“What is money?
Gold and silver have been used as money …. but banks issued what I will call money derivatives.” and “But as we all know, banks quickly managed to issue money derivatives that were not backed by gold or silver, ”

If it is a derivative, it derives from it. Fiat currency is not a money derivative, because it is not derived from gold or silver. A warehouse receipt for gold might be a derivative, depending on its wording, but a fiat note is a fiat note.

WE cede the ground to the opponents when we use their terms. I think we need not argue so much as simply label instruments accurately. I just re-examined a USA dollar bill. Absolutely nothing fraudulent is stated on the note. No where does it say “money.” When we call it money, we do our opponents work for them. The fraud emanates from our side by default for our sloppy acceptance of their terms.

(I also have a 1957 USA dollar silver certificate that claims to have on deposit in the treasury of the United States one dollar worth of silver payable on demand to the bearer. This is not true, but only because one day the US Government repudiated its obligations to the bearers. So the note is not fraudulent, it is mere evidence of theft.)

I think we can do more by just labeling accurately than arguing with terms that may not communicate ideas.

By gum, I am going to write a dictionary that will blow the lid off fractional reserve banking.

I agree that people are better off if we not view national money as just another commodity.
But so what?

First, if the “amount” of exchange media is appropriate for the goods and services existing, there can be no inflation by von Mises definition, let alone hyperinflation.
Second, let those who want to move from the stability of state-money holdings to an investment in any commodity do so at your advice.
Again, so what?

In the end, those commodity-holders have a bunch of stuff that is worth “money”, and you still need money to exchange the goods and services.

Given that all currencies are pretty much equally affected by hyped-up commodity bubbles, the benefits to the real economies are elusive.

Of course, if you make a buck on both the buying and the selling of those commodities, hey, this looks like a really good business decision.

Just saying.
For the Money System Common.

And here I was, thinking it was because I could pay my taxes with them. It is all just a protection racet, and currently you must pay with “money”.

I think the problem isn’t so much fantasy films as real life leftist demagogues. It’s not that people can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, it’s that they’ve been sold a false reality. They’ve been taught to respect authority, and trust the experts, and these people have been saying that the Welfare State is sustainable. They’re not expecting fairies or aliens to save the day, but they expect the benefit cheques to keep rolling in as surely as the sun rises.

I agree with you that state schooling and state-controlled media (e.g. BBC) is largely responsible.

Paraphrasing John M. Keynes, these institutional arrangements for money and credit are the barbarous relic of the mercantilist era. Liberalism deserves better in this area of human activity in order to fulfill its promise to the common man. A society of free enterprise can not be built and can not progress on the weak foundations of present monetary and credit institutions.

In a zero reserve currency the creation of credit from nothing will not ínflate the amount of money in the system but only serve to increase the velocity:

One bank in the country and ten customers each with $10 in their accounts and the country has a total amount of money in the system of $100.

The accounts are all at call.

Customer A wants a loan of $10 with no payback for 2 years in order to buy a tractor from the manufacturer, customer B.

The bank is happy to oblige. Now customer A has $20 and the bank still has $100 as they loaned money that had been deposited with them by other customers and credited the account of customer A.

Customer A now buys his tractor from customer B who deposits the $10 with the bank, leaving the bank still with £100 (a debit to customer A and a credit to customer B).

The bank can continue doing this as often as it likes without the bother of depositing a fraction with the Central Bank but, so far as I can see, all that is happening is that the credit has increased the velocity of money causing a tractor sale that would not otherwise have occured and an expectation of increased sales by the tractor manufacturer.

Almost certainly, this will eventually lead to malinvestment and, were there more than one bank,the bursting of a bubble when they stop lending to each other and to the tractor manufacturer and his customers; but, no inflation of the money supply