You seem to believe that this was some sort of abstract theoretical debate. You couldn't be more wrong. The thread was contemporary with the Occupy movement, and here at St Pauls and across in the US at Wall St. there were many on the gound propagating monetary and banking reform,obtaining a receptive audience, and they had to be refuted and their policies rebutted. Somehow, I don't think you went to the link and read what i replied concerning once again the idea that the all problems of capitalism can be laid at the feet of the banks and the financial crisis'I will repeat the crucial argument here for you now and it may save you re-reading the whole thread which provides ample proof of our case.
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If banks could create money/credit with the stroke of a pen, that would mean in effect they could create wealth, and consequently the Marxist Theory of Value would be shown to be wrong. For some people rather than challenge the capitalist system per se, they seek to divert attention to what they consider to be only failings of just parts of capitalism which can be remedied by government policy and legislation. There is always a falling-out-among-thieves from the different capital sectors seeking advantage for themselves by fixing capitalism’s problem on others. In the past it was the industrial trusts and the monopolies. Today, it is the financial sphere that has become focus for reform. The problem before society to-day is not a financial problem. It is a property problem.The banks belong to the superstructure of capitalism. Private property is the foundation. So banking is intimately connected to 'the real economy', but it isn't productive but instead provides the necessary liquidity and fluidity for the production and circulation of commodities. The financial crises, consumption crises, credit crises and the like are nothing more than the reflections of the fundamental economic crisis arising from the anarchy of production. If you abolished the Fed and the Big Banks and even brought in a different monetary system this would still leave corporations owning and controlling productive resources and using them to generate a profit rather than to directly satisfy people's needs.My real concern is that a broad informal alliance of credit/money creationists are diverting attention away from abolishing capitalism and towards their various and often conflicting alternative banking models. These views dominate the banking debate on the progressive /left-wing websites and are steering political action into futile reform of banks.
As you see, the problem of erroneous analysis on banks is not some minor one that can be ignored
