People's understanding of this is backward. The debt is what the banks owe the people. The fact is that when people get a bank loan, they prepay it with the signed promissory note. If the promissory isn't signed, the bank won't give them the loan. When it is signed, it has value to the tune of the amount of the loan. The signed promissory is private money that the bank is permitted legally to accept in trade for public money. --- When the "borrower" repays the loan with interest over the years, he is really purchasing good credit, because he already paid the loan off through the promissory prepayment. The bank is required under UCC laws to make this money available to the borrower with interest earned, when he asks for it through filling out the proper form. --- Google "Tom Schauf, bank freedom." Tom was a bank CPA.