How Money Works

money how does that word make you feel is it a rush of adrenaline dollar signs running through your head like a slot machine perhaps you feel motivated ready to send those work emails you've been putting off or spend an extra hour writing that movie script that you're certain will be a hit but maybe you don't feel so good when you hear that word maybe the mere mention of money causes your hands to go clammy your heart rate to rise and your brain to start doing somersaults around all the ways in which you don't have need

more want more money whatever your response is we all have one because as they say money makes the world go round whether it's your five dollar coffee every morning to start your day or the three thousand dollar loan payment you just made not a day goes by for most of us that we don't consume spend study or merely think about money you could be The Driver of a sports car wearing a diamond necklace or the homeless person who watches that car drive by on one level or another money matters to us all yet for as

much as Money Matters it's surprising that there's so much we don't know about it and a lot of things that we think we do that are just plain wrong this is a crash course on how your world and the world of high finances intertwined in hopes that in the end we know that much more about this illusion that keeps the economic World spinning before we go on here's a message from our sponsor for today's video Masterworks one thing most of us do know about money is that we need to save and invest for the future

but a quick look at the news and you'll discover that traditional forms of investing aren't Bulletproof this is why I'm excited to introduce you to Masterworks Masterworks is an award-winning startup in New York City that allows people at Q and I to invest in Blue Chip Arc traditional assets can lose value due to current events but the value of art may not be as subject to these conditions you could value an original Picasso painting anywhere right now in even what the current economic state of the world it will still retain its value with countries currently

dealing with record high levels of inflation this is now especially important the last time inflation was this High art appreciated that an average of 17.5 percent per year according to the Masterworks all-art index which was almost double the rate of inflation in the same period Masterworks gives you the potential to see Returns on artwork from world-renowned artists this isn't the metaverse or nfts this is tangible contemporary art from established artists with track records of high value works that sell for hundreds of thousands and the results speak for itself in eight of their nine exits Masterworks

has delivered net returns over 13.9 percent to their investors shares of paintings by artists like Banksy calls and Basquiat have sold out within minutes it's easy to see why demand is growing but subscribers can skip the waitlist today with a special link in the description net return refers to the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs calculated from the offer and closing date to the date the sale is consummated irr may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results see important reggae

disclosures at masterworks.com CD back to our story contrary to what you might think money as we know it today at least in its physical form has remained largely unchanged for millennia the first sign of what we might think of as a banknote took the form of a piece of leather in China in 118 BCE and 900 years later paper currency came to fruition it would be another several hundred years before this kind of currency would make its way to Europe and then the rest of the world centuries have now passed yet the basic concepts invented

by the Chinese aren't that distinguishable from what we have today in fact the only real difference is what these notes and coins represent the first real global system of value and currency was the gold standard which began in England in the early 1800s it tied a currency's value directly to the established value of gold so in a country like the United States one dollar was pegged at exactly one fiftieth an ounce of gold this system was set up that in such a way ideally it would provide a stable monetary environment around the world and it

did for a while but as with all natural resources the supply of gold was not as fixed as we originally thought as a result countries began dropping it as a means to measure the value of the money in 1971 U.S president Richard Nixon officially severed the convertibility between dollars and gold I have directed secretary Conley to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other Reserve assets by that time the US dollar was seen as the global standard currency so once the dollar was no longer dictated by the value of gold pretty much

nothing else was if the value of the dollar is no longer determined by the value of gold what exactly makes one dollar worth one dollar well instead of a commodity-backed system like the gold standard we now have something called fiat currency which has no intrinsic value and is instead backed by a government what gives today's dollar its value is the economic supply and demand in the United States and who controls that governmental Financial systems in the case of the United States it has the treasury in the US Mint in charge of printing its money but

as we can see in the growing number of digital businesses and iPads in place of cash registers money printing is a dying business so if a government isn't literally printing money how exactly does cash come into circulation the vast majority of money exists only as numbers on a computer incredible amounts of money digitally credited to commercial banks by a country's Central Bank this Central Bank controls how much money it deposits into the commercial Banks based on the economic situation of the country during the earlier stages of the pandemic in the US some of that money

was sent directly to bank accounts in the form of stimulus checks but that's an extreme case in most of the time that's not how the money ends up with us here's how it usually works a central bank sends money to Banks and Credit Unions Nationwide and they in turn distribute that money into the economy by lending it to their customers which brings us to the topic of debt around 80 percent of Americans are in some kind of debt yet many people don't know what exactly debt is and how its moving Parts work what they do

