"credit is NOT money"
Money, at root and per all economic schools (one of the very few things that they all agree on), is a "medium of exchange".
Credit, in all its forms, can be used to buy *stuff* and is therefore money - by definition.
"There can be no doubt that besides the regular types of the circulating medium, such as coin, notes and bank deposits, which are generally recognized to be money or currency, and the quantity of which is regulated by some central authority or can at least be imagined to be so regulated, there exist still other forms of media of exchange which occasionally or permanently do the service of money. Now while for certain practical purposes we are accustomed to distinguish these forms of media of exchange from money proper as being mere substitutes for money, it is clear that, other things equal, any increase or decrease of these money substitutes will have exactly the same effects as an increase or decrease of the quantity of money proper, and should therefore, for the purposes of theoretical analysis, be counted as money".
-- Friedrich Hayek, Prices and Production, 1935, p. 96
NB: this is one of the very few things that Jesse and I disagree on. The man has been and is on the money -- for years and years.
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