By and large, we are in agreement on the technical details of how the system functions. I still think that as a way to present this process in a way the larger public can comprehend is to first clarify that money is a contract, between the public/government and the people/individuals.

Obviously it is currently conceived as a commodity, such as gold, or bitcoin. This might seem a somewhat blurry distinction, between a dynamic medium and a stable asset, but that attempt to store the medium has economically radioactive consequences.

“This was promoted as a “borrowing operation”, but was actually just destroying reserves and paying on the debt.”

Which was how Reagan brought stagflation under control, rather than just higher interest rates, which only slowed the economy and the need for money.

By borrowing out excess and spending it in ways which didn’t compete with the private sector for profits, he grew the economy, mostly through military spending. The problem with all this being done surreptitiously is this money gets spent unproductively. Not to say a good military isn’t wise, but this has become an extremely bloated one, with little accountability, whose primary function seems to be to make those reserves conveniently disappear.

As we all pick up from the news, the flow of the money is essential, yet politicians prime us to think of it as property. We own money like we own the water flowing through our bodies. Obviously we don’t try to store it, nor do we appreciate being deprived of it, by a system seemingly designed to siphon it out of the majority of the community, as debt, to back the savings of those well established within the system.

As you said in your initial post, the real problem is making the argument comprehensible to a larger audience.