From Murray N. Rothbard, in The Case Against The Fed:
Government paper, as pernicious as it may be, is a relatively straightforward form of counterfeiting. The public can understand the concept of “printing dollars” and spending them, and they can understand why such a flood of dollar will come to be worth a great deal less than gold, or than uninflected paper, of the same denomination, whether “dollar,” “franc,” or “mark.” Far more difficult to grasp, however, and therefore far more insidious, are the nature and consequences of “fractional-reserve banking,” a more subtle and modern form of counterfeiting. It is not difficult to see the consequences of a society awash in a flood of new paper money; but it is far more difficult to envision the results of an expansion of intangible bank credit.
For a full exposition of the flaws of fractional-reserve banking, see The Federal Reserve Bank Must Be Destroyed! and The Golden Pinnacle, Robert Gore’s novel of the Industrial Revolution, available as an Amazon paperback or as a download from Kindle or Nook.
