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How much money is in the world? · Stuff You Should Know

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know from house stuff Works
0:06
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:15
Speaker 1: and I'm with Charles W Chuck, Bryan, he's right here
0:17
Speaker 1: with me. So it's stuff you should know. It's also
0:22
Speaker 1: really stuff you should know because Jerry's here too. Oh
0:26
Speaker 1: the chairs not here. It's fake stuff you should know.
0:28
Speaker 1: It's less than vintage stuff you should know. Got you.
0:32
Speaker 1: I mean it's not bad. Yeah, it's not great. Yeah,
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure Matt and everyone appreciate that. N listen to
0:41
Speaker 1: this crap? Yeah, Chuck, Yes, how much money do you
0:46
Speaker 1: have on you right now? Cash? Zero dollars and zero cents? Well,
0:51
Speaker 1: that's stupid, because you should have thirty eight in cash
0:54
Speaker 1: on you. I never have cash. Well, you should almost
0:58
Speaker 1: never have cash. You should have thirty eight hundred dollars
1:01
Speaker 1: in cash on you right now. So should I? So
1:03
Speaker 1: should Jerry. Um, but we don't. We don't. It's sad
1:10
Speaker 1: I in my pocket. Okay, Well, let's let's explain why
1:14
Speaker 1: I just said that. Huh was I supposed to? That's
1:18
Speaker 1: all right, I'll do it. Um, I can do it.
1:21
Speaker 1: That's how much if you divide up all the money
1:23
Speaker 1: between all the Americans. That's how much we should all have. Bam, bam.
1:29
Speaker 1: So we're trying to answer a question here, how much
1:33
Speaker 1: money is there in the world. Um, And we'll get
1:37
Speaker 1: to that. There's a there's actually a rough estimate out
1:40
Speaker 1: there that may be right. But instead, first let's talk
1:44
Speaker 1: about how much American money there is in the world.
1:47
Speaker 1: And not just because we're American, but because it is
1:50
Speaker 1: the standard currency worldwide. It's the closest thing to the
1:54
Speaker 1: universal currency that we have, um, the dollar, the green bag. Yeah,
1:59
Speaker 1: but um, that's not, as I guess, um, widespread as
2:05
Speaker 1: it once was. A lot of people have abandoned the dollar,
2:08
Speaker 1: um and now use a basket of currencies to value
2:13
Speaker 1: their currency against very rebellious Um. But still the dollar
2:18
Speaker 1: is generally what's you to say for oil speculation? And
2:22
Speaker 1: imagine the dollars in that basket too though right, maybe
2:24
Speaker 1: maybe not, It depends on how much they hate America. So, UM,
2:30
Speaker 1: what you were talking about though, was all the money
2:32
Speaker 1: divided up by all the Americans coming up to thirty
2:36
Speaker 1: eight dollars. That's called the M zero money supply. Of course,
2:40
Speaker 1: you know how I read that m O. The more
2:43
Speaker 1: money supply. I was like, what and then I read
2:47
Speaker 1: I read it again. I said, it can't be called
2:49
Speaker 1: the more money Supply, and then I realized that was
2:51
Speaker 1: a zero and not an O. It uh, it looks
2:54
Speaker 1: very much like the more money Supply. I wrote this article.
2:57
Speaker 1: I realized it, and I never saw it like that
3:00
Speaker 1: until you just said that. Yeah, I like the more
3:03
Speaker 1: money supply better than the M O. It's good, but
3:06
Speaker 1: it is M O for a reason. There's also the
3:08
Speaker 1: M one, M two, and there wasn't M three, which
3:10
Speaker 1: we'll get to, right. And the people who came up
3:12
Speaker 1: with this was the Federal Reserve Bank, the United States
3:14
Speaker 1: Central Bank, right, And they like to track money. That's
3:18
Speaker 1: one of the things they do to amuse themselves. Count yeah,
3:22
Speaker 1: count money, um, and go to sleep on piles of
3:26
Speaker 1: gold ingots. But the Fed came up with this M
3:31
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this MO money supply, also known as the
3:34
Speaker 1: M zero supply, and that is all of the bills
3:38
Speaker 1: and coins, all of the actual hard currency that exists
3:42
Speaker 1: in the world anywhere in US dollars and as of
3:47
Speaker 1: July two thirteen, Hey, that's recent. Yeah, that came to
3:51
Speaker 1: a we should say. Catherine Whitbourne from the Coolest Stuff
3:55
Speaker 1: on the Planet update. She updated this, so the fact
3:58
Speaker 1: that this is as up today as it is thanks
4:00
Speaker 1: to her um but the the m so the more
4:04
Speaker 1: money supply as of July two Thousteen is one point
4:08
Speaker 1: to trillion dollars. That's all the cash and all the
4:11
Speaker 1: coins all over the world of American dollars, the real
4:14
Speaker 1: dollars that you can collect and put together you can
4:17
Speaker 1: light your cigars with, yeah, or you can throw into
4:21
Speaker 1: a fountain. Yeah. One point to trillion US dollars. So
4:26
Speaker 1: that's how much money was in the world. But and
4:29
Speaker 1: and we said, also, that's thirty eight hundred for every
4:33
Speaker 1: American man, woman, and child, all three hundred and sixteen million,
4:37
Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty eight thousand, five hundred and sixty
4:39
Speaker 1: seven Americans that were alive in July of two thousand thirteen,
4:44
Speaker 1: each one should have had thirty eight hundred bucks in
4:45
Speaker 1: their pocket. Because we're not talking checking accounts, we're talking
4:49
Speaker 1: in the actual currency that people are walking around with.
