The Real Value of Currency

Currency is not some great mystery. Let's discuss what makes a currency, how different currencies work together, and more importantly, what would be the currency if society collapsed?

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Photo Credits -
Euro and Dollar currencies from Wikipedia Commons
Coins and Thumbnail created by Poethewondercat

Video Credits -
The Dark Knight (2008)
Destiny (2014)

Music Credits -
Red Army Choir - Russian Navy Hymn
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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Hashtags: #economics #money #business #bank #spending #dollar #bill #milliondollar #billiondollar #euro #currency #trade #america #china #forex

[KnowingBetter]

What would the currency be if society collapsed?

[CrazyNerdMonkey]

I wish we lived in a spice based economy then we could spend some quality thyme together.

[Daniel.Liddicoat]

When you were describing a fiat currency that "just floated around", I was imagining small Italian cars filled with helium.

[thexalon]

Fun fact: When the value of bronze collapsed after the discovery of how to work the much more plentiful iron, for a while in Britain the standard unit of exchange was a sack of grain.

[JadeyCatgirl]

*Werewolf apocalypse breaks out*
Silver investors: "Look who's laughing now!"

[chris]

Quick note about the bottle cap thing in fallout: the reason they were used as currency is explained in the games. In the wasteland, water was the common trading item. Overtime however, rather than trading actual bottles, merchants in California decided to just have each bottle cap represent a certain amount of water.

[cataclysmicnothing]

6:27 "You wanna go on vacation to some lame, developing country."
_Highlights Bulgaria_

boi

[ScottAtwood]

Even though gold doesn’t have much intrinsic value, it actually does have some characteristics that make it useful as a currency: it’s chemically stable, so it won’t corrode or decay. It’s non-toxic. It’s rare, but not too rare. It can’t be counterfeited or duplicated. This makes gold, along with a few other metals like platinum, rhodium, and palladium quite useful as money. Silver is also reasonably good, but isn’t as chemically inert as the other precious metals.

[matiskrawiec]

6:36

Everyone is mad at how you highlight Bulgaria whilst I'm happy to see an Exurb1a reference...

[moonblaze]

Why use bottle caps? Short version; clean water was the most valuable commodity in the early days after the bomb that it was the standard against which everything was traded. Bottles of water are much heavier than 2.2g so 1 cap was used to represent a single (standardized Nuka-Cola) bottle of water for ease of exchange. Things grew from here.

Side note: in that New Vegas quest, you aren't stopping counterfitting. Just the influx of new caps deflating the currency.

[Drazex]

One thing I find fascinating about currency, is that people feel bound by these arbitrary exchange rates. Sure, you discussed how exchange rates are determined, but a lot of people think that the exchange rate and the purchasing power (within the country) are the same thing. I've had friends from third world countries that are amazed that there can be poor people in America because of how much a dollar is worth in their own currency, when in reality, the amount they can buy based on their salary is pretty equivalent to an American with their own salary, but because of the exchange rate, the purchasing power *across* the border is much greater.

[kkiller]

"The Golden Ferret" sounds like a wonderful name for a currency.

[DerAnanasKing]

human logic "that metal looks shiney. I like that. that has value"
I guess we aren´t so different form animals like crow after all.
they laso like shiney things.

[picturethis]

5:26 this isn't entirely true, there are certain people who have licenses to print very real looking fake money and rent it to production studios

Edit: fun fact, one very common use of this fake money is in rap videos.

[GogiRegion]

Most money in movies is one sided government backed counterfeit. Yes, that’s a real thing. You have to get a permit, and every single fake dollar needs to be registered by the government. It’s hard to do, so maybe most studios don’t use them, but that is an option.

[raphaelseguy]

Actually the 500. € bill has been discontinued, and was really rare to have and the euro was first introduce in banks transaction in 1999 and physically in 2002

[DerAnanasKing]

the Metro novels had Ammunition as currency, that was quite realistic.

[danailstoilov]

"Lame developing country" - my country lights up.
:(

[haku]

Maybe the best video you've done so far. Just for reference, the €500 note will be phased out by the end of 2018 so that the €200 will be the highest value. As someone who trades currency at work, you've basically nailed it!

[pacodelazyfucc]

"The walking dead is pure communism" That is a sentence I thought I never was gonna hear in my life