Mike maloney hidden secrets of money ep 4

Module 5 Discussion

This week you will learn about money and the Federal Reserve. The monetary system is something that makes each country and the world function on a daily basis. Most people are not aware of how the system was created or how it works. There are several videos this week, but they all contain valuable information that you should know about how money and the central banking system works. This might be the most important information you learn in this course or any other course you will take in college!

For this assignment, you are to view several videos. Here are the links to watch these on YouTube:

Money vs Currency - Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 1 - Mike Maloney (Links to an external site.)Money vs Currency - Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 1 - Mike Maloney

Where Does Money Come From? - Hidden Secrets Of Money Ep 5 - Mike Maloney (Links to an external site.)Where Does Money Come From? - Hidden Secrets Of Money Ep 5 - Mike Maloney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da-5CKg8SsE (Links to an external site.)

Who Controls All of Our Money? (Links to an external site.)Who Controls All of Our Money?

Who Controls All of Our Money? - A Quick Follow Up (Links to an external site.)Who Controls All of Our Money? - A Quick Follow Up

The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money Ep 4 (Links to an external site.)The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money Ep 4

To be eligible for full credit on this assignment, you need to complete the following requirements:

1. You should watch the videos and take thorough notes as you watch the videos to help you answer the questions below.

2. After you have watched the video and taken good notes, THOROUGHLY summarize the information, major topics, examples, etc. from these videos IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

3. Thoroughly explain how the information in the videos relates to the information from the text and the various economic concepts that we have discussed in class to this point, including Chapters 1-16 in your course textbook.

4. List and explain the various ways that the information in the videos relates to the "real world" U.S. economy and the economic decisions or choices that you make in your own life.

5. Provide your thoughts and opinions about the videos:

- What are some key things you learned from viewing the videos? Did you like or dislike the videos? Explain.

- Did you agree with the video’s views on the various issues/problems? Why or why not?

6. If you were suddenly put in charge of helping "fix" the issues addressed in the videos, how would you approach these to make them "better" for the United States and the world? Explain in some detail and provide support/solid reasoning for your opinions. Try to include some reliable sources to support your answer and cite those sources.

*** You also need to provide at least TWO SUBSTANTIVE (thorough, thoughtful, detailed, etc.) replies to the posts of your classmates. These videos and the topics addressed should create quite an interesting discussion and debate this week.

Jessica McGill

Yesterday11 Jun at 16:02

Manage discussion entry

2. The first video, Money vs Currency - Hidden Secrets Of Money Episode 1 - Mike Maloney, was mainly about explaining the defiance between money and currency, as the title suggests. This difference comes down to “store of value”, as Mr. Maloney put it. This equates to purchasing power and the real value that something holds. The main example used in the video is the USD system of currency and gold. As more and more money is printed the value actually stored within paper money diminishes, but with something like gold the stored value remains constant throughout time. In the second video, Where Does Money Come From? - Hidden Secrets Of Money Ep 5 - Mike Maloney, Maloney mainly talkers about the progression of currency over time and how society as a whole transferred, from what he would call a money based economy to a currency based economy. Which means that at the beginning people would barter, then non-uniformed bits of metal were used as money, but finally people started producing uniform bits of metals that align to his definition of money. From that point he starts to discuss how society stopped using actual bits of metal and transitioned into paper currency which is where he says that currency really stops meaning anything. The third video, How Money Is Made - Documentary, details the process of making US currency in its current form. Everything from what kind of paper is used for dollar bills to how they make the mold to cast change. The video also takes several debtors to discuss how different individuals have tried to counterfeit money or steal money from the different minting offices. The fourth and fifth video, Who Controls All of Our Money? And Who Controls All of Our Money? - A Quick Follow up, discuss the same question, what entity has power over money. In the fourth video it is discussed that Central Banks control the money flow in the US and how they accomplish this. The video goes into detail to discuss a culmination of the first two videos with that added discussion of inflation added into the conversation as well as touching on international money/currency as well. The fifth video is much shorter than the fourth one and touches briefly on a few topics that were left out of their original video, such as the concept of a federal bank being the Lender of Last Resort. This follow up video does have a lot of factual information in it but also relies heavily on the opinion of the video maker as they have injected their own interpretation of the situation heavily into this video and the first one, something that the creator did apologize for. The sixth and last video, The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind - Hidden Secrets of Money Ep 4, talks a lot about how the US has a debt based economy and how the cycle of money intrinsically means that no one can own money without also being in debt in some form or another. As well as these facts coupled with the rise of inflation and how it is hurting the ability for people to make a living wage. The video then breaks down the flow of money from the federal government down to the people to highlight the above mentioned facts. 3. I believe that the information in the videos use a lot of the different terms and ideas we have covered so for. A lot of it centers around the currency aspect of economics and not economics as a whole, meaning not taking into account the human variable into things and the trends that people tend to have. A lot of the videos discuss inflation buying power as well as a lot of the things we covered in chapters 14, 15, and 16. 4. The majority of the videos explain how they relate to the “real world”, like the third video when they kept giving anecdotal stories about how various people have tried to steal money from the US mint offices. In addition, the whole Hidden Secrets of Money series is meant to explain how monetary issues relate to the “real world”. The only place that I really see how these videos relate to my everyday life is in the ideas of a debt based society. In order to rent an apartment I need to have a good enough credit score, but to get that credit score I have to have credit, typically outside of just student loan credit. But owning a credit card and borrowing money makes me a part of the system that these videos victimize. 5. I think it was very interesting learning how currency is made in the US and how many precautions are put in place in order to make currency as hard as possible to replicate. Honestly, I didn't really like the videos, they seemed to have an inherent bias about them and also seemed kind of condescending. I personally prefer videos about topics like this that do not draw specific ideas from perseverance truths about how things work. I do not inherently agree or disagree with the videos, I think that there are a lot of good information within the videos but I just do not think that the intuitive jumps that they make are necessarily ones that I would have made when presented with the same basic knowledge. 6. I think that the issues presented within the videos, for the most part, is the debt based economy as well as US currency not being backed by anything other than Government promises. I think that the second issue is a simple idea to fix but hard to implement, the fix being, backing the US currency with gold again or something of similar importance with a solid consistent value. The first issue I mentioned, debt based economy, would need a cultural shift within the country. Because the US is a debt based economy because the US is a purchase driven society and in order to purchase things people need to have money. A fix for this would be paying everyone more but then companies which increase the prices of their products meaning that people still would not be able to buy things. So in order for people to then buy the products they have to go into debt with things like credit cards and loans, perpetuating a debt based society. This shows how a cultural shift is necessary in order to change the US economy from being dead based into something better for more people.