4:52
Speaker 1: Since I don't have thirty eight hundred dollars in my
4:54
Speaker 1: pocket and I didn't in July, you don't, Jerry, No,
4:58
Speaker 1: Jerry's got more. Where is this stuff. That's a good question.
5:03
Speaker 1: I wonder how that clock ticks, by the way, the
5:05
Speaker 1: population clock. I'd like to see a real time like
5:09
Speaker 1: three people died, four people born, people died, eight people born,
5:13
Speaker 1: said its wins. I wonder if it ever does go
5:15
Speaker 1: backwards for a second. It's got too because people are dying,
5:18
Speaker 1: but more people are being born than people are dying. Yeah,
5:21
Speaker 1: it depends on the country you're talking about. Yeah, that's true. Um.
5:24
Speaker 1: I always drive by the one in Atlanta, you know,
5:26
Speaker 1: on the population clock that's been there forever. When I
5:30
Speaker 1: was a kid, I remember when the top two million
5:31
Speaker 1: it was like whoa, and now it's whatever three points something,
5:36
Speaker 1: is it? Yeah? I mean that's metro Atlanta, right, it's
5:39
Speaker 1: not city of Atlanta. Um, alright, So back to it. Uh,
5:44
Speaker 1: where were we hard to track the more money? No,
5:46
Speaker 1: we were talking about where the thirty eight hundred bucks
5:49
Speaker 1: that should be in our pockets is. Oh well, um,
5:52
Speaker 1: about a half to two thirds of that is overseas.
5:56
Speaker 1: It's an overseas pockets, that's right, or overseas bank account sir. No, No,
6:01
Speaker 1: we're not talking bank accountants. That's just money, that's right. Yeah,
6:05
Speaker 1: So that means that there are people walking around overseas
6:08
Speaker 1: with cash on them American dollar, American dollars, which makes
6:11
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. And so when you start to
6:15
Speaker 1: divide the amount of money at one point two trillion
6:18
Speaker 1: buy a lot more than three and sixteen million people.
6:21
Speaker 1: That explains why I have a single dollar bill on
6:23
Speaker 1: my person right now, why I have nothing? Right and
6:26
Speaker 1: Jerry nothing nothing man, We're sad sex Okay, So that's
6:31
Speaker 1: just the MO money supply. Yeah, the M zero. The
6:34
Speaker 1: M one is all of the more money plus checking
6:39
Speaker 1: account money and other kinds of just accounts that you
6:42
Speaker 1: can you know, track and travelers checks. Yeah, very very
6:46
Speaker 1: liquid types of accounts. Yes, that's the M one. Yeah
6:49
Speaker 1: supply that And it's funny that you were having trouble
6:52
Speaker 1: wrapping your head around the fact that we were talking
6:54
Speaker 1: about cash outside of banks for the M zero supply.
6:58
Speaker 1: I had the same problem too, like it's hard to
7:00
Speaker 1: think of money outside of banks in this day and age. Yeah,
7:05
Speaker 1: you could rarely have cash on hand us like debit
7:08
Speaker 1: cards and credit cards and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,
7:12
Speaker 1: American Express for everything. That's funny that on this audio
7:16
Speaker 1: podcast you just held it up to your face and
7:18
Speaker 1: you said that, um, so that's the M one. In
7:22
Speaker 1: June of of this year, of the M one supply
7:26
Speaker 1: was about two point five trillion, so the more money
7:29
Speaker 1: supply was one point two. The M one was two
7:32
Speaker 1: point five. That's all the accounts and checking accounts, travelers checks.
7:35
Speaker 1: Then there's the M two, which is the M one
7:38
Speaker 1: supply plus UH money market fund, money savings accounts, and
7:44
Speaker 1: CDs under a hundred grand, which they call small c
7:48
Speaker 1: d s, right comes from. That's a pretty good CD,
7:52
Speaker 1: well CD over a hundred grants called jumbo Yeah, I
7:55
Speaker 1: was looking up jumbo rates that used to be something
7:57
Speaker 1: like four and a quarter. Some of them would be
8:00
Speaker 1: like for like a ten year yeah, so you get
8:04
Speaker 1: like twenty two grand back over now I'm sorry, five years.
8:07
Speaker 1: So you go give a bank a hundred grand, say
8:10
Speaker 1: keep this for five years paying me back, and they
8:12
Speaker 1: would give you twenty two interests, So you get a
8:15
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two cryan not very long ago, a
8:19
Speaker 1: couple of years ago before the crash. You want to
8:22
Speaker 1: know what it's at right now. For a hundred thousand
8:25
Speaker 1: dollar three year I believe c D, a jumbo c D,
8:30
Speaker 1: you get like one point four percent it's only worth
8:33
Speaker 1: your time to give a bank a hundred thousand dollars
8:35
Speaker 1: to keep for three years. They'll give you fourteen hundred dollars.
