduct 100% reserve banking, they certainly can. There is no impediment, and there are plenty of options.

Despite the criticisms, of fractional reserve banking, it's basically common sense. And it helps create income equality. And the arguments are so blatantly self explanatory, it's confusing to still find people who mis-imagjne what it means.

A bank, with fractional reserves, is like Lyft or netjets, or even a library; but for money. You work hard, and buy a car. You don't use it all the time, so you leave it in a carpark. The carpark operator asks you if, while you're away, they can rent out your car. They'll pay you, plus make sure your car is in exactly the same condition as you left it. You ask them - what if I need it, while you've given it to someone else, or I want it back? They answer: we have so many cars here, we will give you exactly the same one, with exactly the same odometer (etc) that you can't tell the difference - and as it's yours, you can actually, never bring it back, if you want (money is much easier than cars, but you get the idea).

Banks have to be clever enough, (i.e. sophisticated), to make sure that on weekends, etc, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc, that it/they has/have enough cars for all the owners to come get theirs, at once.

That's actually not that hard to do.

That means, that a guy with a billion cars, who doesn't use all his cars at once, can place them in the (community) garage, so that all the other people in the world, who might need a car from time to time, but don't own one, can use one of his/hers, for a short time, without having to bother buying one, etc. And it means that cars aren't just sitting idle, as wasted inaccessible resources, which fractional banking mandates.

And if people can't borrow, then only the rich can invest. And bingo, we're successfully back in feudalism. And you'd simply get nobody, as you do now, placing serious funds with 100% reserve companies, and instead, joining cooperatives of diversified investments, of whose units can be readily bought and sold... Which is what banking is, without the unnecessary layer of units (as in unit trusts).

Discussions welcome. But I think this topic is well and truly closed. Capital W (talk) 20:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Most of the POV and WP:FRINGE content has been removed from the article as it pops up. If you see any that's [{WP:UNDUE]], poorly sourced, or incorrect, please feel free to remove it. SPECIFICO talk 21:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * @Capital W There are an astounding number of factual errors in your piece but as Wikipedia is not a discussion forum I don't feel at liberty to list them all. I just want to register the fact that what you claim is disputed. Also, what exactly is the point of your entry on this page? You do not appear to be making any suggestions for changes to the main page. I suggest that this section of the talk page be deleted. Reissgo (talk) 11:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Merging with Narrow banking?
I would like to submit a proposal to merge this page with Narrow banking. To my knowledge the two concepts are used inter-changeably and in fact, "narrow baking" seems to have become the most commonly used terminology for describing this type of proposals (see for example Cochrane's blog). Or am I missing something? Stanjourdan (talk) 21:44, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Existing money versus New money
Why not start the article with simple concepts that can be understood by lay people?

Instead of this gobbledygook: "Full-reserve banking (also known as 100% reserve banking, narrow banking, or sovereign money system) is a system of banking where banks do not lend demand deposits and instead, only lend from time deposits..."

Apologies for sounding so impetuous but real-world economics is the simplest of the social sciences. Mainstream economics, as opposed to classical political economics, since turn of the last century has worked at making economics into a foreign language that no intelligent lay person can understand... References to support this view are all over cyberspace not to mention the published literature critiquing the dominance of mainstream economics.

So please do not "speedily remove" this comment for lack of references... We can start with Richard Werner's talks and revelations.

Janosabel (talk) 19:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Use of "overwhelmingly"
I made an edit to the lede changing "Switzerland voted overwhelmingly to reject" to "Switzerland voted against" because I thought "overwhelmingly" was unencyclopedic (i.e. not neutral). The edit was reverted with a comment "NPOV" as if it had previously been neutral and my edit had made it biased. Could a third party please comment and help us decide which version is most appropriate for Wikipedia. Reissgo (talk) 09:23, 22 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Sources described it as "overwhelming", "Massive". Describing something where 75% voted no as "reject" is a highly POV edit. Use the descriptions supported by the sources.  Ravensfire  (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Or OP could submit those POVs to a dozen RS to get peer review and publication. SPECIFICO talk 18:05, 22 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I like User:Avatar317's idea to indicate the margin numerically instead of qualitatively. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 19:56, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Might reword with 75% instead of ratio, somehow. SPECIFICO talk 20:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Currently: "Switzerland voted 3:1 against"
 * Maybe "75% of Switzerland voters voted against" instead? I agree that % are easier to comprehend than 3:1 which requires the reader to do some math, and I think that percentages are the more standard way to state election results.  But I think my new version is somewhat clunky...any suggestions? --- Avatar317 (talk) 21:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)