(3) Besides the two essential functions of all banks, namely, the receiving of deposits and the discounting of bills, most of them perform a variety of other legitimate operations in Credit, which must be classed among the advantages of Credit. They buy and sell debts of all sorts. They make collection of debts for their customers. They sell their own drafts on distant places. Since 1863, our national banks have done an immense business in handling the debt of the United States: they were instrumental in diffusing the national bonds among all classes of the people: they collect for their customers the coupons at maturity: they have been and still are the factors of the government in exchanging, for those who desire it, one species of bond for another; and the entire debt of the United States has been several times changed, mainly through the agency of the banks, from bonds at high rates of interest and for short times of maturity to bonds at lower rates and for longer times. (4) The fourth, and probably the chief, advantage of Credit is the fact, that a new purchasing-power is created by means of it, a new Valuable, something additional to all existing before in the world of Values. One can buy other things with Credit, as well as with material Commodities and personal Services. Credit, therefore, becomes a Salable under the two peculiar limitations already explained, those of future Time and personal Confidence, just as Commodities become a Salable under the peculiar limitations belonging to _them_; and, what is more to the present purpose, just as some Commodities (all of them salable) become Capital under the action of the abstinence of their owners, so some Credits (all of them salable) become Capital under the action of the Abstinence of their owners. Some commodities and some credits are expended, that is, sold, for the immediate gratification of their owners, without ever a thought of a future increase to accrue; but also, some commodities and credits are reserved by their owners for use in further production, that is, for future buying and selling; and the motive in all such cases is the same that creates all Capital everywhere, namely, the increase to accrue as the result of such abstinence; and, consequently, we lay down the postulate with all confidence, and enumerate it as one of the main advantages of Credit, that some Credits are CAPITAL, with all the powers in production of that potent agent already exemplified.