an inverted pyramid.
Before the Federal Reserve, commercial banks, under a 10 percent reserve ratio, could hold a $20 gold piece in reserve and create another $180 of loans, for a total of $200. But with the Federal Reserve as the foundation under the banking pyramid and having a reserve requirement of 40 percent, the Fed could put $50 in circulation for each $20 gold coin it had in the vaults. Then the banks, as the second layer in the pyramid, could create loans of $450 for a total of $500.
With the new gold exchange standard, foreign central banks could use dollars instead of gold. This meant that if the Federal Reserve had a $20 gold piece in the vault, and issued $50, then a foreign central bank could hold that $50 in reserve and, at a reserve ratio of 40 percent, issue the equivalent of $125 of their currency. Then when that $125 hit the banks, the banks could expand that to $1,250 worth of claim checks, all backed by a single, solitary $20 gold piece. That means that the real reserve ratio (the ratio of real money that could be paid out against their currency) was now only 1.6 percent.
Now there was an inverted pyramid, on top of an inverted pyramid, on top of an inverted pyramid. This was highly unstable. Ultimately, the gold exchange standard was a faulty system that governments imposed on their citizens, which allowed the governments to act as if their currencies were as valuable as before the war. This was a system that was destined for failure.
The Rise of Credit Culture
But every pyramid scheme flourishes in its early days, and so did the gold exchange standard. With all the new currency available from the central banks, the commercial banks generated many new loans. This abundance of currency led to the greatest consumer credit expansion thus far in American history, which, in turn, led to the biggest economic boom America had ever experienced. In a very real sense, credit put the roar in the Roaring Twenties.
Before 1913 the vast majority of loans had been commercial. Loans on nonfarmland real estate and consumer installment credit, like auto loans, were almost nonexistent, and interest rates were very high. But with the advent of the Fed, credit for cars, homes, and stocks was now cheap and easy. The effect of low interest rates combined with these new types of loans was immediate; bubbles sprang up everywhere. There was the Florida real estate bubble of 1925, and then of course the infamous stock market bubble of the late 1920s.
During the 1920s, many Americans stopped saving and started investing, treating their brokerage account as a savings account, much like many Americans treated their homes in our most recent housing bubble. But a brokerage account is not a savings account, nor is a house. The value of a savings account depends on how many dollars you put in. But the value of a brokerage account or a house depends solely on the perception of others. If someone thinks your assets have value, then they do, but if they don’t think they have value, then they don’t.
In a credit-based economy, whether the economy does well or does poorly is largely based on people’s perception. If people believe things are great, then people borrow and spend currency, and the economy flourishes. But if people have the least bit of anxiety, if they have doubts about tomorrow, then watch out!
In 1929, the stock market crashed, the credit bubble burst, and the U.S. economy slid into depression.
The Mechanics of a Depression
The popping of a credit bubble is a deflationary event, and in the case of the Great Depression it was massively deflationary. To understand how a deflation occurs, you need to know how our currency is born, and how it can join the ranks of the dearly departed.
When we take out a loan from a bank, the bank does not actually loan us any of the currency that was on deposit at the bank. Instead, the second the pen hits the paper on that mortgage, loan document, or credit card receipt that we are signing, the bank is allowed to create those dollars as a book entry. In other words, we create the currency. The bank is not allowed to do it without our signature. We create the currency, and then the bank gets to charge us interest for the currency we created. This brand-new currency we just created then becomes part of the currency supply. Much of our currency supply is created in this way.
But when a home goes into foreclosure, a loan gets defaulted on, or someone files bankruptcy, that currency simply disappears back into currency heaven where it came from. So as credit goes bad, the currency supply contracts, and deflation sets in.
This is what happened in 1930-1933, and it was disastrous. As a wave of foreclosures and bankruptcies swept the nation, one-third of the currency supply of the United States evaporated into thin air. Over the next three years, wages and prices fell by one third.
Run, Baby, Run
Bank runs are also enormously deflationary events because when you deposit one dollar into the bank, the bank carries that dollar as a liability on its books. It someday owes that dollar back to you. However, under a fractional reserve system, the bank is then allowed to create currency in the form of credit (loans), in an amount many times that of the original deposit, which it carries on its books as assets. As we’ve discussed, under a 10 percent reserve, a one dollar liability can create another $9 of assets for the bank.
This is normally not a problem, as long as the bank isn’t loaned-up to the maximum amount permitted. With just a small amount of “excess” reserves, the bank can cover the day-to-day fluctuations because most of the time deposits and withdrawals come close to balancing out. But a serious problem can develop when too many people show up to make withdrawals at the same time without the counterbalancing effect of the relatively same amount of people making deposits. If withdrawals exceed deposits, the bank will draw from those “excess” reserves. Once those “excess” reserves have been used up, however, fractional reserve banking is then thrown into vicious reverse. From that point on, to be able to pay out one dollar against deposits, the bank must liquidate $9 of loans. This was what was happening in 1931, and it was one of the major contributing factors to the collapse of the U.S. currency supply.
Also, prior to the advent of the Federal Reserve, the public had about one dollar in the bank for each dollar in its pockets, and the banks kept one dollar of reserves on hand to pay out against each $3 of deposits. But thanks to the Federal Reserve, by 1929 the public had $11 in bank deposits for each dollar in its pocket, and the banks only had one dollar on hand to pay out against every $13 in deposits. This was a very dangerous situation. The public had lots of deposits and very little cash, and the banks also had very little cash to back up those deposits.
By November of 1930, bank failures were more than double the highest monthly level ever recorded. Over 250 banks with more than $180 million in deposits would fail that month. But this was only the beginning.
The largest single bank failure in U.S. history happened on December 11, 1930. The sixty-two-branch Bank of the United States collapsed. This failure would have a cascading effect, causing over 352 banks with more than $370 million in deposits to fail in that month alone. Worst of all, this was before deposit insurance. People’s entire life savings were lost in the blink of an eye.
Then, to top it all off, on September 21, 1931, Great Britain defaulted from the gold exchange standard, throwing the world into monetary chaos. Foreign governments, along with businesses and private investors from the United States and around the world, began to fear that the U.S. might follow suit. Suddenly, there was a dash for cash.
Within the U.S., banks were running out of gold coin, and at the same time tremendous outflows of gold began to leave the vaults of the Federal Reserve, destined for far-off lands. The pyramid scheme that was the gold exchange standard began to crumble. To stop the bleeding, the Fed more than doubled the cost of currency in the U.S., raising the rates from 1.5 to 3.5 percent in one week.
As a result, between August 1931 and January 1932, 1,860 banks with $1.4 billion in deposits suspended their operations.
However, 1932 was an election year. Three long years into the Depression people were desperate for a change, and in November, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president. Even though his inauguration wouldn’t be until March, rumors started flying that he would devalue the dollar. Again gold flowed out of the vaults as foreign governments, foreign investors, and the American public lost even