The IOU Machine: How Currency Is Created | Hidden Secrets of Money Ep. 4

GoldSilver 5 HN recommenders · 2014–2023
11.1M views · explainer · dated · Uploaded 2013-10-15

Episode 4 of Mike Maloney's Hidden Secrets of Money, explaining how currency is created through a chain of IOUs among the Treasury, banks and the Federal Reserve. It covers bonds, Fed checks, debt, taxes and fractional reserve lending, from a gold-and-silver advocate's viewpoint.

Recommended, often in Bitcoin and monetary threads, as a clear introduction to how the US money system works, though it comes with a strong goldbug slant.

Watch on YouTube

9 comments from Hacker News

@xiphias2014 · in “Bitcoin: the Stripe perspective”

Volatility should never be important when selecting a store of value. Gold and silver has much volatility compared to USD and hamburger price, still if you sold a cow 5000 years ago in Egypt for silver, you could buy at least 0.1 cows from the same amount of silver today. Silver doesn't lose more than 0.01% of its value/year (still the volatility is much higher than that). It's actually more important to understand why USD and CHF are so bad store of value. The best explanation is by Mike Maloney: [VIDEO]

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@ZenoArrow2015 · in “What happens when a culture is driven by the need for money to make more money”

To understand what debt-free money is (and to address how the US money system currently works), I'd recommend this video: [VIDEO] Please note that although there are a couple of subtle hints in the video about returning to the gold standard, the video can still be of use as a general introduction into the US money system even if you don't think that's a good idea (I don't think it's a good idea to go back to the gold standard). Hope the video can be useful for you, I know I found it useful. Feel free to ask me any questions about debt-free money (and how it could be implemented) after watching the video.

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@jcslzr2019 · in “Ten Years of Bitcoin”

You don't understand that what we call "money" today its a scam: [VIDEO] BTC will create prosperity we can not even dream of

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@mrnobody_672020 · in “The Longest Record Broken: Gold/Silver Ratio Hits Highest in Over 5,000 Years”

This is the best explanation I've ever seen of how the Fed and US Dollar money printing actually works: [VIDEO] Most people also don't realize that the Fed, which buys Treasury's drawn on a bank account with $0 in it, is privately owned - and distributes dividends to its private shareholders holders (who are not disclosed).

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@cryptica2020 · in “Remembering my father”

Bill Gates should use his money to lobby politicians to address deep systemic issues instead of trying to cover up the symptoms with philanthropy. One of the main problems is the continuous 'printing' of money and the way it is distributed into the economy. It doesn't make sense that all the newly printed money goes to wealthy institutions and individuals first, it doesn't trickle down. If they want to keep the money printer running, then that money needs to go to everyone equally; this means UBI (Universal Basic Income) - Otherwise we'll just end up with the insane politics that we have today; where the rich who are in close proximity to the money printers wield way too much power over politics. I used to have respect for Bill Gates (Jr), but not anymore. If he really cares about others, he should dedicate most of his energy to fixing our corrupt fiat monetary system. Also, he should lobby for government to abolish corporate personhood and the overall concept of limited-liability corporations. The entire financial system is a scam, it's a giant ponzi scheme. Once you do the research, it's impossible to operate properly in this system. There are many very talented, hard working people today who are being pushed out of the system into joblessness because they realize how pointless all the jobs have become and how rigged the system is because of the distortions caused by unlimited money printing. The situation we have is total madness. People are angry and they're right to be b

@cryptica2020 · in “Fuck You Startup World (2016)”

Let's not ignore the 'minor' detail that the entire space is a ponzi scheme to begin with (coming from Chamath Palihapitiya; a billionaire who was one of the first Facebook employees): [LINK] And let's not ignore that the entire financial system within which this ponzi scheme operates is also a giant ponzi scheme: [VIDEO] So the startup world is literally a ponzi scheme within a ponzi scheme.

@jondubois2020 · in “The unrealized potential of federation”

> Cryptocurrency is the digitally woke techbro’s ponzi scheme The fiat monetary system is a ponzi scheme. Watch "Hidden Secrets of Money": [VIDEO] I also recommend doing your own research after this. The evidence is clear and overwhelming. Cryptocurrency is merely a response to this scam and its continued success helped to further prove that the financial system is a scam. Even if you assumed that cryptocurrency is a scam, what kind of financial system enables a scam to thrive for 10+ years? In such a system, how can you tell the scams apart from the non-scams? Clearly the so-called 'free markets' are not capable of distinguishing the two. What's to say that most big tech corporations aren't scams? They get a lot of 'free money' from the government through massive contracts to build projects which only add more bureaucracy.

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@jondubois2020 · in “5k people have pledged to give 10%+ of their income to effective charities”

I recommend reading up on monetary policy and the Federal reserve (and watch videos) and you will understand what I mean and how it fits into Annand's description of the world (it compounds the problem). It's a lot worse than you think. I recommend also doing your own research to verify all the facts. I had a hard time believing some of the facts presented but all checked out so far. Hidden Secrets of Money: [VIDEO] An interesting recent discussion I found which discusses the current state of the economy: [LINK] Actually the second one is eye-opening for anyone who wants to make sense of the current situation.

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@matt_langston2023 · in “The USA Inflation Rate by Truflation Is 4.21%”

I wonder what people think of Mike Maloney's educational video on inflation: "Inflation: The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind" [VIDEO] Is there anything incorrect in that presentation? John William's shadowstats is mentioned.