8:40
Speaker 1: As nine go to the dog track with a hundred
8:44
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and you leave Heroin Addict crying um. Alright,
8:52
Speaker 1: So the M to supply, which like I said, was
8:55
Speaker 1: it was the M one supply plus money market fund
8:58
Speaker 1: saving counts and those smaller CDs. Ten point five trillion.
9:02
Speaker 1: That's virtually all of the American money in the world
9:07
Speaker 1: pretty much, because they got rid of M three basically
9:09
Speaker 1: in two thousand six, because they said, it really doesn't
9:13
Speaker 1: tell us much to know what the larger jumbo CDs
9:16
Speaker 1: are adding to this pile. It doesn't change things that much,
9:18
Speaker 1: I guess. I imagine there's just not that many exactly.
9:22
Speaker 1: So about ten point five trillion US dollars in accounts
9:27
Speaker 1: and in cash um in holdings in the world in
9:32
Speaker 1: about July June July two that's a lot of dough
9:36
Speaker 1: to say. That's a lot of mula, right, and if
9:39
Speaker 1: you want to, yeah, it even says here it did.
9:42
Speaker 1: And that's when I looked up It's like who wrote this?
9:44
Speaker 1: It was like oops. I thought this was well done.
9:47
Speaker 1: Well and I learned how to spell mula. I didn't know.
9:50
Speaker 1: Don't don't pitch now, I'm serious. I literally thought, oh,
9:53
Speaker 1: that's how you spell mula. How do you think you
9:56
Speaker 1: spelled it? I don't know m U l A No,
9:59
Speaker 1: I'm just never thought of I've never seen it spelled
10:01
Speaker 1: out m O O l A. H Uh, that's a
10:04
Speaker 1: p standard exactly. So um this I think we've kind
10:31
Speaker 1: of pointed out it's tough to track money like this. Well, yeah,
10:35
Speaker 1: it's not the easiest thing. They do a pretty good
10:37
Speaker 1: job of it that the FED does specifically because it's
10:39
Speaker 1: just what they do and they love doing that. Yeah,
10:42
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's an estimate still, Like, no
10:43
Speaker 1: one knows how much cash I have in my house,
10:45
Speaker 1: no one asked me no. But they know how much
10:47
Speaker 1: was printed, They keep track of that kind of stuff,
10:49
Speaker 1: how much is destroyed, how much in circulation, um. And
10:53
Speaker 1: you know there's bank reportings. They know how much a
10:55
Speaker 1: bank has at the FED UM, so they have a
10:59
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty close estimate from what I understand. The
11:02
Speaker 1: thing is, not every country has a FED like the
11:06
Speaker 1: FED in the US, and that makes it way harder
11:11
Speaker 1: to say how much money is in the entire world,
11:14
Speaker 1: not just US dollars, but all the money in the
11:16
Speaker 1: entire world, and more difficult to control your economy. It
11:20
Speaker 1: is if you if you don't know how much money
11:22
Speaker 1: you have, it's very difficult to sway your economy one
11:25
Speaker 1: way or the other. Right exactly. So, Um, Zimbabwe is
11:29
Speaker 1: a really good example, man, of why it's so hard
11:32
Speaker 1: to track a lot of money, and also what happens
11:35
Speaker 1: when you don't track your money, yeah, or what happens
11:38
Speaker 1: when you decide, in order to fix economic woes, let's
11:41
Speaker 1: just start printing more money, because that's um. If you
11:45
Speaker 1: know nothing about finance and economics, a common thing you
11:49
Speaker 1: might think is, well, they could probably just infuse some
11:52
Speaker 1: some cash flow by printing money occasionally, and they do occasionally.
11:57
Speaker 1: But in Zimbabwe they did it to such an extent
12:00
Speaker 1: with a zim dollar, which I didn't even believe that
12:02
Speaker 1: was right. It's actually called a zim dollar. Sounds like
12:05
Speaker 1: something from a movie. Um, not a good one exactly. Uh.
12:11
Speaker 1: They printed so much money that they encountered hyper inflation
12:14
Speaker 1: like the world has never seen before. Yeah, So it's ridiculous.
12:18
Speaker 1: Numbers yes, this hyper inflation in two thousand and six,
12:22
Speaker 1: it was. It was really bad, and two thousand Zimbabwe
12:25
Speaker 1: started to enter an inflationary spiral. Um In two thousand
12:30
Speaker 1: and six, it was so bad that a sheet, not
12:34
Speaker 1: a roll, a sheet of toilet paper cost four hundred
12:38
Speaker 1: and seventeen Zim dollars. Okay, yeah, a roll of toilet
12:43
Speaker 1: paper cost a hundred and forty five thousand, seven hundred
12:46
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars. Broke so quick and Zimbabwe, well, that's
12:49
Speaker 1: the thing. Everybody would have gone broke. But it wasn't
12:52
Speaker 1: that the toilet paper was very expensive. It was that
12:55
Speaker 1: the Zim dollars had very little purchasing power. And that
12:59
Speaker 1: was because dollars, just like any other commodity, are subject
13:04
Speaker 1: to the influences of supply and demand, and when there's
13:06
Speaker 1: a lot of them on the market, their value decreases.