know and what is backed by several studies is that even the idea of paying off debt can be a severe emotional strain no one wants to owe anyone anything but with the cost of living vastly outpacing the money we earn for a living loans are the necessity everyone hates yet most can't live without you get a loan to purchase your car start your small business go to college or buy a house very few people can afford a house with the money in their bank accounts yet all of us need a roof over our heads so

some people choose to rent While others decide to take out a loan from the bank in the form of a mortgage the banks aren't charity organizations they're built to make a profit and the way they do that is through interest interest is the amount you the borrower pay to use the money a bank or financial institution has loaned you think of it like the rent you pay on your apartment every month you don't own the apartment but you get to use it for a fee in the same way you don't own the money you use

to purchase your house but you get to use it for a fee and this by now pay later model does not only exist for big purchases like a house and college it has permeated our entire Society so much that most things we purchase now exist on this model especially since the creation of the credit card don't have enough cash for that new couch put it on your credit card want to get that new iPhone pay a monthly fee to your internet service provider heck even consoles like the Xbox follow the same model we now use

credit to pay for even small things like a sandwich a new pair of pants or food for our dogs if we pay our balances on time for those purchases we can avoid the interest rates that credit card companies charge and we'll be fine but for a lot of us especially in hard times we tend to build interest on our cards which can quickly lead to a pretty bad spot financially credit cards can help provide a financial buffer in a bind if needed but they also come with an element of risk so are they worth it

there's some mixed feelings about this some people think that using credit cards is a Surefire way to send yourself straight into sinking debt but other C frequent credit card use as a way to build good credit which if you've ever leased an apartment or bought a car is an important part of daily life these days whichever side of the fence you're on one thing we can all agree on is that you need to be careful when using credit cards so that you don't overspend and dig yourself into much deeper debt than is necessary by being

wise with your credit savings and increasing your income you can have enough disposable income to finally do with your money with every financially stable person suggests invest investing basically means committing your money to something to earn a financial return it's making your money work for you one Mantra in the investing world is the greater risk the greater the reward Investments like bonds are safer but offer lower returns while investing in individual stocks can provide incredibly High returns but are also extremely risky and let's not even get started on cryptocurrency we'll need an entire video to

go over investing properly but in the end if we get the opportunity to do so our goal is to build our wealth to increase how much we're worth and that's the entire point of money to show how much something or someone is worth how much is a Carefree retirement to you that will inform how much money you put away in your retirement account what about a car we might splurge on a luxury vehicle because it's worth it to us to enjoy the extra comfort and social status the byproduct of this is that as a society

we become obsessed with the idea of worth from Material goods and worldly possessions to personal worth and even that of others Publications like Forbes and Bloomberg publish wealthy individuals net worths assigning a number to someone's success to create these lists dozens of reporters track down Millionaires and billionaires all across the world collect their personal information add up all of their presumed assets and subtract their liabilities so if Jeff Bezos owns approximately 10 of Amazon and we subtract his jet his yacht and any other Creature Comforts that he enjoys from that 10 percent we should be

able to identify his net worth that simple addition and subtraction seems deceptively easy doesn't it that's because it is it's hard to get reliable data and it's hard to figure out exactly where wealthy people store their money of the wealthiest people in the world are investment bankers but on a day-to-day basis there's no way to know the composition of their firm's portfolios which directly dictates the wealth of those who run it there's also discrepancies when it comes to celebrities wealth perhaps where most of our Obsession lies Kylie Jenner was said to be the youngest self-made

billionaire at one point but her business isn't just valuable because of how much money it makes it's valuable because she is involved with it the business's worth is reliant on her involvement her wealth is wrapped up in her business and vice versa so the equation becomes even more complicated I hate to break it to you but most celebrities net worths are basically guesses and not really an accurate portrayal of how much they control so why are we glued to these lists are we ultimately comparing ourselves to the world's richest people allowing ourselves to be fascinated

by Financial wealth at our own expense the truth is while learning about money and understanding how our economic system works will not guarantee you a spot on forged billionaire list it can give you peace of mind knowing a thing or two about money can help us see the world a little more clearly and not feel so overwhelmed by economic news because although having money isn't everything not having it is [Music]