Now Bernanke Wants To Eliminate Reserve Requirements Completely

Michael Snyder
Business Insider
March 18, 2010

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

(This post appeared at The Economic Collapse.)

Up until now, the United States has operated under a “fractional reserve” banking system.  Banks have always been required to keep a small fraction of the money deposited with them for a reserve, but were allowed to loan out the rest.  But now it turns out that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wants to completely eliminate minimum reserve requirements, which he says ”impose costs and distortions on the banking system”. At least that is what a footnote to his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services on February 10th says. So is Bernanke actually proposing that banks should be allowed to have no reserves at all?

That simply does not make any sense. But it is right there in black and white on the Federal Reserve’s own website….

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