Deposits are a public/private partnership which create generally usable money out of risky banking activities.

The model we are taught as children is, like most models, useful but inaccurate. “You take this $20 bill to a bank and deposit it. They will keep it safe for you, and then give you $20 back in the future, plus a little extra for having the use of it in the meanwhile. We call that interest.”

Let’s start dissecting this transaction. You don’t deposit a $20 bill. You purchase a $20 deposit, coincidentally using a piece of paper with the same number on it. The deposit is a liability (a debt) of the bank to you. The bill which you gave the bank in return for the deposit is now theirs, the same as if you had bought a cup of coffee from Starbucks. On their balance sheet, it is now an asset.

But the fact remains: neither Musk's extraordinary efforts to cut waste and fraud, nor Trump's efforts to cut trade deficits and boost revenues by imposing tariffs, and certainly not the plan to cut $1.5 trillion in spending while authorizing $4 trillion in new borrowing currently winding its way through the various committees in the US House of Representatives, are likely to materially affect the eventual outcome when financial panic finally arrives.

Tungsten is the only metal close enough to the density of gold that it can be substituted in certain types gold coins.

Crypto trading is still fake

Hello, crypto fans! I haven’t forgotten you! I’ve just spent the past nine months or so writing the same article about bitcoin repeatedly:

Trading is thin;
The price is set on unregulated offshore casinos;
Bitcoin is pumped with stablecoins printed out of thin air as loans;
This isn’t a bubble, it’s a balloon being inflated with hot air.