It's true that article 1 section 8 does not seem to include the word "only," so fair point there. Rowbotham has misquoted. It seems, though, that Jefferson did say, in a letter to the then Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs,"
and presumably he knew whereof he spoke.
If your banks operate on fractional reserve banking, then they are, in a very legal sense, issuing more US$, it's as simple as that. They are lending out money that did not exist before, which then becomes "real" and enters the money supply. It may well have been challenged and knocked down in the courts many times; banks can afford really good lawyers. Their greatest defence, though, like the Christian Devil, is the fact that so few people recognise that they're doing it.
no subject
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs,"
and presumably he knew whereof he spoke.
If your banks operate on fractional reserve banking, then they are, in a very legal sense, issuing more US$, it's as simple as that. They are lending out money that did not exist before, which then becomes "real" and enters the money supply. It may well have been challenged and knocked down in the courts many times; banks can afford really good lawyers. Their greatest defence, though, like the Christian Devil, is the fact that so few people recognise that they're doing it.