Being an economist and the economics of money Not as boring at it sounds. Tony Yates, aged 49 and ¾ [=Jonas Dad]

Transcription

1 Being an economist and the economics of money Not as boring at it sounds Tony Yates, aged 49 and ¾ [=Jonas Dad]

2 BEING AN ECONOMIST 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.

3 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.

4 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.

5 Places economists work: think tanks

6 Places economists show up: the telly Here s me saying: I don t know a lot. 7m18s. [typical economist, in fact].

7 Places economists do stuff: newspapers

8 You can find economists talking on social media....talking about ECONOMICS.

9 A lot of maths..

10 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.

11 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.

12 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?

13 DIFFERENT KINDS OF MONEY IN THE PAST

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15 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.

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17 These are cowry shells. They were used as money in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Borneo.. [After the fishy animals were taken out!]

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19 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.

20 Cigarettes! These were money too, in a prisoner of war camp in World War

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22 Yap stones. Used as money on the island of Yap.

23 We ended up with paper money. Although maybe that isn t the end of the story.

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25 These are: Credit cards Oyster cards for London transport Bitcoin cash machine

26 WHAT DOES MONEY HAVE TO BE LIKE TO MAKE IT WORK?

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28 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?

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30 Durable: it has to last

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32 Portable: you can carry it around in your pocket easily

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34 Scarcity: can t have people being able to make more money just by picking it up

35 Which paper money would you rather have?

36 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.

37 20 of what?!!

38 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.

39 A story from the French Revolution about early paper money This is Robospierre. He became leader of France during the Revolution in During that time a lot of people had their head chopped off. Ironically, that s how he ended up too.

40 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.

41 This was Marie Antoinette, the King s wife. She was not very popular with the people either.

42 A story about her probably not true is that she once was told that the peasants poor people in the country had no bread.

43 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.

44 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.

45 The Revolutionaries ordered that the King Louis have his head chopped off.

46 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.

47 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

48 They decided to hold auctions where people would bid against each other to buy the Church lands off the Revolutionary government.

49 People would bring gold probably in coins and get an Assignat. Just a bit of paper.

50 Here is an Assignat. People would take these to the auctions and use them to try to buy the church land.

51 These assignats were just like fairground tokens that you buy when you go to the fair. You hand over money. They give you tokens. Then you buy rides with the tokens.

52 This is a hammer that the auctioneer hammers down when something is sold. For some reason they still do this even now. SOLD! The revolutionary government didn t hold many auctions, but they kept on selling the tickets, the Assignats anyway, and the gold kept coming in for a while.

53 We ll just carry on selling the tickets for gold, and keep hold of the church lands, they thought. But then people realised the auction tickets would not get them anything, so no one wanted them any more. It got harder and harder to persuade people to buy the tickets with gold.

54 The Assignats became worthless, so people wanted to use things like wine and cheese as money. Everyone likes wine and cheese. And they keep for ages. In fact the longer the better.

55 The government didn t want people to use wine and cheese for money, because that took away their business raising funds for the war against the Prussians. So they told people you d get your head chopped off if you were caught doing that. That is a guillotine, a big blade that would slide down and do the job.

56 HOW MUCH MONEY SHOULD THERE BE?

57 Now for a game with these And these.

58 Rules of the evil money game. Sellers: get as much MONEY as possible. Buyers: if you get no fruit, you die. If you get only one kind of fruit, you will live but be miserable and hungry. If you get both kinds of fruit, you will be happy but maybe bet indigestion.

59 Different players that we need 2 orange sellers: sell your oranges! 1 apple seller: sell your apples! 6 buyers: buy fruit 2 statisticians: tell us how much money the sellers ended up with.

60 Some questions for you about the evil money game What were you sellers trying to do? What were you buyers trying to do? What was the price of the fruit in the first round? What was the price in the second round? What made the prices different? Did people end up with more or less fruit or just the same? Was there anything unfair about the game?

61 When the govt prints too much money In Germany in the 1920s, money became almost worthless. Kids used it as a toy. To buy anything you needed a cart of it!

62 Some things economists work on Why are some countries rich and others poor? Why do some countries get richer over time and others not? Why does the economy sometimes collapse and lots of people lose their jobs? Should the state run the economy, or should it run itself? Should we buy and sell things with other countries or not?

63 Some more things economists work on How much is it safe for the government to borrow? Should we let banks do what they like or try to control what they do? Why do some jobs pay a lot and others not very much? What is the best way to spend money. in the NHS. in schools..in the army.?