13:09
Speaker 1: That's how the US government has managed to stay afloat
13:12
Speaker 1: so many times they release a bunch of money, They
13:15
Speaker 1: cause inflation so that the debts that they owe are
13:19
Speaker 1: worth less. So when they pay him off, it hurts
13:22
Speaker 1: the government less. It's a really horrible thing to do
13:24
Speaker 1: to your investors, but it's it's done. But that's the point.
13:29
Speaker 1: When you have a lot of dollars out there, you
13:31
Speaker 1: have less purchasing power per dollar. And that's what was
13:36
Speaker 1: going on in Zimbabwe, and things got really out of
13:38
Speaker 1: hand because they decided to fight this by printing more dollars. Yeah,
13:44
Speaker 1: they really got out of hand. That Some of these
13:45
Speaker 1: stats in here are just staggering. Um, you said that
13:49
Speaker 1: every what you didn't say, You report that it is
13:53
Speaker 1: estimated that it was equivalent to prices doubling in stores
13:57
Speaker 1: every one point three days. Yeah, the most I saw
14:00
Speaker 1: was every twenty four point seven hours. Prices. Essentially, we're
14:04
Speaker 1: being doubled by the way of the dollar losing value, right.
14:07
Speaker 1: Like the kind of inflation that we're looking at right
14:10
Speaker 1: here in America right now is like in the single
14:12
Speaker 1: digit percentiles, and it's being kept low by the Fed
14:16
Speaker 1: on purpose. But we're talking like doubling increase. Like the
14:22
Speaker 1: toilet papers this much the next day is twice as
14:24
Speaker 1: much the next day, it's three times that. And that's
14:26
Speaker 1: just not gonna affect economy. That's gonna like, I mean
14:31
Speaker 1: think about it. Its toilet paper costs that much money.
14:33
Speaker 1: People are gonna stop using toilet paper. That leads to
14:35
Speaker 1: poor sanitation, that leads to you know, it's just a
14:38
Speaker 1: domino effect. Well, there was a joke that the toilet
14:41
Speaker 1: paper was so expensive of the dollar, the zim zim
14:44
Speaker 1: dollar bought such a little toilet paper that it was
14:47
Speaker 1: actually more useful as toilet paper than to buy toilet
14:50
Speaker 1: paper with. Yeah, that's not funny, but well yeah, yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: appear in Zimbabwe is not. But the annual inflation was
14:58
Speaker 1: um estimated. Like this was watching Zimbabwe if you were
15:03
Speaker 1: a currency or monetary policy economists, it was like a
15:07
Speaker 1: dream come true. Last time something happened this bad it
15:10
Speaker 1: was Hungary in ninety six. I think we talked about that. Yeah, um,
15:14
Speaker 1: I think it was in the super Stuff Guide to
15:17
Speaker 1: Economics or spoken word album. Um. But the the inflation
15:23
Speaker 1: in Zimbabwe was estimated at five hundred and sixteen quintillion percent.
15:29
Speaker 1: That's by the end of two thousand eight. Okay, that's
15:32
Speaker 1: not even the highest that I've seen. Now, the highest
15:35
Speaker 1: I saw is eighty nine point seven sex tillion percent,
15:40
Speaker 1: which is a eighty nine point seven billion trillion percent
15:45
Speaker 1: or eighty nine point seven ten to the twenty one
15:48
Speaker 1: power percent. That was their annual rate of inflation, and
15:52
Speaker 1: that was probably early two thousand nine. Yeah, yeah, because
15:55
Speaker 1: in January two thousand nine they basically said you can
15:59
Speaker 1: start using four in currency again, which helps stabilizings a
16:03
Speaker 1: tiny the tiniest bit, but it it didn't obviously work well.
16:08
Speaker 1: It ended inflation abruptly because they abandoned these dollars. The
16:13
Speaker 1: currency lost value so much that everybody stopped using it
16:17
Speaker 1: and they went to the South African rand and the
16:20
Speaker 1: US dollar. That took four months from January to April
16:23
Speaker 1: for basically to completely abandon their money, right, so four
16:26
Speaker 1: months in the country's money is literally useless. And when
16:31
Speaker 1: they did, when they did abandon it was actually a
16:33
Speaker 1: pretty good move, Like you couldn't carry the economy with
16:36
Speaker 1: this money any longer because it was so value that
16:38
Speaker 1: they're in bad shape no matter what. But at least
16:40
Speaker 1: they that was a good move, right. And Um, the
16:43
Speaker 1: reason it was a good move because it stopped inflation
16:45
Speaker 1: because there weren't that many dollars and there weren't that
16:47
Speaker 1: many rands around, which means that they were scarce, which
16:51
Speaker 1: means again according to supply and demand, um, they were
16:54
Speaker 1: valuable and that hence they had purchasing power yeah, and um,
16:58
Speaker 1: it's really unbelieved doable. But it got so bad they
17:01
Speaker 1: were printing money in larger and larger denominations because they
17:05
Speaker 1: had to because people couldn't carry around. You'd have to
17:08
Speaker 1: have a suitcase full of money to buy your toilet paper.
17:11
Speaker 1: So they ended up producing a one hundred trillion Zimbabwean
17:16
Speaker 1: dollar note that you can now buy on eBay for
17:18
Speaker 1: about five bucks. Yeah, that's sad. While when it was
17:22
Speaker 1: released it was worth about thirty Yeah, and that's actual
17:27
Speaker 1: conversion rate, Like now it's only worth something on eBay.
