End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless (2012) User Reviews

Goldfinger

[valis1949 · 6/10 · 12 July 2013]

END OF THE ROAD-HOW MONEY BECAME WORTHLESS (dir. Tim Delmastro) This is not really a documentary, but an infomercial for companies featured in the film that specialize in gold investments.

All the 'experts' are really employees of these firms, and their aim is to have you consider what they are selling because they insist that the implosion of the world's currency markets is just around the corner. However, if all the governments of the globe actually did simultaneously collapse, a stockpile of gold bars would provide little solace. You can't eat gold, and I doubt if you could get many of the survivors to agree on how much it would be worth in this hypothetical, post-apocalyptic future.

Money offers a quantitative measure of value that is not found in gold or barter, and although the film correctly posits that all fiat currency economies (those not backed by gold) ultimately fail, this is actually no more true than observing that 'all economies fail over time'.

Interesting but questionable

[miko-526-390895 · 7/10 · 11 November 2012]

It was interesting. Currency is so abstract and this and the '08 free fall illustrates just how convoluted it's become. I'm not sure 'ponzi scheme' is the best analogy for the global finance situation we're in. A single investment scheme and world markets regulated or controlled by governments are very different beasts. Every recession or depression brings inflation. Only time will tell how much. I'm skeptical about the insistence that gold is still the most real money. I'm no expert but it seems we've moved too far beyond that. I just wonder with the CEO of a gold selling website going on and on about it, that there's a conflict of interest and they may be inflating things to drum up gold sales. If I had money to save I might consider some gold just in case, to diversify. But if you have a gold bar and the economy completely tanks, I don't think there's much good that bar will do. It's not going to buy food.

Ignore the negative reviews, they are the real propaganda

[dbb79 · 8/10 · 29 July 2013]

Some people apparently wrote some negative reviews about this documentary. They mention that the documentary is about propaganda from "neo-cons" and "gold dealers". This is a lie, the documentary interviews people who understand the situation and many of the people interviewed predicted economic events, because they understood the reasons.

The left wing propagandists writing these negative reviews do not like these facts because they are critical of big government and central planning.

The documentary contains some great information and is highly recommended if you want to learn more about the real economy. 8/10

Very Suspicious...

[jamck77 · 2 September 2013]

When compared to other documentaries such as "Inside Job" or "The Flaw" this film lacks serious credibility. I don't require that all opinions come from PhD's from Yale and Duke. However, I looked up the men from this film and they appear to be gold hucksters.

This film does highlight how Nixon's reasons for departing from the Bretton Woods Agreement are interesting especially if you listen to his "defending the dollar against speculators" excuse. However, a good deal of the accompanying rhetoric is questionable to me.

You can't ridicule a guy who claims the sky is falling. Someday it might, but I do question those who try to cash in on it.

Forget about what the value it places in gold, that is not the key message....

[alexanderjslaney · 8/10 · 29 January 2014]

Everyone here seems to be making a huge deal about whether this film was or not was not propaganda for gold dealers. In reality that's beside the point.

I don't think it matters whether you buy gold or not, that's not the point they're making-- their point is that "currency" ie meaningless bits of paper, or numbers made up by government treasuries at will with no underlying source of meaning to guarantee it's value is, by nature unsecure. And that people may think of seeking alternatives- whatever they may be. Because if the dollar and other currencies devalue- what will the world deal in? Because currencies have not underlying worth (what is a bit of paper, or a digit on a screen if it can not be exchanged or translated into something meaningful/ items in the real world) that makes the post-gold-standard dollar EXTREMELY susceptible to huge speculatory shifts in value- ie it is no better than a bitcoin. Both are arbitrary things that people decide what their worth is. However at the moment people believe that it is more secure to have a dollar than a bitcoin because it can bne more readily exchanged for real world items, and services including food etc.

If the film is correct, it could be revolutionary. I think it raises a lot of very interesting points and explains certain modesl well. Just don't get to caught up on the gold thing- I think they just mean it as an example of what the world may have to fall back on as a unifying currency if the dollar was to collapse.

