Fractional reserves are not free to banks. The bank must pay it's deposit holders and bond holders interest on the money on deposit and lent. When a bank lends money to someone, they need to make sure they are an appropriate risk and price the loan accordingly. When a borrower falls behind on their payments they need to make collection efforts to collect what is owed by the borrower. All of these things cost money.
Bullshit. The fractional part is created out of thin air. That is what makes it fractional. They don't pay any interest on this newly created money.
I think you take the "create money out of thin air" expression too literally. They get money from depositors and they loan it out. That's how money appears to be created since both the depositor and the borrower act as if they have the money.
^Yes, that's the way it's supposed to work. Problem is government overspent long ago and took out loans from the banks but they only have enough money through citizen taxes to pay on the interest of the loans but not the loans themselves.( All Corporate taxes are used for the military budget in the US - (Yearly Military Budget = Yearly Corporate Taxes")(Roads and bridges come from fuel tax with help from state and local taxes)
Our countries are BROKE. The "Bankers" - Not the banks are who receives the lucrative profits of this broke system. They bribe, steal and commit crimes any way they want to so it stays that way. The Bankers even had the government create a special Country Club prision and lienit laws called white collar crimes incase one of them would get caught in a public scandal from time to time..
THE BANKS DO NOT HAVE THE ACTUAL MONEY to make these loans. That's what nobody pays attention to. If the entire banking system of Canada has a total of 4 Billion dollars on reserves, how can they loan out 1.5 trillion dollars and keep loaning out more and more every day? It's even worse in the US. The government Canada/USA have been enabling banks to create money LITERALLY OUT OF THIN AIR in the form of loans. That's right, they type a number in and hit enter, poof, they just created money that DID NOT exist until that keystroke. It's really that simple.
PLEASE watch this 6 minute video and u will understand. It is explained in layman's terms by a 12 yo little girl.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ae7h8FioX0Update: You do have to be careful about pointing out the truth. I don't talk about this stuff much because people are conditioned from an early age to believe a certain way through the education system, political correctness, propaganda and just the stupid belief not to question everything - especially the government. Two months ago the FBI sent a letter to all police departments stating all people that quote the law quickly and strongly defend their constitutional rights should be considered "Domestic Terrorists". Google it.
Goverment centralized Banking will be forced to work with bitcoin. No government would let you keep the private keys. You would only be allowed to have a view only wallet(or Mycelium type) and would have to access your funds through a federal institution ran by bankers that would keep the keys available to the government at all times.