I seriously recommend all protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement to read this article. Dan Hind in Al Jazeera:
Money is lent into existence by banks Google Translate
There’s nothing complicated going on behind the scenes. The great secret is that there isn’t really much of a secret. Yet the truth about money eludes us for most of the time.
The economist and ironist JK Galbraith once wrote that ”the process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. When something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent”. Offered the unadorned truth, stripped of any technocratic flim-flam, we can scarcely believe it. It seems preposterous that money should have such humble origins, as though it is beneath money’s dignity that it should begin life at a banker’s keystroke.
The truth about money creation is a bit like the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, when it turns out that there is no all-knowing wizard, only an old man behind a curtain, making things up as he goes along.
”So, banks create money through the act of lending it.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/201110792416802157.html
More about money creation (in swedish but very interesting, use Google Translate):
http://superzeke.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/oppet-brev-till-landets-politiker-om-vart-penningsystem/
Varför banker ljuger och säger att de lånar ut pengar
http://dagens.etc.se/kronika/vad-ar-det-krig-vi-ser