What the banks have done is print so much currency for themselves, that they own more currency than any market is worth, that way they can control how much currency is in each market by adding or taking away credit to each market. There is over a quadrillion dollars "in print" but most of it sits in asset reserve and isn't traded.
It is not for nothing Economics is known as the "dismal science." Here's a graph which purports to explain "everything:"
"What the chart shows is that the vast increase in the monetary base didn’t impact lending or trigger the credit expansion the Fed had predicted.
"In other words, the Fed’s madcap pump-priming experiment (aka– QE) failed to stimulate growth or put the economy back on the path to recovery.
"For all practical purposes, the policy was a flop.
"QE did, however, touch off an unprecedented 6-year bull market rally that pushed stocks into the stratosphere while the real economy continued to languish in a long-term slump.
"And the numbers are pretty impressive too.
"For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which bottomed at 6,507 on March 9, 2009, soared to an eye-popping 18,312 points by May 19, 2015, an 11,805 point-surge in just five years. "
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/15/the-chart-that-explains-everything/