, and the Fed in turn "prints" a bunch of money by entering digits into a digital ledger saying the US taxpayer now owes us so-and-so, and so it is.
Then the Treasury hands out all that fake money to the Wall Street Banks, et al, and they in turn "print" more money through the magic of Fractional Reserve Banking (which allows them to hold only a few percent of their balance sheet - in other words, if they have $3,000 in holding, they can lend out $10,000, which is tantamount to selling the same car to multiple people at the same time) which in turn grows the money supply even more.
Now, the big catch of all of this is, since all the money in circulation is created by debt? How will be ever pay it all back?
First of all, remember that every loan is due back with interest... even the taxpayer money that is due the Federal Reserve for typing digits onto a computer screen (instead of loaning out money they should have in reserve).
So, if the Fed "prints" $100,000, and charges us interest, let's say 2%, we need to pay them back $102,000. But where are we going to get the extra $2,000 to pay them back? Borrow more? It's nonsensical, don't you see? But yet here we are, broke and up to our eyes in debt.
Now, what I mean by crashing the system is this. If you take any money you have with the bank, you will decrease the amount that bank can loan out. And banks live off loaning money and charging people interest. If you really need a loan, go the peer-to-peer route like LendingClub.com or some such, where you get money directly from people -- you're still making the middle man rich (Lending Club get 20% of the profit for brokering the deal), but at least they cannot lend more money that they have (like banks).
If you take your money away from the bank, they will be able to lend out less and less, and they'll make less profit and they'll eventually collapse.
If you default on your loans, the bank will eventually collapse and, like in Spain and Italy recently, the good assets will be bought by a big competitor, and the taxpayer will be saddled with the debt.
But the whole system is dependent on debt. The local grocery store, they have a line of credit with the bank, and they buy their stock on credit and when you pay them (with credit) they will then pay their vendors.
There simply isn't enough hard currency circulating right now to pay all the necessary debts. That's why you may have heard of bank runs and the "war on cash."
If you tell everyone you know to go get their money from the bank, they will soon shut down their ATMs, and will impose capital restrictions (prevent you from withdrawing your own money, claiming you're a terrorist or money launderer -- if you don't believe me, try withdrawing more than $2,000 at your bank.) They'll tell you it's for your own safety, and to stop criminals, but really, who's money is it anyway?
I digress.
Bankers and Wall Streeet are in league with the Federal Reserve, who's real mission statement is to protect them, and stick us with the bill, and politicians who make it all "legal."
Bottom line, the sooner we can get rid of the banks, the sooner we'll have a better world. But you have to understand what got us in that mess. And how governments contributed to that, by joining forces (and getting kickbacks) from the Big Corporations (Big Money, Big Pharma, Military Industrial Complex, etc.).
The answer? Encourage every business and person you know to change over to crypto-currencies. If we had a business world purely run on crypto-currencies, the banks would be hung out to dry, and couldn't rob you anymore. The politician would continue to do so, but he'd have a much harder time trying to identify how much money you're making so they can tax you for it.
Taxes used to be voluntary, you know? If you thought the government was doing a good job, you'd send them some money. If not, you wouldn't. But I guess they got greedy... you know the saying, "Power corrupts..."
Governments and Banks used to provide us with a service -- now, it's almost mandatory to support them, otherwise you go to jail. How ironic. Crooks, who pay no taxes, protesting that people need to pay their "fair share." It's like paying to get robbed!
In Greece, after the first Bail-In (where depositor's money was used to pay for the banks failure to run their business) people resorted to different methods of bartering, online "currency,' etc.
What are we going to do? And are we going to wait until we get Bailed-In?