Ask HN: Can someone explain these documentaries about USD or fiat money to me? There are a lot of documentaries (1) (2) on Youtube I'm seeing since 2020 which keep saying that our money (specifically USD) has become worthless ever since Nixon removed the gold standard in 1971. Is there any truth to it or is just clickbait spam? I would reckon it's the later since the claim sounds like a Flat earth claims, but recently I saw the same claim from a creator I really trust and follow for a long time and so I'm asking here as I see if anyone more knowledgeable can explain this. tldr: 1. The fed reserve prints money and asks treasury to print IOU. People buy these IOU essentially giving loans to the US govt. The govt then pays these loans back by printing more money by creating more IOUs and so on and so forth.. so they are saying it's like a Ponzi scheme. 2. Previously there had to be gold equivalent but since 1971 this was removed. Now all other currencies are based on USD, yet USD which was once based on gold isn't anymore.. 3. There are more points like these govt trying to decrease price of gold, inflation, etc but don't understand economics too well and skipping it for brevity. But surely there is more to it? Can somebody ELI5 this? Is there even a morsel of truth to these theories? 1) https://youtu.be/cTMna_vYDJg?t=667 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQUhJTxK5mA |