17:32
Speaker 1: What there is? Yeah, there is no conversion rate, right, Um,
17:35
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna get one, not just to have
17:36
Speaker 1: it do it? Yeah, okay, so get you one to thanks.
17:42
Speaker 1: What is it? Three hundred trillion dollar notes? Um, But
17:47
Speaker 1: that's the fact that the Zimbabwean government wasn't tracking their
17:50
Speaker 1: money in the first place, and they didn't track it
17:53
Speaker 1: after they kept releasing it again and again. Yeah, and
17:56
Speaker 1: there was no buy back program. They just said, you
17:59
Speaker 1: guys keep that. Um. They have no idea how many
18:02
Speaker 1: Zimbabwean dollars were released just in the century, let alone
18:08
Speaker 1: how many are out there on the market. So that's
18:10
Speaker 1: why it's virtually impossible to track how much money is
18:14
Speaker 1: out there in the world. But that hasn't stopped at
18:17
Speaker 1: least one guy. Well, actually that's not true. I talked
18:20
Speaker 1: to Catherine Whitbourne today and she was saying that the
18:22
Speaker 1: guy gave up the most recent figures she could find
18:25
Speaker 1: with two dozen ten because he's like, forget this, Yeah,
18:27
Speaker 1: miquet of dollar days with the z dot com um. Yeah,
18:32
Speaker 1: I guess he gave up on a huh that was
18:34
Speaker 1: his blog, his econ blog, and he was tracking a
18:37
Speaker 1: hundred thirty five currencies, uh in a hundred and sixty
18:41
Speaker 1: seven countries, and I guess December two thousand ten, it's
18:44
Speaker 1: probably one of the last stats he has then if
18:47
Speaker 1: that's when he quit. Um in his MO money equal
18:52
Speaker 1: to five point trillion in US dollars in circulation M
18:56
Speaker 1: two was fifty five trillion, So fifty five trillion bucks. Yeah,
19:02
Speaker 1: that's the value of all the money in the world
19:04
Speaker 1: occurring to Mike in US dollars, the US dollar value,
19:08
Speaker 1: but not just US dollars. That's everything, right, So there
19:13
Speaker 1: you have it. Okay, So this would be a lot
19:17
Speaker 1: easier to track and things like what happened in Zimbabwe
19:21
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. You would never have hyper inflation if we
19:25
Speaker 1: all used a universal worldwide currency. Yeah, let's talk about that.
19:30
Speaker 1: No less than John Maynard Keynes has suggested that, and
19:34
Speaker 1: it's been bandied about for a long time since World
19:37
Speaker 1: War two, well even before then. Yeah, I don't think
19:41
Speaker 1: it's I think it was maybe closest to happening maybe
19:44
Speaker 1: after World War two, well, which wasn't very close. No,
19:48
Speaker 1: there were instances of what were to the people who
19:51
Speaker 1: were using the currency was effectively a universal currency like um,
19:56
Speaker 1: A lot the early imperial powers of China and Rome
20:01
Speaker 1: used a single currency in all the lands they conquered,
20:04
Speaker 1: which is why hordes of Roman silver coins are found
20:08
Speaker 1: in fields in the UK still today. Um. But it's
20:11
Speaker 1: still not technically a worldwide currency. But world War two
20:16
Speaker 1: we came very close, right. Yeah, let's talk about some
20:20
Speaker 1: of the pros. I guess, um, because it's I mean,
20:22
Speaker 1: if you look it up on the internet, there's a
20:23
Speaker 1: lot of debate still going on. Um, some of the pros.
20:28
Speaker 1: Speculators can't short a currency. That scenario you were talking about,
20:32
Speaker 1: like the value and currency to pay back debts, right,
20:36
Speaker 1: that'd be gone because it wouldn't be a commodity. There
20:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't any other currency to exchange it against. So therefore
20:44
Speaker 1: it's just a dollar just can be used to buy
20:47
Speaker 1: something you can't buy and sell it itself. It would
20:50
Speaker 1: be valueless like that. Exporters wouldn't have to worry about
20:54
Speaker 1: price gaps. There would be no conversion fees, which would
20:57
Speaker 1: free up money for like healthcare or whatever, I mean,
21:03
Speaker 1: something good to spend it on. Um. Of course, I'm
21:07
Speaker 1: just this is utopian outlook like, oh yeah, then they
21:10
Speaker 1: could spend it on healthcare ideally, but it would free
21:12
Speaker 1: up money. Um, it would in disputes about a currency manipulation, um,
21:17
Speaker 1: like China. Um. So they're like, there are some pros
21:21
Speaker 1: for sure. You wouldn't have to stand in line at
21:25
Speaker 1: the cambio centers and exchange your money when you traveled. No,
21:28
Speaker 1: and um convenience you mean and I went to Europe
21:31
Speaker 1: this summer and it was nice to not we just
21:34
Speaker 1: exchanged once. Yeah, that hadn't been since the euro It's
21:37
Speaker 1: like everywhere, um, and even in places in Croatia they
21:41
Speaker 1: still use their currency, but everybody accepts euros. Yeah, I
21:46
Speaker 1: bet they accept American dollars there too. Um, I kind
21:50
Speaker 1: of enjoyed the different currencies. Oh yeah, it's pretty and
21:53
Speaker 1: it's just neat. I kind of enjoyed the I mean,
21:56
Speaker 1: I guess it was. I didn't see it as a hassle.
