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Join economist Tony Yates as he explores the fascinating world of money and its impact on economies and societies. From ancient forms of currency to modern digital transactions, discover the secrets behind money and its role in shaping our world.
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Being an economistand the economics of money-Not as boring at it sounds Tony Yates, aged 49 and ¾ [=Jonas’ Dad]
This is a photo of a robot. People often think of economists as a bit like heartless robots. And in return, economists often treat people a bit like robots too. Being an Economist
Places economists work: The Bank of England I turned up here every day for 21 years. That’s more than 2* how long any of you have lived.
Places economists work: universities! These were my lovely MSc students at Birmingham. Look how happy they are to be taught by me! [Actually I told them they had to smile.
Places economists show up: the telly Here’s me saying: ‘I don’t know’ a lot. 7m18s. [typical economist, in fact].
You can find economists talking on social media….. ……..talking about…… ECONOMICS.
…And a lot of graphs This shows what proportion of people had no job in the UK. The v big spike is the great depression. This was a terrible time for people because they could not earn any money for food.
…And a lot more graphs This shows how much richer people have been getting in China. People at the top have seen their incomes go up 9 times! People at the bottom have got about 30% more money.
…And some disappointment • Q: what causes unemployment and global poverty and how can we stop it? • A: er….. Can I get back to you on that please?
These are Tally sticks. They were used as a kind of money in lots of places. Each scratch recorded something you might be owed by someone. Ancient Rome. Pliny the Elder talked about them. Also China 1200AD. And England around 1000AD.
These are cowry shells. They were used as money in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Borneo….. [After the fishy animals were taken out!]
Gold and silver and other valuable metals have been used as money. And still are. This one was made in 1918 at the end of World War 1.
Cigarettes! These were money too, in a prisoner of war camp in World War 2 1939-1945
Yap stones. Used as money on the island of Yap.
We ended up with paper money. Although maybe that isn’t the end of the story.
These are: Credit cards Oyster cards for London transport Bitcoin cash machine
Divisible: it comes in different size bits so you can buy cheap and expensive things too Q: could you chop up a JCB easily if you wanted to buy something else with half of it?
Scarcity: can’t have people being able to make more money just by picking it up
Which paper money would you rather have? This is money from the game ‘Monopoly’ And this is UK money printed by the Bank of England that we all use.
This is the gold in the vaults of the Bank of England. In the old days you could get gold for one of those notes. The ‘promise to pay…’ meant something. NOT ANY MORE.
A story from the French Revolution about early paper money This is Robospierre. He became leader of France during the Revolution in 1789. During that time a lot of people had their head chopped off. Ironically, that’s how he ended up too.
1789. French get fed up with the King and his family. Middle classes and intellectuals don’t like him spending their taxes on palaces and wars.
This was Marie Antoinette, the King’s wife. She was not very popular with the people either.
A story about her – probably not true – is that she once was told that the peasants – poor people in the country – had no bread.
And she was supposed to have said: ‘Let them eat cake!’ The story was probably made up by people to make her look bad. But it gives you an idea how her enemies wanted to make her look mean.
The people took over Paris, broke into the main prison, the Bastille, and let everybody out. And they imprisoned the King and his family after they tried to escape.
The Revolutionaries ordered that the King – Louis – have his head chopped off.
The French got into a war with Prussia [a bit of what’s now Germany]. There were a lot of wars then. The French were having trouble getting enough money to pay for it.
The church had a LOT of land So the Revolutionaries decided to confiscate it all. Then they had a bright idea to get some money for the war………
They decided to hold auctions… where people would bid against each other… to buy the Church lands off the Revolutionary government.
People would bring gold – probably in coins- and get an Assignat. Just a bit of paper….
Here is an Assignat. People would take these to the auctions and use them to try to buy the church land.