What exactly is money? (Animated explainer videos)
In these animated videos, political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson explain the nature of money, and what makes it unique.
The talented video artist Giandavide Locicero at Pomona Pictures created a series of animated explainer videos based on episodes of Geopolitical Economy Hour.
In these videos, political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson explain the nature of money.
They also discuss what makes money unique, how it is a form of debt, and why the attempt to impose a single global money causes instability.
Geopolitical Economy Report has a YouTube playlist with animated videos explaining important principles of economics:
The drawings and animations were done by Giandavide Locicero.
You can find Pomona Pictures' website at PomonaPictures.com, and you can follow their Vimeo profile at Vimeo.com/PomonaPictures.
Magnificent animations and narration!
Here is something I wrote 5 May 2025 about money to try to explain dedollarization:
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/05/trump-tariffs-dedollarization-sell-us-dollar/
What is dedollarization?
I believe it is actually several different things, best examined by first asking "what is money?"
Money is different things to different people in different contexts:
1. Money is a fungible proxy (of NO inherent worth) to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. It is a fiat intermediary to enable transactions. Money in different countries is denominated in their different currencies, but there is only one international reserve currency (IRC), the USD. Monopolistic control over international transactions abusing the USD status as IRC enabled the USA to block the international trade to and from targeted countries ie. to sanction them, which has caused widespread starvation eg. North Korea, Venezuela and of course Iraq, when Madeline Albright famously said the starvation deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children caused by US sanctions was "worth it".
2.Money can be a means of accounting, a measure of wealth, a way to numerically express a credit status or level of national productivity or the value or cost or price of particular goods and services. Unfortunately on this score the accounting is often fraudulent and used to hoodwink suckers into parting with their dosh eg. by claiming that irredeemable debts are actually a form of money (CDOs) or by overvaluing stocks or by exaggerating GDPs etc.
3.Money can be valuable BUT the value of money is determined by the PERCEPTION of whether it is backed up by actual material wealth. Note: perceptions do not always reflect reality. The USD used to be backed up by physical gold, but when Nixon untethered it from gold in 1971, the USD was at risk of collapse as the IRC, until Nixon/Kissinger successfully tied the USD to essentially ALL global petroleum purchases creating the Petrodollar, after which the USD restored value. The Euro, Yen, Won and Yuan today all derive perceived value from the material output of their industrial capacities. Russia's Ruble value is backed up by the largest resource base in the world. As the USD loses Petrodollar status, it will no longer be backed up by oil nor gold, nor will it be backed up by real material productivity, the US having long deindustrialised. The USD then becomes worth sweet FA, an IOU that can only be repaid by issuing more IOUs, which are equally worthless.
4.Money can be a store of savings, predicated on the expectation/perception that it is secure from theft/seizure.
5.Money can be an investment vehicle, predicated on the expectation/perception it will not substantially lose value (to inflation) and will earn interest.
6.Money can be a weapon if misused by gangsters/banksters who self-servingly control its availability and flow and even how it may be spent. Anxieties about the looming imposition of surveillable and programmable digital money variations by the techbro Mafia highlight this concern.
Dedollarization refers to the erosion of the USD as the international trading and reserve currency, and the pace and extent of such erosion will be different when considering the 6 aspects of money outlined above.
1. As a trading currency, the digital RMB/Yuan, now connecting China to 10 ASEAN and 6 Gulf State countries, has been demonstrated to complete transactions within mere seconds (rather than 3 days), and save 98% of transaction costs, compared with the USD SWIFT system.
2.GDP is more honestly expressed in terms of per capita PPP denominated in individual national currencies, not in USD, and should look at material productivity, not FIRE sector rents. Ideas of value, cost and price of goods and services are best described in terms of ENERGY and that in itself requires a looooong exposition.
3.With Russia directly trading oil with India and China in their own currencies, and with the UAE, Iran, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and many other oil states being BRICS or BRICS adjacent, willing to trade in oil while bypassing the USD, the US Petrodollar is now becoming zombiefied, the walking dead.
4. After the USA seized/stole the USD foreign reserves of Russia (and Venezuela, Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, Libya etc) only a fool would now regard savings denominated in USD as being secure or safe.
5.US treasury securities used to be proclaimed as the most reliable investment vehicles in a climate of economic uncertainty, but after the chaos-inducing Trump tariffs, so-called experts like Scott Pissant and Stephen Moron were gobsmacked to discover that Japan was selling off US securities, contrary to the Pissant/Moron expert genius expectations. This caused a drop in value of the USD and securities, which caused the yields to be forced up, which would normally cause the Fed to raise interest rates, further increasing the astronomical debt burden of the USA. However Trump in his infinite genius wanted to fire Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates. Those geniuses now want to CHARGE A TARIFF for the purchase of US treasury securities, and to even force the exchange of existing securities for new ones that do not mature for 100 years with no interest, which would eventually lose huge value through inflation. Only a moron like Javier Milei would buy such vehicles, they are completely INSANE and can only accelerate US TBill sell-offs. Summary: the US bond market is faaarked.
6.Soon, as the gangster Marco Rubio decried, the USA will no longer be able to use the USD as a weapon for secondary sanctions, and even for primary sanctions it is becoming useless, certainly against big countries like Russia and China. Furthermore, countries that dedollarise will be free from future techbro Mafia digital money enslavement, joyfully flipping the bird at the execrable Peter Thiel and his diabolical ilk.
I therefore submit that the question of how and when dedollarisation occurs should be answered by considering those 6 factors above, it is not a single question but a six fold question.
In terms of question 1, this is proceeding waaaaay faster than anybody expected.
Absolutely magnificent animations…I’m loving every bit of it! And the narration by Ms. Radhika Desai and Mr. Michael Hudson. Brilliant! What a treat!