Fractional reserve banking, where in theory the banks don’t actually have to have the money they lend you and in practice means they don’t actually have to have any at all, doesn’t just apply to money. They can do it with gold too;
Proof once again that while it might make the mattress lumpy keeping gold where you can get your fist on it in an emergency is the only way to buy gold.
This is how it all began with the original goldsmiths, so we seem to have come full circle.
BB