21:58
Speaker 1: Maybe I was young, but I always thought it was
21:59
Speaker 1: kind of neat, Like, let me go turn in my
22:01
Speaker 1: francs for uh, for my German dollars. Well, it just
22:04
Speaker 1: sucks to lose money buying another currency, yeah, or to
22:09
Speaker 1: come out ahead though, that's when you're rocking right sometimes.
22:12
Speaker 1: But it's been a while since that happened. Well, this
22:15
Speaker 1: was in the mid ninety nineties, so the American dollar
22:18
Speaker 1: was we were doing pretty well in Eastern Europe. The
22:21
Speaker 1: dollar was sound as the pound, but we got killed
22:23
Speaker 1: in England of course, as always, because your pound is
22:26
Speaker 1: so awesome. Well, that was the big discrepancy after World
22:31
Speaker 1: War Two, Like when we came close to adopting universal currency,
22:35
Speaker 1: the Americans and the Brits couldn't decide on what to
22:38
Speaker 1: value it against the pound or the dollar, and so
22:41
Speaker 1: it just fell apart. Well, the Pew Research Center did
22:44
Speaker 1: a poll and apparently forty one of Americans believe that
22:48
Speaker 1: we will have a universal currency by Um, but the
22:53
Speaker 1: article I got that from, the guy speculates that could
22:55
Speaker 1: be because we're sort of programmed to think that the
22:58
Speaker 1: future will be like that, because every entirely, yeah, like
23:01
Speaker 1: every sci fi movie ever, it's like, you know, universal credits.
23:05
Speaker 1: It's not even like cash. So people just kind of
23:08
Speaker 1: have that in the back of their minds. So there's
23:10
Speaker 1: a lot of like drawbacks to a universal currency as well.
23:14
Speaker 1: There's some clever things you can do if you are
23:17
Speaker 1: in charge of your own currency and it's valued against
23:20
Speaker 1: other currencies. One of them is, if your economy is sluggish,
23:24
Speaker 1: you can release a lot of your currency, create inflation,
23:30
Speaker 1: drive prices down in your country compared to the um
23:37
Speaker 1: the buying power of a foreign currency, and attract that
23:41
Speaker 1: foreign currency and get your economy kick started again. If
23:46
Speaker 1: you're using the same currency as all these other countries
23:48
Speaker 1: that you're training with, sure there's not that that gap, right,
23:52
Speaker 1: the currency gap, But you also can't do that nice
23:55
Speaker 1: little trick that's probably would have bailed out Spain and
23:59
Speaker 1: Greece on their own had they not been trading the
24:03
Speaker 1: Euro or using the Euro the last couple of years. Yeah,
24:06
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Um, Some pundits think that the
24:09
Speaker 1: gold standard, if they were going to go to a
24:12
Speaker 1: universal currency, it would should be based on something like
24:15
Speaker 1: the gold Standard again or the gold standard period. But
24:19
Speaker 1: a lot of other people say, no, that's antiquated and
24:22
Speaker 1: just a bad idea. Yeah, potentially dangerous. I wonder how
24:27
Speaker 1: I would be dangerous. I don't know we should do
24:30
Speaker 1: one on the gold standard. I mean they got rid
24:31
Speaker 1: of it for a reason, so I don't know something
24:34
Speaker 1: about going back to something that but it was Nixon
24:36
Speaker 1: and got rid of it. So it's makes you think
24:38
Speaker 1: it's inherently evil getting rid of the gold standard, you know. Yeah.
24:42
Speaker 1: The other thing too, is who's going to run the show?
24:44
Speaker 1: Is really the big I think that's probably the biggest
24:46
Speaker 1: stumbling block. It's a huge one. Is it's there's got
24:48
Speaker 1: to be a universal body, an international reserve bank, central
24:53
Speaker 1: bank that has the authority on issuing these things buying
24:57
Speaker 1: them back. And yeah, I mean like every since the
25:00
Speaker 1: Clinton there, everybody has been nervous about that kind of thing.
25:03
Speaker 1: But even if you're not a paranoid type, you may
25:08
Speaker 1: just think that this body by definition would be incompetent
25:12
Speaker 1: just from looking at like the U, n UN has successes.
25:16
Speaker 1: Piece keeping missions are frequently very helpful and can add
25:19
Speaker 1: stability to a region. And then you have things like
25:22
Speaker 1: the International Panel on Climate Change, which releases its um
25:28
Speaker 1: it's opinions on climate change based on politics and diplomacy
25:33
Speaker 1: rather than science. Yeah, and you can't if you if
25:36
Speaker 1: it's a World Bank, there's too much at stake to
25:39
Speaker 1: make mistakes. And we already have a World Bank. It's
25:42
Speaker 1: just not in charge of every currency. And if it were,
25:46
Speaker 1: I mean, there could be problematic, It could be helpful,
25:50
Speaker 1: it could be problematic. I don't really fall down on
25:52
Speaker 1: either side of this. Yeah, I don't mean, I don't know.
