Tuesday, July 28, 2015

That Film about Money


Ep. 6: THAT FILM ABOUT MONEY | James Schamus from We The Economy on Vimeo.

14 comments:

  1. Money is a funny thing. Money is both abstract and concrete. We are rapidly making the transition to money being simply numbers in a computer system. I foresee paper money becoming obsolete very quickly. Currently, it is mostly used by banks and drug dealers. If we cut down the amount of cash produced, it might cut down the drug market as well.
    Money is really just numbers on a screen, or scribbled onto a check. And we share it and trade it without very little real, tangible money being exchanged.

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  2. This video has given me a new perspective on money. It was interesting to see money as a belief system or a token of trust. Most people’s concept of money are the bills or the cash that everyone has on hand. But as stated in the video, money is really another person’s debt. Money is not a physical item like the dollar bill. The bank does not have to physically have all the money that we have in our checking or savings accounts. Money can be multiplied without physically printing more currency.

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  3. I think that this video has allowed me to alter my perspective on money. Although I knew before that money is not simply just the paper dollars and coins we hold in our wallets, but it is something much greater then that, I have a greater, universal understanding as to what money really is. I think that when we really stop and think about what money is it can be quite mind-boggling, but that is because everyone think when they put 'x' amount of money in the bank that there is actually 'x' amount of money in currency under your account. I never really realized until this video explained it that money is really someone else's IOUs or debt, and that the more reserves the bank has, the more money there actually is. Overall this video was very eye-opening.

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  4. This video opened my eyes to what money actually is, and it is not the thing what I originally perceived it to be. I found it interesting that banks don't actually hold that much physical money. As they say in the video, "For money to be money, we must all believe." Ever since I got my debit/credit cards, I have been using less and less paper money. I agree with Alaina that paper money could become obsolete in the near future as we continue looking at money numbers on a computer screen.

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  5. Money is mainly surrounded around the perception of a belief. This video basically shows how when people say they have "x amount of dollars in the bank," it is not actually in the bank. All banks are like a company, and the product they want is your money. They then in a sense buy your money so they can make profit off your money. Like they said, money is a big "IOU." I found it quite interesting the transition of the bank from the past to the present. They are no longer making it seem like your money is going away in a safe till you take it out. It's just a money value on a computer screen.

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  6. This video did bring to mind our seventh President, Andrew Jackson, and his hatred against fluctuating currency, which at the time was simply just paper currency. He may have very well had a heart attack if he knew about how the modern creation of money occurs.

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  7. Great way to demonstrate that money is really an efficient way to barter based on promises. Love this video. I will definitely be showing it to my teenage children! It reminds me of the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" where our protagonist, George Bailey, runs a savings & loan that has the unhappy circumstance of a run on the bank and he has to explain to the clients that their currency is all tied up in their community members' investments.

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  8. this video was very informative on how the banking system works, however i am still a bit confused on the idea of the debt growing on more debt. i understand that banks will not keep all of your money and lend the rest out but i was having trouble on keeping track of the money after it is lent out to the next person. Where does this money go and how does the debt keep growing on its self?

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  9. This video made me think that the movement of money between banks and consumers, and between banks and other banks could simply be defined as buying/selling debt. Which relates seamlessly into the 2008 financial crisis, where banks sold/invested money coming from principle/interest on mortgage backed securities. When the housing bubble burst, and the poor/middle class (which had most of their savings tied to their assets on their homes) were no longer able to afford the mortgage, the banks no longer made money off debt and couldnt sell/invest more debt for a profit. One of the dozen reasons the global economy economy crashed in and immediately after 2008.

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  10. This video was quite interesting. It was interesting to see how the video relates the physical dollar to the amount of money that is currently being transferred and used in the American banking system. Although I knew that the bank did not hold every dollar deposited into it, it was interesting to see how this "borrowed" money continues to grow and multiply. This video gave me a new perspective on how to view the banking system within the United States. We are each accredited the amount of money that we deposit into the bank, but only a small fraction of that actually remains within the bank itself. Overall, it was quite an interesting video to watch.

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  11. Before watching this video I never really thought that money wasn't actual physical money. The concept that we have more money in the system than actual physical money was kind of confusing at first, but it makes sense when the banks loan out money of your money and then hold other money to make sure they can pay the money that is in your account. I feel like it is kind of a hidden system in a way because I feel like most people don't really know that banks are technically loaning out your money, but I guess it does make sense for the banks to earn a profit.

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  12. This video really clarified what money is. Its generally viewed as the physical money we hold, but in reality that is not it at all. Money is a collection of borrowed debt. It was surprising how little the banks actually have to hold in reserve - roughly 3%. It is crazy to think that they lend out 97% of the money that people deposit. But, it also makes sense because then the bank can make a profit off that percentage and still pay the interest rates they promised the people who deposited the money originally. Still, the principal that money is dependent on general trust is quite intriguing.

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  13. This video really helped me to grasp this concept that money isn't really a physical object. Money is debt just being borrowed over and over again. It is crazy that only about 3% of the money is held by the bank!!!! I think this is an extremely smart idea - pay people a very small interest to give you their money and then charge other people a very high interest to have money! It seems so lucrative, but its actually brilliant! Being a bank owner sounds like a complicated and successful business.

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  14. This video changed the term "money" for me. I knew roughly how the banking system worked, but I always thought was cash specifically. If money is mostly debt and our system is counting on nobody needing their money at the same time, I can see why banks crash when things like the housing bubble bursts. When money demand increases and banks don't have what they promised, I understand now why they can run into big trouble.

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