What "fundamentals" are they talking about? Ability of central banks to print money,....

Small caveat here. Banks, central or otherwise, do not print money. Banks do create money by loaning out money they have on deposit, which is deposited back into the banks and more money is created by loaning out that money and so on.

However banks lose this ability to create money as loans are recalled or defaulted on. These are the fundamentals! The money supply moves up and down, driven by the credit market and other things.

I know you may have meant banks create money when you said they print money. But this phrase has been repeated so many times that a lot of people actually believe that banks have a printing press in the back room where they print money. This is a dangerous myth that does not need to be perpetuated.

The vast majority of money in circulation does not exist in any form of print. It is only a ledger entry, or computer entry, on the banks books. And that is just another great misuse the word "print".

Only the US Treasurer can print money and they do it only when old worn out bills are burned or new money is ordered, and paid for, by the banks.

A little story. I have read that the poor of South Africa and other African countries, mostly blacks, believe that white people, when they run out of money, can simply go to the bank and get some more. The bank, to them, is just a magical place where white people can go to get money on demand. The belief that banks can simply print money, when they need some more, is very similar to this belief.

Ron Patterson