Kurzgesagt on Money

Executive Summary

• The US Treasury creates money through issuing debt — or a government bond, not through directly issuing money itself.

Introduction

The artistic video production company Kurzgesagt has some of the best video explanations on topics. In this video, they explain money and credit.

This video has received more than 7 M views. However, it repeats the false claim that deposits are used to create loans.

The entry explains this on this website called Money Creation. This false claim supports private banking interests (although Kurzgesagt is probably just repeating what they read) and perhaps one of the most prevalent myths that reduce one’s ability to understand how banking works. The video does a good job of explaining in simple terms what led to the 2008 US banking crisis. However, it fails to differentiate what did happen and what could have happened properly. The banks that got into trouble could have been easily taken over by the government instead of bailed out, and the leadership removed from their positions and been criminally prosecuted. The video does an excellent job of explaining the difference between credit unions and private banks.