Offers an accessible, though incomplete, overview of world monetary conditions.

[cruisern · 7/10 · 26 January 2013]

As noted in this film for the first time in human history every currency in the world is fiat, meaning national currencies are backed by nothing which would enforce monetary discipline hence ultimately dependent on confidence alone. The film touches on the history of fiat currencies while focusing on the current world monetary system which was initially designed to include forced discipline through a tenuous anchor to gold through the US dollar after the Bretton Woods Agreement. The gold link was broken when President Nixon "temporarily" ended US dollar convertibility 1971 (clip included in the film, twice).

The film then examines the subsequent explosion in debt worldwide, with a focus on government debt, and anticipates the acceleration in the expansion of national currencies which we are witnessing today. The ultimate consequence of such behavior, a general decline in the value of currencies relative to goods and services (general price inflation), is discussed. Some of the individuals interviewed suggest that governments have attempted to mask these consequences through manipulation of inflation estimates and intervention in the gold market.

As an economist I would say this film promises to offer the lay person an accessible and interesting introduction into current world monetary conditions and the likely longer term consequences although it fails to address wider monetary distortions caused by the effects of interest rate distortion and leverage within the financial system. Overall a thoughtful and timely film at this point in financial history. The viewer will likely leave with a sense that this is a story which doesn't end well.

Great watch 10/10 peter schiff and others telling it how it is

[gotrusty · 10/10 · 18 September 2014]

Great watch. Def recommend seeing this if you like economics.

bettycjung What are you talking about? Of course you can't walk into a bar or a store with gold these days and buy beer food or whatever with it. At any point you can easily sell the gold for whatever money you want and use that to buy stuff. How can you not grasp that. There are so many places you can sell it. IT's an investment so you're going to want to put your savings into it not the money you plan on spending everyday.

The whole movie was about the inflation we're seeing in the market, if you keep your money in USD you're going to continue to loose as the purchasing power of that money drops. If you put it in gold you can keep your savings from depreciating as inflation increases. And really, it's very easy to sell gold or silver. Read about it.

Dubious, perhaps.

[bernierdan · 7/10 · 2 April 2019]

This is either a big sales job to get us to seek out and buy physical gold OR all the people in this movie actually really believe this conspiracy and therefore work in the Gold/silver industry. Could be a bit of both.

False advertising and horrible propaganda

[kristerandersson2526-541-7706 · 1/10 · 28 November 2012]

I expected to see an interesting narrative of the financial crisis, based on the summary provided. I can hardly express how disappointed I was.

First, there are very questionable arguments on the causes of the financial crisis and the state of the world. Some issues are very real and somewhat accurately described, such as the problem of debt accumulation, global trade imbalances and the relative stability that was seen during the Bretton Woods decades. However, the argument that the world is heading to hyperinflation? Vastly exaggerated, as many countries actually could do with a little more inflation. One author says that it's ironic that Occupy Wall Street and similar movements want more state involvement (social security etc.) since it was precisely this that brought on the crisis. It is extremely odd to say that it was too much state involvement, since it was exactly the opposite. Deregulation of the financial sector allowed it outgrow the real sector and economic growth in general to be dependent on debt and the growth of the aforementioned sector. Too easy to make financial short-term cross- border investments, and more.

Second, it promises "top economic minds". Myself, I am an economist have never heard of any of these people. I had to google them, which produced virtually no scholarly results and very questionable material in general. Which leads me to point 3...

Third, vested interests. There aren't even any scholars. Instead, all of the participants are people owning or working for financial services firms or websites trying to sell gold. Given the conclusion that you should invest all your money in gold, this is not surprising.

Finally, only including relatively old white fellows doesn't make it more exciting. You couldn't find one woman or someone with a different ethnicity that had a website selling gold...?

Go see for example "Inside Job" instead of this Austrian Economics propaganda, a group I hoped would have been disintegrated about 40 years ago.

This is pure, simple and dangerous gold propaganda.

