Readit NewsSuncho commented on A quick breakdown of what SWIFT is and why it matters twitter.com/sahilbloom/st... · Posted by u/tosh
>I can 100% confirm that all money in the world is just literally numbers, and it is balanced by the different federal reserve systems around the world to ensure no one can "create" money without notifying everyone.
How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone? Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence? Is it all just a trust-based system, or are there additional controls?
> How does the system guarantee that nobody's creating money without notifying everyone?
This is a comment that's not related to SWIFT in particular.
Every asset (including money) is generally someone else's liability. The money that we hold as an asset is the liability of a bank. Anyone can issue their own liabilities, but you can't create money that's a liability of someone else. For example, I can't go to my bank and tell them I have a million dollars more in my deposit account than I actually do. They're keeping track on their end.
Similarly, a bank can't pretend that it has more reserve deposits at the Fed than it really does. The Fed keeps track of everybody's reserve accounts on their end.
> Furthermore, does the system guarantee that the central banks of each country are correctly adjusting their books in consequence?
This isn't an issue. The books of central banks don't need to adjust when other banks issue money (i.e deposits).
It can't be just a number on a computer in a bank, right? Otherwise some Russian bank could just increase that number to whatever they like. And say "Look, we own 100 Trillion USD. Now let's go shopping.".
So I guess USD needs to be recognized by the US somehow?
Could the US simply "void" all USD that are owned by Russia?
It's two numbers in computers. It's a number in the computer of the bank that issued the money, and it's a corresponding number in the computer of whoever is holding that money as an asset.
> Otherwise some Russian bank could just increase that number to whatever they like. And say "Look, we own 100 Trillion USD. Now let's go shopping."
It's not possible for a Russian bank to pretend they're holding more USD assets than they really are. The issuing bank knows how much USD is in Russian bank's deposit account. The Russian bank can issue its own USD liabilities (i.e. deposits) which are IOUs for the USD reserves that the bank holds on the asset side of its balance sheet. If the bank issues too many USD liabilities, they risk suffering a bank run that drains their USD reserves and puts them out of business.
> So I guess USD needs to be recognized by the US somehow?
Not exactly. It's possible to have a USD-denominated deposit account at a bank that h deposits at banks in the US. Most of the USD-denominated instruments in the world are not directly recognized by the US. But the international monetary system is hierarchical. Every USD instrument is an IOU for another USD instrument. If you follow the chain of IOUs, eventually, you'll get to the Fed.