Noah DeWaal

Yesterday11 Jun at 15:05

Manage discussion entry

2. Throughout the videos, one message was made very clear. That message is what we believe is money is just a representation of numbers controlled by the central bank. Across time, currency has evolved into various ideas from trade and barter to stones and paper. All these years, the only form of money has, and always will be, gold and silver. We live in a world where paper money is backed by nothing and when we deposit into a bank, they just create more money by loaning out money to others. One large fault that has been consistently present over time is the idea that printing money can solve inflation, but it really makes it worse. What we have in our modern age is a commodity currency. It is something we have just agreed on but really has no meaning. Central banks have created over 90 percent of currency in our country. The question becomes, who really controls our money and the overall economy. Simply put, it is the top people in the Central banks, which is not even a government agency. The constitution even states that the only form of money should be gold and silver and controlled by the government.

Unfortunately, we work for this money. Then we earn a form of currency in which we must pay money to the IRS to receive and pay money to banks to borrow. In the end, we have a long line of debt that is greater than the amount of currency. The Fed continues to be safe as they are able to write checks from an account that has no money and in turn just creates more money to restart the process. The banking authority is based on IOUs (bonds) that are "paid off" which checks. Central banks also make decisions based on models with no accurate or real input. They are a private corporation that runs to control all money. The use of bonds also harms us. it basically allows the central bank to have money now and the payment of those bonds will fall on the people to pay through taxes. In the end, our economy ran on fiat money is predicted to fail as history has repeatedly shown. Debt will grow and grow and eventually, will collapse on us when we realize it is totally unplayable due to the hoax of currency.

3. This relates to what we have read about basic the economy is money. We work to obtain a portion of the money supply. Those goods and services we provide add to the GDP which the demand and supply of can greatly affect how much work is available (unemployment). The government is there along the way to help make sure everything runs rather smoothly. When price level grows, they work to limit that growth with contractionary methods and when a recession hits, expansionary methods come into play. It is truly all based on what we read in chapters 14, 15, and 16. The Central bank creates and controls all the money that influences these factors of the macroeconomic and inturn, debt accumulates. The government can only do so much with fiscal policy but it is the banks that truly control monetary policy. They control how much bonds to buy and sell as well as how much money banks to keep. They alter discount and federal funds rates to encourage loan rates which only makes more money. Not being controlled by the government means the central banks can act fairly quickly on monetary policy. Basically chapters 1-16 explain how we need to have a steady stream of money being spent to keep living standards high and the economy running smoothly. When fluctuations happen, they have tools to return to normal levels.

4. These videos relate to the US economy because that is just the way of life. People want money. We work to get that money but also pay money (tax) to receive and spend that money. A lot of people do not question what this money is for it is just accepted. Behind the seems, the central and commercial banks make IOU's and checks between each other that are really just a series of numbers in order to lend money to the people and create money in the process. Eventually, money returns to the government to pay for infrastructure, military and etc. Then income and taxes come back into play and the cycle repeats. In my decisions, I obviously want to have money. For food, necessities, and entertainment, I need money. I would say I never really thought about the information in the videos. I just work, pay my taxes, and buy what I want and need.

5. Key things I learned about the videos would be that the Central bank, not the government controls our currency. Also what we considered money is truly just a numbers system. There is no store of value for money that can just be created and printed in seconds. Basically, the videos have told me our current money situation is destined for doom.

I guess the videos had information that we, unfortunately, need to hear but I rather disliked them. Such a "doomsday" attitude is perceived in my opinion with a lot of the problem stated but I really did not gather a solution. I know gold and silver really are the two perfect monies, but cannot see how it would be possible. I don't see why money is so bad. Of course, printing more money as a solution is false but we accept it as currency and can trade it to receive what we want and need. It almost seems a variety of overthinking has come into play.

6. If I was in charge, I would make the central control of money a government agency. With a small but bipartisan team elected by the people. I think different ratios would also have to be set so banks cannot just keep creating money. It is a scary thought that there is not enough currency to cover all the debt in our nation. As I saw in the videos and in an article. I think debt ceilings need to be put into action. Maybe not as a nation but individual banks should not be able to keep contributing to what is hurting the people's future. I think the government also has to help itself save money as well although a strong military is healthy, it is unnecessary to constantly fund actions into it that really do nothing for us. They are there to protect us, we do not necessarily have to heavily intervene in other's affairs. To help inflation and debt, saving needs to start at the top instead of hurting the citizens of this nation.

Pettinger, Tejvan. “Solutions to National Debt.” Economics Help, 16 Nov. 2017, www.economicshelp.org/blog/27893/debt/solutions-to-national-debt/.