I have an economics teacher that made this claim in class yesterday. I wanted to know other people’s thoughts about it.

  • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    No.

    Stealing is usually defined as taking something that exists in a way that denies the original owner its use and grants the illegitimate owner its use.

    This is how loans work in fractional reserve banking: loan provider has assets of $1 million, they loan out $10 million, having wholesale created the additional $9 million. If those loans are forgiven, but the original assets did not change, what has been stolen?

    A fictitious amount of theoretical money.

    If I make up an image, and I make a copy of that image that i send to you and you delete, but I get to keep the original, is that theft? No. Obviously not. Made up money is no different.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 month ago

      You can’t just destroy money. With fractional reserve banking any bank can create money, but they can’t destroy it. Only the Fed can “destroy” money by buying bonds back and not reselling them. Forgiving a is a loss to the lender, in the case of student loans, the government guarantees them, so the lender gets made whole and the government assumes the debt on behalf of the borrower.