[gumzster · 2/10 · 28 November 2012]

"You shall not press down on the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold." -William Jennings Bryan

The problems described in this movie are very real. The conclusion however, to change to a gold standard, is a path to true plutocracy...ruled by the rich. Gold is rare and easy to manipulate. There are a number of problems with the movie that makes it more of a sales pitch for gold then a documentary per se. We don't get to hear any opposing voices...the participants are all spokespersons of a gold standard if not directly profiteering of gold trading. Even the music changes to tones of salvation when the gold answer reveals it self.

There are however other ways of fixing the problems. I urge anybody trying to get a deeper understanding of this to see Bill Stills "The Secret of Oz" It is freely available on Youtube.

Misleading and flawed out-of-date thesis, expounded as truth

[lproche · 2/10 · 21 April 2013]

Let's first examine the subtitle of this movie, "how money became worthless". Presumably, money here refers to currency, although in the movie it is stated that currency does not deserve the word "money", only precious metals do. In any case, money is _not_ worthless. In major countries including America currencies have become increasingly stable and have thus retained plenty of value for buying goods. The fact that the movie contains a falsehood in its title is indicative of the entire content.

A major misleading point in this movie is that it claims that all money is created by government borrowing. This is far from the truth. A huge amount of money is created in loans for mortgages, and other money is created in loans to companies. Both of these are backed by assets with persistent value (property and companies). There is no theoretical reason why a fiat currency system cannot function for a million years: this draws attention to the barefaced lie in the movie that fiat currencies are a Ponzi scheme. They are not, because they don't inevitably collapse. Rather, control of money supply can be maintained indefinitely in support of a productive economy.

Another falsehood is that fiat currencies inevitably suffer from excessive inflation. In fact, governments have been increasingly successful in keeping inflation where they want it (low but positive), the empirical optimum for an economy. The movie suggests that it was much better in the good old days of the 50's when everything was cheap. The truth is people were worse off in real terms in the 50s, and can buy a lot more now with their greater spending power.

A huge lie is told by "monetary historian" Mike Maloney, prominent in the movie, who claims that there is a proved 100% failure rate of fiat currencies. Perhaps he is forgetting that the world currently has nothing but fiat currencies, and that there are well over 100 of these that have not failed. This is an extraordinary example of blindness to the facts, both by so-called Mike Maloney, and by the editors of the movie. And we are not just talking about currencies that have been created recently. The pound sterling, the dollar, the yen and many others are currencies that have been around a long while and have been successful as fiat currencies. Indeed, perhaps the biggest problem among the major currencies has been the deflation problems in Japan, due to inadequate stimulus, rather than the hyperinflation that has never occurred to them.

Another example of pure baloney by Mike Maloney in the movie is when he claims most of the world's gold is stored in the vaults of the US and UK central banks. In truth, while the US does still hold a lot of gold (although its value is a small fraction of GDP these days), the UK is merely the 15th largest holder of gold. The developed countries recognise gold as a commodity of decreasing significance to a global economy where productivity matters more than Scrooge-like hoarding.

In fact ALL central banks hold merely 19% of the world's gold, proving it to be a commodity primarily of significance for its uses in jewelry and electrical contacts.

At the end of the movie, I felt I had found myself the unwitting recipient of a sales pitch, as the speakers repeatedly advised the audience to go buy gold. Not bad advice until the price topped out several months after the movie was released, but speculators should be advised the price of gold can go down as well as up.

Worthless Neo-Conservative Scam

[brianprosser · 1/10 · 12 December 2012]

It's pretty cheesy how the music changes at the end of this documentary and shows couple looking into the sunset. Then softly mentioning,"the only thing you need to do to protect your family from the "bad 'ol government" is to BUY GOLD." Why are we taking advice from the same hedge fund managers and wall street corporate hacks who were responsible for destroying our economy? Spain has a long history of demonstrating economic collapse on the gold standard. Is that the route we want to take? The arrogance of these "neo-conservative" scam artists is beyond belief. For those of you who are sceptical of these sheep herding snake oil sales men, a quick google search will reveal quite a few "well- founded" articles as to why the flexibility of a fiat based system is much better for a modern economy. eg. "debunking gold standard myth stability"

A really scary film about the world's economy

[bettycjung · 5 September 2012]

This is the best film I have seen, so far, that explains how the world economy works, how money changes hands, and how bills get paid. A great documentary that explains why all countries are in big economic trouble, as those interviewed explain. Right now, all the various monetary exchanges are based on everyone's trust in the US government's currency. The US currency is no longer backed by gold, but on everyone's confidence in the US currency. That is what's backing US currency. Actually, this is so scary that we may be better off putting money under the mattress than in a bank. Everyone who has one dollar to their name should watch this film.

