I have been reading Rothbard's For A New Liberty and i am not an economist. While Rothbard mostly does a great job of explaining things, he does not go too far into what it means that the fed creates money for itself by purchasing government securities on the open market. I was hoping someone a little more enlightened than myself could explain to me, in layman's terms, what this process actually entails. i understnad that the fed can create money and i understand fractional reserve lending, but the purchase of government securities confounds me. If they are GOVERNMENT securities (securities, are these bonds?) then why is the GOVERNMENT purchasing them. It seems like they would be having to sell them to garner the credit they need to create the 6:1 ratio of fractional reserve lending. Thanks