malekanoms
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2011–2018
6:49 · 6.4M views · Nov 11, 2010
An animated xtranormal explainer on quantitative easing, what the Federal Reserve was doing and how things got there. It was made by Omid Malekan.
HN pointed to it in 2011 as a nice, tongue-in-cheek explanation of quantitative easing.
5 comments from Hacker News
Thanks for those. Another interesting video, if you haven't seen it already - Quantitative Easing explained: this video " Printing money is the last refuge of failed economic empires and banana republics and the Fed doesn't want to admit this is their only idea. " Don't worry, it's (partially) tongue-in-cheek. "In other words, we will see massive inflation, possible even hyper-inflation." Do governments ever learn? This is what happened in the Weimar Republic and is happening today in Zimbabwe. Where I live (Ireland), the government is trying to do option 1 and 2, without success so far. Austerity measures are hurting the economy short-term by dampening consumer confidence (fortunately, internal consumption isn't everything, as we are an extremely open economy and will pick up as exports grow.) They'd possibly be trying option 3, except the European Central Bank controls our currency and ECB rules state that a country can't run a deficit over 3% of GDP without incurring major penalties.
For those of us who don't know - QE is Quantitative Easing which is nicely explained in this great xtranormal video: this video
While this is nearly true, it acts very slowly, and most people don't know how U.S. dollars work. Since everyone is robbed of some small value rather than a small group being robbed of all value, you can't expect people to notice. Unfortunately most attempts to explain to the general public how U.S. dollars work contain other assertions that are plainly ridiculous (see [LINK] or [LINK] ), and the more tame treatments of related issues lack depth ( this video ).
1) You won't have to worry about the quantitative easing when you're not using a fiat currency. this video 2) Read "A Lodging of Wayfaring Men". Fiction, but an example of the kind of change a system like BTC could usher in. [LINK] 3) You'd only convert as much as you need. > Is transferring BCs easier than writing a check? Yes. Enter address, enter amount, click send, wait a few minutes for the network to confirm the transaction.
Grantham on finite growth: [LINK] Grantham on finite resources: [LINK] There was a nifty quote in Green Mars. Think it went something like "need to shift from sustainable development to sustainable prosperity". And just for giggles: this video