embodi-mint
If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it – does it make a sound?
If central bankers produce banknotes and coins, is it money?
It’s paper and metal, an empty receptacle.
A body, waiting to receive its soul.
Waiting for a bank to give out a loan.
And for someone to withdraw cash.
Until then, it only looks like money.
But it cannot BE.
But for the grace of the loan-creator: private banks, the lone creator!
p.s. the title of this post is a play-on words with embodiment (a term used in pre-natal science to describe the moment when the soul “joins” with its body) and of course “mint”: how/where coins are made.
p.p.s. July 5th 2013
The updated glossary of the Swiss National Bank is misleading, when it writes, under Money creation: “On the one hand, the SNB is entitled to create money, because of its note-issuing privilege.” This implies that printing money equals bringing it into circulation. No, sir: printing money means you have put pictures of dead people on a piece of paper.
One small disclaimer: central banks can bring money into circulation on their own initiative, by purchasing assets. This could theoretically also be done using cash. Picture an army of pinstriped William Tells scurrying around with wheelbarrows of money to buy euros and keep the exchange rate at 1.20 🙂
wikipedia
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Banks need Boundaries 
If I take out a loan and don’t repay it do I really owe anything to anyone? I love philosophy.
That’s the spirit. However, the authority system has the habit of deciding for itself who owes and who doesn’t.
The “embodi-mint” piece is backed up by solid facts. A central bank can print and mint all it wants. No loans? No money! We are led to think that taking out loans and being in debt is something bad, to feel kinda guilty about. In fact, it’s the O-NLY WAY in which money comes into being. If you are mortaged to the hilt, neck-deep in consumer debt, with an overdraft to boot: you’re the backbone of this economy.
Note quite right: “And for someone to withdraw cash.”
Better: “And for the commercial banks to order more cash from the central bank because people withdrew more cash than they deposited.”