Oblique---I'll second that!--Pynchon. Gold and the Gold Standard and so forth.

[Mark Kohut]

Abstract

This paper presents the first empirical evidence in the history of
banking on the question of whether banks can create money out of
nothing. The banking crisis has revived interest in this issue, but it
had remained unsettled. Three hypotheses are recognised in the
literature. According to the financial intermediation theory of
banking, banks are merely intermediaries like other non-bank financial
institutions, collecting deposits that are then lent out. According to
the fractional reserve theory of banking, individual banks are mere
financial intermediaries that cannot create money, but collectively
they end up creating money through systemic interaction. A third
theory maintains that each individual bank has the power to create
money 'out of nothing' and does so when it extends credit (the credit
creation theory of banking). The question which of the theories is
correct has far-reaching implications for research and policy.
Surprisingly, despite the longstanding controversy, until now no
empirical study has tested the theories. This is the contribution of
the present paper. An empirical test is conducted, whereby money is
borrowed from a cooperating bank, while its internal records are being
monitored, to establish whether in the process of making the loan
available to the borrower, the bank transfers these funds from other
accounts within or outside the bank, or whether they are newly
created. This study establishes for the first time empirically that
banks individually create money out of nothing. The money supply is
created as 'fairy dust' produced by the banks individually, "out of
thin air".
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