One Sided

[stewartmartinbrown · 1/10 · 6 September 2019]

A one sided economic argument that misses so many points. Probably funded by gold traders. Never seen such a flawed documentary

Infomercials are not documentaries

[dmessner-48006 · 1/10 · 12 May 2018]

There is a lot wrong with this film and it's evident from the 5 minute mark when an "expert" is brought on from a company that 'sells' gold. It deteriorates quickly from there with a who's who of precious metals sales pitches. If the premise entertained in this turd held true then inflation would have already jumped to over 10% in the 6 years since it came out. Let me check the 10-yr treasuries.... and nope, looks like it's just fear mongering with a sales pitch.

Possibly suspect

[Phil_Chester · 4 September 2018]

It's an interesting documentary, discussing the problems caused by the end of the Bretton-Woods system. We all know that the current financial set-up is built on shaky ground and cannot go on as it is. Once they've put the fear into us, they then go on to say that gold is the answer. And it is, if you're the gold broker selling the stuff. It's a shame that this film descends into selling snake oil, because it was very engaging up to that point. Worth a watch, but keep that pinch of salt handy.

A Hackneyed Propganda Piece

[chron · 1/10 · 14 November 2013]

This is not a fact-based documentary.

Although I am not an economist, it is clear to me that the stories that are being told are not even internally consistent, so are tremendously suspect. For example, in the international flow of money discussion, they conflate consumer dollars with public spending and deficits. These are two separate issues.

When money becomes devalued, it typically results in inflation. Since we have low inflation, which contradicts their premise, they make up the "fact" that inflation isn't being reported accurately. (Yes, another government conspiracy).

They also attribute the decline in real worker wages to monetary policy, but it makes more sense that it comes from globalization and lower wages in other countries causing manufacturing to move out of America and downward wage pressure domestically.

They also fail to mention the disadvantages of money based on a commodity. Since that commodity is openly traded, it can cause wild fluctuations in the value of the dollar that are not a result of real economic activity.

They also don't mention that gold is capricious. There is nothing inherently valuable about gold. It could be iron, copper or dryer lint. It's just something that we ascribe a value to... just like paper money.

Worthless Rightwing Propaganda

[curmudgeon99-248-893371 · 1/10 · 24 July 2013]

Within two minutes I knew this was bogus. They want to attribute the financial crisis not to the actual causes, such as the epidemic of tax avoidance by the wealthy and the wave of companies moving their profit offshore but to some amorphous bs about gold.

The gold standard is horrendous for the common person because it allows the super wealthy to control the money supply and exert a dangerous control over everyone.

This movie is a big fat wet kiss to the gold-peddling industry and NeoConservatives.

Completely bogus and worthless.

There is a book that puts these facts into a fictional story

[rick_cajun · 12 March 2015]

I wonder if this documentary was put together with the insight of that book???

The book is called Economic Regression "A Guidebook for when money is useless"

The book's premise is when money, gold, and anything perceived as valuable, becomes worthless in the eyes of men.

It follows the perspective of 6 kinds of people, from an American Family of 4, a multi-billion dollar international company CEO, The Amish, Amazon Tribe, etc..

The engineering in the book is all doable and the formulas are real for things like Bio-Diesel, beer, alcohol, and more..

Not to give the story away, the Amish do not fair well. People know they do not need money to survive, which ends bad for the Amish.

On kindle and amazon..

Goldbugs and Conspiracy Theorists

[edlaxton · 3/10 · 3 August 2020]

In other words.... no dispassionate analysis of our broken global financial system. Find a better use of 54 minutes