Unpopular opinion, but I don't think banks should be able to loan out money that's not theirs, and printing money is bad.

Gold good, paper bad. But also, gold bad, because clipping.

If only there was a solution.

This probably won't make you feel any better, but banks don't really loan out money that's not theirs. When they lend money, they literally create it out of thin air. Creating that money has a cost, which is what ultimately limits how much they can lend, and having more deposits can lower that cost somewhat, but there's no direct connection between the money you deposit in your account and the money that the bank lends to someone else.

That’s a take!

The modern world would collapse in about a week if banks were not allowed to loan out deposits.

The ability to satisfy needs now and pay for them in the future is why you can have a house, why governments can build infrastructure, etc. That’s the only reason that banks really exist. Keeping your deposit safe for you while providing convenient access via cards, checks and other rails is just a wonderful side effect.

After a few thousand years of civilization we don’t have anything better that could allow you to satisfy current needs with future income. Direct loans are just vendors acting as de facto banks, at much higher risk.

A bank product that doesn’t loan out your deposits is called a safe deposit box. There’s your solution.

The problem isn't really that banks can create money. Ultimately it's up to the people whether they trust paper IOUs or not. The trust in IOUs happened organically and would happen again, unless you suggest they should be outlawed (ie. it's illegal to write a piece of paper saying "I promise to pay the bearer..." on it).

The problem is the governments can bail the banks out. After 2008, trust in paper IOUs (or their digital equivalent) should have plummeted, leading people to seek to store their wealth in other ways. But it didn't, because the governments stepped in and said, "nah, we need this to work, so we'll pay their salaries and bonuses with your taxes".

Bitcoin was intended to be a solution to this problem. There's nothing stopped people creating derivatives on top of Bitcoin and trading those. But nobody, no government nor anybody else, can just print more Bitcoin.

> printing money is bad

How can there be more money in circulation if we can’t create more?

Since wealth can increase (there’s more wealth today than 1000 years ago) why would you expect that money wouldn’t?

Or do you think there should always have been only $1 constant dollar for all time?

> Unpopular opinion, but I don't think banks should be able to loan out money that's not theirs,

Why not, as long as they have the consent of the owner? And all banks have the consent of the depositors.