[pest]

Originally Posted by Tiwaz

At pest: Yes, you are partly right. Since the abolition of the system of Bretton Woods (for every dollar there is one dollar in gold), the currency is purely an abstract symbol.
Don't know what you mean by 'fed' (federal government?); what I do know is that the American banks don't not have reserves for Japanese accounts. They require an amount of money to make the transfer, but once it's gone, it's gone. The dollars become yen.

By fed I meant federal reserve.

I cannot put a finger on any validation, but I disagree about a yen *poof* becoming a dollar. Maybe to the end user it appears that way, but there are transactions behind the scenes to make the rest flow.

Money can only be created in two ways - it is either printed or the creation of wealth thru lending, which is more complex than I want to type.