Regular readers of these pages (whether here or in the author’s previous professional incarnations) will recognise that the analysis is informed by a core belief that while money should never be confused with wealth – and that therefore the latter cannot be conjured up by the central bank like a rabbit from a magician’s hat, however much people might wish it were so – the former is anything but neutral in its effect upon the creation, the distribution, and even the destruction of said wealth.
A secondary, but still highly important distinction to which we insist it is necessary to hold fast is that money – the supreme present good, the demand liability instantly and universally redeemable today at par, the generally dominant (if not absolutely exclusive) medium responsible for the smooth and efficient exchange of goods and services, the great enabling mechanism which obviates the need not just for barter, but for interpersonal trust among a transaction’s counterparties – is different from credit – which latter is actually a claim on money (and hence on the potential to acquire all other goods) only realisable in the future.