25:56
Speaker 1: You know how I feel about economics. It's just as
25:58
Speaker 1: long as I can go buy my stuff and pay
26:01
Speaker 1: my mortgage. Yeah, I don't care if it's at the
26:05
Speaker 1: end or the dollar or the or the the community
26:10
Speaker 1: Financier dea freak, Frank, do you care if it's that? No,
26:16
Speaker 1: I had never heard of that. I didn't know. I
26:18
Speaker 1: thought the euro was sort of the only consolidator. But um,
26:22
Speaker 1: apparently in Africa, eight West African nations do share that
26:26
Speaker 1: West African CFA franc African Financial Community, Another six Central
26:32
Speaker 1: African nations share a Central African CFA franc which is
26:37
Speaker 1: weird because they're interchangeable. Yeah, two currencies that they can
26:40
Speaker 1: either one's fine. Yeah, I guess it's like when you
26:42
Speaker 1: go to Costa Rica or Mexico, you can use your dollars,
26:45
Speaker 1: you can use your paces. Yeah, I guess so. But
26:48
Speaker 1: apparently from interchangeable, I read that to mean like their
26:52
Speaker 1: valued the exact same, which is like, why I have
26:54
Speaker 1: two different currencies that are so similar that are the
26:57
Speaker 1: same value. Just make one c F a franc. Yeah,
26:59
Speaker 1: that's good. Um. And then there was a lot of
27:02
Speaker 1: talk about hemispheric and regional unified currencies in Central America
27:07
Speaker 1: and South America, and they came very close, but the
27:10
Speaker 1: recent troubles from the Eurozone have made a lot of
27:14
Speaker 1: people back off about it. And in North America there
27:18
Speaker 1: was going to be the North American Union, which is Canada, Mexico,
27:23
Speaker 1: and the United States. Supposedly we're going to be fused
27:26
Speaker 1: together into one. It was like yes, and Canada was
27:29
Speaker 1: like right. America was like, well, we were going to
27:33
Speaker 1: come up with the amaro a m E r oh
27:37
Speaker 1: was the name of the unified currency that would have
27:39
Speaker 1: been interesting. Well, it's a conspiracy theory. At least, there
27:45
Speaker 1: you go. That's how much money is in the world.
27:48
Speaker 1: Any kind of weird. That not weird, but that America
27:50
Speaker 1: sandwich between such two different countries. It is like Canada Mexico.
27:55
Speaker 1: That's like, you can't get any more opposite. Yeah, I
27:59
Speaker 1: guess I'm at people, food economy, and then America's right
28:05
Speaker 1: in the middle. It's kind of fitting where the melting
28:08
Speaker 1: pot of Canada in Mexico. We are where it all
28:11
Speaker 1: comes together. America's had in America's pants. I can't remember
28:15
Speaker 1: what you've called Mexico before shoes m I don't think,
28:19
Speaker 1: so let's just call it Mexico. Uh, okay, So that's
28:23
Speaker 1: how much money there is in the world. If you
28:24
Speaker 1: want to read this article, you can type that into
28:26
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff Works dot com. And
28:29
Speaker 1: since I said search part, it's time for message brick
28:51
Speaker 1: uh and Chuck, what time is it now? It's time
28:54
Speaker 1: for it again, folks. This is when we thank people
29:05
Speaker 1: for sweet gifts that they send us in the mail.
29:08
Speaker 1: And I have a list of books starting with how
29:13
Speaker 1: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything? How Colin Why
29:20
Speaker 1: How We Do Anything Means Everything? By dove seedman as
29:26
Speaker 1: or do d o v yeah do do yeah. I
29:30
Speaker 1: appreciate that very nice a dovester. Do you want to
29:33
Speaker 1: say one more time? Okay, let's see. We got a
29:37
Speaker 1: postcard from Madagascar from Cara Levitt. Thank you very much
29:40
Speaker 1: for that. Nice. Another book by Alan Gerstel swing at Colin,
29:46
Speaker 1: The Search for My Father Louis Prima. Nobody read this one,
29:49
Speaker 1: but it deserves a double Um. We got a letter
29:53
Speaker 1: with further insight into the hip hop episode from b
29:56
Speaker 1: Boy Anti virus. Nice. How's he doing these doing? Great? Uh?
30:02
Speaker 1: Science nearly explained by Dick Maxwell, and that is available
30:05
Speaker 1: on Amazon or Kindle nice. Um. We have a postcard
30:09
Speaker 1: with a picture of the pair which you'll remember from
30:12
Speaker 1: the torture episode from the Museo de Torture from Anna
30:17
Speaker 1: Oh nice, thank you very much. Our buddy Roger Ma
30:20
Speaker 1: sent us to the Vampire Combat Manual and he's previously
30:23
Speaker 1: sinis the Zombie Combat Manual and Roger's good dude. We
30:27
Speaker 1: actually finally met him, didn't we. I don't know did
30:30
Speaker 1: we meet him. I think we met Roger at one
30:32
Speaker 1: of the comic cons. Okay, second, yeah, okay, I think
30:35
Speaker 1: you're right, hey Ron. Uh. We got a postcard from
30:40
Speaker 1: China from Carry Nice. We got another book called Trunkless.
