IN TEXTBOOKS MONEY is a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account. In life it is a giant confidence trick: people trade with it, save it and keep count with it because everyone else does. Notes are just slips of paper; coins, mere alloy. Most money is simply data: some in the form of “reserves”, liabilities of the central bank; much more of it created by banks calling loans and deposits into being at a keystroke.

IN TEXTBOOKS MONEY is a means of exchange, a store of value and a unit of account. In life it is a giant confidence trick: people trade with it, save it and keep count with it because everyone else does. Notes are just slips of paper; coins, mere alloy. Most money is simply data: some in the form of “reserves”, liabilities of the central bank; much more of it created by banks calling loans and deposits into being at a keystroke.