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