Oddbean

Great quality video and illustrations, but in my opinion it relies on a few popular theories that aren’t empirically verified and rely on theoretical assumptions: - the barter theory of money: suggesting that barter was once an exchange system and certain barter goods emerged as the most liquid, fungible, homogeneous etc. ones and thus money was born. There’s no evidence for this theory and ample evidence that money in the past was always issued by states or religious entities in rather centralized fashion, by imposing an arbitrary tax or liability of some kind in some arbitrary unit, then spending that unit into existence to move resources as desired by the central entities, and money provided to the population to satisfy the imposed liabilities. This has been documented in anthropology studies such as David Graeber’s Debt - The First 5000 Years - fractional reserve banking: the theory of hat banks lent out money based on deposits received. In reality banks were and are mere extensions of the state or comparable centralized entities such as religious authorities, and just as those were able to spend tokens into existence as outlined above, banks loaned those tokens into existence. Banks look for reserves after the lending has been done, not before it, and they need those reserves to facilitate interbank check clearing, tax payments from citizen to state (which extinguishers reserves), and for cash withdrawals. This has been empirically testet & established in modern times by international financial & economic advisor Prof. Werner, and Warren Mosler who himself owns a boutique bank. - the gold standard: the clip theorizes that modern banking was built on top of gold reserves with gold being the original money system emerging out of barter. It is true that in ancient times gold was an expedient medium or even technology to record debts onto so states such as the Roman Empire would stamp the units of account onto gold tokens when they spent the tokens into existence, but their value was tied to these state issued tokens being accepted to settle the arbitrary tax liabilities imposed. Gold tokens circulated far above the value of the gold content. Today gold is still valued as an insurance policy in case the global money system disappears, as protection from real inflation (=inflation-interest rates), and possibly for other more mystical reasons. The gold standard has been imposed off and on through history by governments in service of big banks in order to impose austerity and reduce inflation because banks depend on fixed interest incomes and are thus naturally paranoid about any inflation at all. This is documented in history books like Prof. Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy & Hope. - hyperinflation: the clip suggests that the fractional reserve money system caused hyperinflations but if this were true there should be hyperinflation everywhere all the time. Upon closer examination we find that hyperinflations are generally caused for political reasons such as war and imposed austerity reducing productive factors and thus supply (such as the Versailles treaty in 1920s Germany for example, or land reforms in Zimbabwe), or excessive foreign indebtedness in a foreign currency in countries depending on imports from abroad for staples which comes back to bite when loans in foreign currency have to be repaid, the currency is hard to come by, and foreign exchange values collapse sending import prices Sky high ( 90s Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, and countless other countries that have been fleeced by banking oligarchies in this manner) We’d be happy to interview you and discuss these things on our podcast at https://irida.tv (Telegram: https://t.me/iridatv) if you’re ever interested. We used to hold to all the above theories that I’m criticizing here but had to adjust our stances upon more empirical examination. I know it’s annoying to have to adjust & mess with perfectly clean and plausible theories when they seem to make so much sense so I apologize in advance. 😅