30:44
Speaker 1: It's a children's book and I don't have the author here,
30:47
Speaker 1: but it's called Trunkless. I think we did that one before,
30:50
Speaker 1: did we? Alright? Double plug? Uh. We got another postcard
30:54
Speaker 1: from Bogram Airfield from Amy Lynn, thanks for that. We
30:58
Speaker 1: get a book called Verbifor's Feast for a Horse Feast
31:02
Speaker 1: by Christie the Word Smith and that was sent in
31:04
Speaker 1: by Hillary Nice. Uh. We got a postcard of a
31:07
Speaker 1: bear pooping in the woods from Van Nostrin. Thanks Van Nostran. Yeah,
31:12
Speaker 1: and we should mention to Van Nostron also sent us
31:15
Speaker 1: his CD from his awesome band, The Bangalore's Sasquatch with
31:18
Speaker 1: a mullet. Yes, thank you, buddy. Um. We got a
31:22
Speaker 1: comic zine called Happy Trails Cowboy Poetry by horse t
31:26
Speaker 1: Rushy Beard stash Um. We got a really cool cityscape
31:31
Speaker 1: watercolor card that was designed and sent by Alex, Thanks Alex.
31:37
Speaker 1: John Lennemeyer wrote a book called How an Average Man
31:40
Speaker 1: Lived an Adventurous Life and I haven't read that yet,
31:43
Speaker 1: but I'm going to good going, Chuck. Yeah. Um, We've
31:47
Speaker 1: got some CDs from Rich Bosick that may or may
31:51
Speaker 1: not have been all of them, but thank you very
31:52
Speaker 1: much for those. Yeah, and I believe he also sent
31:55
Speaker 1: us a DVD called Forgotten Detroit and a nice handwritten
31:59
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, inc rendering of ourselves? Right? Did you see that? Yeah?
32:07
Speaker 1: Is it the same guy? I think it's the same guy. Well,
32:08
Speaker 1: thank you very much big time. Rich. A book called
32:12
Speaker 1: Roman Disasters by Jerry Turner, and a book called the
32:16
Speaker 1: Life and Times of Swirly Van Coco stuff you should
32:19
Speaker 1: know edition. It's a comic actually from Aaron Dunbar. Yes,
32:22
Speaker 1: I remember what else we have, chuck uh. And then
32:25
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of music you want to go
32:26
Speaker 1: through these? Uh? Column blow double in disguise. That's right,
32:32
Speaker 1: Ben from self evidence in his c d s and
32:35
Speaker 1: vinyl of the record we built a fortress on short notice.
32:38
Speaker 1: We definitely plugged that one before the La La band
32:42
Speaker 1: sent us their CD Moonshine Still yep. The group called
32:45
Speaker 1: Forging Reverie cent U s a CD called Motion Canvas,
32:48
Speaker 1: and that was from Derek. Eric Davis and Sam Gray
32:51
Speaker 1: sent us a c D Table People and some authentic
32:54
Speaker 1: Korean junk food burke Uh. In graphia and Graphia send
33:01
Speaker 1: us download codes for his c D Jazz Animals, Right,
33:05
Speaker 1: Katie Center, send us a nice handwritten letter. She's doing
33:09
Speaker 1: something called the Letter Project, where she sends a letter
33:11
Speaker 1: to somebody who inspires her to ask what are you
33:14
Speaker 1: pursuing in your life? And do you know? How do
33:16
Speaker 1: you know when you've gotten there? Yeah? And we answered,
33:20
Speaker 1: did we? Yeah? I did for both of us. Oh nice,
33:23
Speaker 1: thanks man, I know what you I know what you're pursuing.
33:25
Speaker 1: I don't even have to do anythinking. Uh. And then
33:28
Speaker 1: we have one more vinyl and c D the shape
33:32
Speaker 1: of Beach to come from Ben Dick box Us band. Yes,
33:38
Speaker 1: that is b N D I K B A K
33:41
Speaker 1: S A A S. And she takes these finals. There's
33:44
Speaker 1: a couple over there on my desk. And thanks man.
33:46
Speaker 1: You got a record player? I do, and mine is busted.
33:49
Speaker 1: What happened to your record player? Oh? It's up in
33:51
Speaker 1: the attic endword per year or so until I get
33:53
Speaker 1: to go in. You should just take the vital I will. Yeah,
33:55
Speaker 1: And we appreciate the vinyl. By the way, it's very cool.
33:58
Speaker 1: I believe Benedict backs us um. Did we read his
34:01
Speaker 1: name for volunteering, no donating to co ED I believe.
34:07
Speaker 1: So yeah, well that's the same person then, thanks for
34:10
Speaker 1: that doubly. So that is administrative details for now. Thanks
34:14
Speaker 1: for the stuff. Yeah, we're all caught up. Very nice.
34:16
Speaker 1: I know it feels good. It didn't take like eight
34:18
Speaker 1: episodes to cover at all. Uh. If you want to
34:21
Speaker 1: send us something, you can get in touch with us
34:23
Speaker 1: by tweeting to us at s y s K podcast.
34:27
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
34:29
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
34:31
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and you can join
34:34
Speaker 1: us at our home on the web, the awesome website
34:36
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
34:44
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how Stuff Works
34:47
Speaker 1: dot com