bobevenson wrote: ↑Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:13 pm
Sorry, lending money is not creating money, it is merely changing the terms of sale.
I don't know what you mean by 'changing the terms of the sale', but it would help this discussion a great deal if we were clearer by what we mean by 'money'.
If the thread is about inflation, then lending money increases the amount of money
available for people to spend. That might or might not cause prices to rise; it would depend on other things.
For example, if all the banks decided they were going to offer lots of cheap mortgages you would expect inflation in the price of houses. On the other hand, if people were worried that they were going to lose their jobs and not be able to pay those mortgages, then they wouldn't take up those cheap loans. Or, if they expected deflation, they wouldn't buy houses now because they expected the price of houses to fall. Or maybe the increase in house prices would cause more houses to be built, thus the price of houses would return to where it was before....and so on.
So the banks are not free to just create/lend money, irrespective of what is happening in the economy. They are only one part of the system.