Today the method is a little more indirect. Our government sells its bonds or other IOUs to the banks. In payment, the banks create "deposits" on their books against which the government can draw. A bank in turn may sell its government IOUs to the Federal Reserve Bank, which pays for them either by creating a deposit credit or having more Federal Reserve notes printed and paying them out. This is how money is manufactured.

The greater part of the "money supply" of this country is represented not by hand-to-hand currency but by bank deposits which are drawn against by checks. Hence when most economists measure our money supply they add demand deposits (and now frequently, also, time deposits) to currency outside of banks to get the total. The total of money and credit so measured was $63.3 billion at the end of December 1939, and $308.8 billion at the end of December 1963. This increase of 388% in the supply of money is overwhelmingly the reason why wholesale prices rose 138% in the same period.