Can anyone explain if this video on the national reserve, debt and the banking system is misleading or incorrect?

I watched a couple minutes... what he's referring to is termed the multiplier effect. He glosses over money creation as a result of re-lending deposits. But he only raises this to drive at what he really cares about, which is deficit spending and quantitative easing. If I buy an asset with the intent of re-selling it at a higher price to another investor, who buys it from me for the same reason, then we have a ponzi scheme. If I buy a treasury with the intent of selling it to the government, then I need to know that its going to be bought at a higher price. The government is currently running a large deficit, and making up for the short-fall with more debt creation. So I'm buying a bond, hoping this fiscally irresponsible entity will buy it; I better hope someone else buys the new bonds to finance the purchase the ones I own. Because if not, the government will collapse under its own weight, leaving me with a worthless asset. Hence "there is always more debt in the system than currency to pay the debt."

What's insane about that argument, is we live in a financial system predicated on the ability to lever assets. Even when the gold standard existed, there was never enough gold on hand to service every dollar in existence (think of the dollar as debt serviced by gold). When an equity short-seller goes into the market and bets against a stock, someone out there now owns those shares. In effect, there are more equity "owners" than equity that exists. There are countless examples of this throughout the economy.

There is value in this kind of system, and its existed for centuries. It allows people to buy things like homes, cars, or computers that they can't afford, knowing that they can pay it off eventually. It allows corporations to expand beyond current capacity to meet rising demand. It allows governments to stave of crises, such as the Nazi invasion (indeed, the UK debt to GDP was never higher than during WWII... I think it was a good investment). And importantly, it creates an asset for the rest of the world to buy and appreciate their excess cash reserves (this is important later). The relationship between debtor and creditor is entirely trust based, expressed monetarily in the form of risk-premium. There are laws that protect the relationship and provide recourse, but at the end of the day you must trust that someone will have the ability to pay you back before you lend them money, because if they don't, what're you gonna do about it (IIRC in India, and I'm sure elsewhere, many citizens can end up indentured to the creditor as a form of slavery... luckily this is not an issue in western society so-far as I know)?

But what's very concerning and accurate about videos like this (and why I'm glad they exist), is how the government is manipulating its own risk premium by buying debt from itself, or providing incentives (such as the borrowing window open to some banks) to buy its debt. This is especially concerning given the fiscal deficit. There are a lot of other negative consequences of this, due to the fact that the US Dollar is the world reserve currency, and many other risk assets use its risk-premium as a benchmark (terming it the risk-free rate); this is mostly true for US corporations. All of these corps benefit with lowered risk-cost as a result (this is how QE TRANSFERS its benefits to the broader economy, and is intentional).

So, all the sudden the US goes to raise debt to service debt, and they can't. And that's actually how it happens. The excellent book "This Time is Different" (which I HIGHLY recommend) researched government defaults throughout history, and determined no easy way to predict when the cliff comes. But it always does.

Now current maturing debt is worthless. All other US debt holders immediately sell, but there's no buyers because everyone has the same information. What's more, some of our largest debt-holders are other countries, and now they're pissed. So in some Battle Royale style cinema they send fleets against the US to reclaim assets in a "fire-sale". The government can try to save itself by printing money liberally, but now you have hyperinflation, and dollars are worthless. You can't buy milk anymore, because the shop owner doesn't know if the dollars he collects will be enough to restock the milk tomorrow. Paper dollars are worthless. Your home's worthless. Anarchy in the streets. Dogs and cats living together. The works.

Is that really true though? Is your home literally worthless? Car? No, it's still valuable to you in some way. Aren't you glad you owned hard assets with intrinsic value? Not like those suckers who owned worthless US debt or had US dollars. Then the big finale for this argument (I don't know that he recommends this, I didn't get that far) is to buy assets that have historically held value through crises (like gold... BitCoin gets thrown in here too which I think is crazy, but Raul Paul is wealthier than I am so wtf do I know). In that anarchy of financial destruction, you, the smart investor, will be able to live by bartering your hoarded gold for goods.

For the record I think the argument ignores the kind of recession we're/were in. I can recommend several books if you're interested in learning more.

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