The Hidden Secrets of Money

Trawling YouTube for entertainment can be a good way to waste time and look at funny videos of cats. I recently saw a kitten get completely freaked out by someone's pet lizard; that really cracked me up... ah, good times. Occasionally though, you can stumble across something that might change your perspective on the world, and begin to change the course of your entire life. I say this, because it seems to be what has happened to me, in part from watching and studying the Hidden Secrets of Money video series by Mike Maloney.

I've never been remotely interested in economics. For the most part I've viewed the entire subject as the domain of the bean counters, the pen pushers, and grey corporate drones in cubicles who, when reading newspapers, skip the comics and read the smallest print with the least exciting content. Talk of bond yields or fiscal stimulus would make my eyes glaze over, and discussions on investment dividends or economic forecasts would put me to sleep. You could have almost convinced me that Dow Jones was a celebrity martial arts expert.

In Hidden Secrets of Money, Mike Maloney takes seemingly abstract information about monetary mechanics, institutions and monetary history to present a story that is truly profound. The story is about you, the story is about me, and this story is happening right now. Money is everywhere. Its influence permeates our politics, our relationships, and the way we treat each other and our planet as a whole. When we realise that our money, or more accurately our currency, is bound to a system that is designed to manufacture endless debt, create needless war and effectively steals from our collective future like an insatiable juggernaut, it suddenly becomes imperative that we examine that system and decide if we should allow it to continue.

Explaining how currency works and why gold and silver are the greatest stores of long term wealth was always going to be an ambitious undertaking; the currency system is complicated by design. However, the view taken by Hidden Secrets of Money is one that looks at the big picture over the long term, and one that reduces euphemistic policies and economic jargon to their central ideas. When viewed from this perspective, it becomes blindingly obvious that a lot of the foundational ideas of our monetary & banking systems are really bad, and that we're fast approaching the end of an era.

There is a sense of urgency imparted by the videos that is definitely warranted, and has inspired me to learn as much as I can about the monetary system so I can be prepared for what looks like its imminent collapse. Mike Maloney presents a very strong case that we are soon going to experience the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, though he also takes the time to give us hope, adding that this situation also offers the greatest opportunity in history.

With high production values and brilliant use of computer animations, this dense and complicated subject material is transformed into something that is easy to understand, and compelling to watch. Concepts like fractional reserve lending, currency creation, and the debt ceiling are brought to life in ways I could never have imagined, partly because the ideas themselves are so fundamentally ludicrous when laid bare; I marvel that the deception has been tolerated for so long! Seeing the impossible game of our debt based currency system presented in this way is enlightening, entertaining and empowering. The notion (the fact) that there isn't enough currency in existence to ever repay the loans that created the currency sounds like a bad joke, until you see it for yourself. Watching the banking racket being exposed for the extortionate ponzi scheme it actually is feels deeply satisfying. You'll laugh, maybe you'll cry, but then you'll probably be furious.

From studying Hidden Secrets of Money, I have started to face up to some uncomfortable truths. Where once I may have dismissed nefarious anecdotes about the Federal Reserve as fringe 'conspiracy theory', or viewed the debt paradigm as an unchangeable fact of life, I now see central banking as the single biggest threat to humanity. On the plus side, I can also see how its current incarnation is about to have a long overdue reality check, and that the time is right for a new and better system based on sound money.

Precepts of justice and fairness are innate in our species, and form pillars of morality on which functional and prosperous societies are built. When a system so vital and pervasive as our monetary system is, at its core, fundamentally unjust and immoral, our society inevitably becomes infected with these traits, and it's not long before we witness a culture in decline. Facing down a malevolent and monolithic force like the Federal Reserve (and its central banking tentacles worldwide) with its centuries of oppressive clandestine tradition might seem hopelessly impossible, and more than a bit depressing. That is until you realise... WE are what gives currency its value.

The constitution of the United States was written by people who knew the dangers of central banks, and gave their lives fighting them. Gold and silver, with their millennial history as sound money, are specifically mentioned as the only acceptable forms of currency for good reason; they cannot be printed into existence. When currency has a finite supply, it becomes impossible to fund endless war, or hide the mistakes of a hijacked government.

Hidden Secrets of Money is not just educational and entertaining. The series isn't just about promoting the protection (and potential multiplication) of wealth with gold and silver. It is a call to arms, and an invitation to look behind the curtain of the current system that wields so much power with so little responsibility, and shine a light on institutions that rely on secrecy for their continued existence.

As George Orwell said, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”