Kosta Ouzas explains why your bank deposit isn't really yours: the moment you deposit money, the bank owns it and you become a creditor. Banks immediately lend it out, trade it, and make leveraged bets on bonds, currencies, and derivatives. When those bets go wrong, your money disappears.
Most people believe their money is sitting quietly in a bank vault tagged with their name, waiting patiently for the day they decide to use it. But that's not reality. You see, the moment you deposit your money, it stops being yours in any practical sense. Legally, it becomes the bank's asset and your liability a number on a ledger promising they owe you something back someday. In the meantime, they use it as raw fuel. It becomes capital for them to lend, trade, speculate and move across the world at blinding speed. And, and move it they do. They push it into bond markets. They make leveraged bets on foreign currencies. They park billions in short term debt one day, then swing into derivatives the next. They trade interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, options and futures contracts most depositors couldn't even describe. They even take concentrated positions that if they go wrong, can detonate in spectacular fashion. These are not careful, conservative moves designed to protect your money. They are aggressive, calculated risk. The coin that would make most individual traders palms sweat. And they do it with other people's capital. They do it with your capital.
