"Ownership" of "Productive assets" requires the legal concept of "Property" and the conventional mechanism requires two conflicting legal claims over the same assets.

(a) the claim of the Financier;
(b) the claim of the user of the Finance.

These claims are irreconcilable in our current defict Money "paradigm" and it is the conflict between "Debt" and "Equity" forms of "Financial Capital" which is the faultline in our current system.

I believe the "Capital Partnership" transcends thisthrough giving rise to a single continuous "open capital" asset class of proportional "equity shares" in GROSS revenues

When you think about it, both the financier, and the user of finance are sharing the output (or the revenues from the sale of the output) from the productive asset, and the legal protocols of the  contract of Debt and the Joint Stock Limited Liability Company each give rise to imperfect sharing of risk and reward.

The problem is that the "Principal" provided by Banks is not based upon pre-existing "wealth" or "money's worth, but upon future "Money's worth" to be created by the asset.

Banks are literally providing nothing (other than a Guarantee) for something.

Renting an asset "owned" by someone is a very different thing to renting a guarantee.

The "value" that Banks provide is their Guarantee - backed by 8% of Capital. And there is no reason at all why that Guarantee should not be provided mutually, with bilateral "trade" credit managed by banks instead.

The "fair" or "natural" rate of "Interest" in respect of unsecured credit is the shared cost of administration and of defaults. Anything more is IMHO de facto inflationary.

A fair "Capital Rental" on the other hand is the proportion of production or revenues from sale of production, bearing in mind the certainty of that level of production being achieved.

If this return is based upon equitable sharing of risk and reward, the result is IMHO an optimal outcome for all stakeholders.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Now seriously, money is the ability to mobilize economic resources, including mobilising oneself. Banks, by being given the ability to create money and award credit, get to decide who gets to do what they want, and who doesn't.

Bush is a symptom, not the disease.

Capital is "Static", or "potential", Value consisting of "Money's Worth" in:
(a) "Property" ("fixed capital"); and
(b) obligations = credit ("working capital").

That's what Money SHOULD be and COULD be in a rational moneatry system based upon a "Clearing Union" approach and backed by "Guarantee Societies".

The toxic form of deficit-based Money currently in use is an interest-bearing "Claim over Value" issued - as Migeru puts it - "ex nihilo".

In essence it's the Bank taking my credit (promise to provide future value) and reflecting it back to me with their "guarantee". A Bank's "claim on a claim over Value" is a "double negative" giving a "false positive".

It is an illusion of Value or, in an analogy to anti-matter: "anti-Value".

Note that the whole business of "credit derivatives" is to all intents and purpose Banks outsourcing their "Guarantee".

My proposal of a partnership-based "Guarantee Society" achieves the same result, but without the costs and complexity.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson