"It's the mother of all ponzi-schemes"
No, fractional-reserve-banking is NOT a ponzi scheme, simply because customer deposits are insured. As such, customers are not at risk of losing their money. Investing in a bank (or other company) as a shareholder is a different issue. That is governed by the SEC, NOT the FBI.
Hoo-boy, I almost forgot about the INSURANCE SCAM.
Do you realize that the FDIC has nowhere near the cash-money-dollars it would take to payout $10,000.00 per depositor? If even a single big bank truly went belly-up, the FDIC would be instantaneously flat-broke.
Have you ever heard of AIG?
Do you know who they sold insurance to?
Spoiler alert, they sold insurance to the worlds largest insurance companies (and AIG went broke).
That's a ponzi-scheme. If you promise people their money, but don't actually have enough money to pay them (if only 10% of customers close their accounts and cash-out, the bank is done-for) then you're running a ponzi-scheme.
It can however, run out of "cash-on-hand".
Why do you think they went insane printing money in QE1, QE2, QE3, QE4?
Did you know we're currently in an "unofficial" QE5?
I've been lucky enough to find at least a handful of people who seem reasonable and willing to engage in civil conversation.
If I undelegate at some point, don't take it personally, I probably just have other priorities demanding my attention.
I believe delegating is vastly superior to casting my below-minimum-payout vote around.
But that's exactly what a BANK does.
You accrue interest on paper, but the bank never has enough capital to cover that paper.
A few people can get out ahead (just like a casino, even Bernie Madoff had a few customers that withdrew huge profits), and by doing so "prove" that "the system works", but just like a casino, they eat you up with fees, and they'll even hold your funds if you try to withdraw any amount greater than a couple thousand bucks (the "Bank Secrecy Act" makes this even worse).
That's actually one of the most attractive aspects of steem (and crypto generally), namely that I can send tokens of value to whomever I wish, whenever I wish.
Notes on the Bank Secrecy Act,
It has been amended several times, including provisions in Title III of the USA PATRIOT Act, which amended the BSA to require financial institutions to establish anti-money-laundering programs by establishing internal policies, procedures, and controls, designating compliance officers, providing ongoing employee training, and testing their programs through independent audits.[4] WIKI
Good example.
I believe there have been some proposals to keep clubs from charging a customer if they don't show up for 31 days.
If your business model relies on charging people for ZERO services, you are running a scam.
Permanent web hosting.
No capital investment is required.
No other significant public forum offers free permanent web hosting and 100%transparency (blockchain FTW!!).
Sure you can get downvoted, but you know who did it.
If you get flagged (insta-banned) on yo.tube or fa.cebuk or pa.ypal, you have ZERO recourse.
ZERO. You don't know who did it, you have no way of asking them, and you have nobody to request help from.
What would be your wish-list of key design features if you had the resources to design your own social-network with exchangeable value-tokens?
This is only "true" technically. If they actually handed out that much cash, inflation (liquidity) would be through the roof and your cash-money-dollars would be next-to-worthless.