Is all money just a ponzi scheme? | Vicki Robin | Big Think | Big Think
Is all money just a ponzi scheme?
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“Money, it’s a gas,” wrote Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters for their hit ‘Money’. Author, speaker, and social innovator Vicki Robin would probably agree: she posits that most people don’t understand the true, human, working value of money.
Because when she breaks it down like she does here in this video, you might be tempted to reevaluate your own spending habits.
Vicki’s latest book is Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence.
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VICKI ROBIN:
Vicki Robin is a prolific social innovator, writer, and speaker. She is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the international best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992, 1998, 2008, 2018).
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TRANSCRIPT:
Vicki Robin: We all know: it’s like everything from “Money is status,” “Money is power,” “Money is sex appeal.”
I just read that “The more beautiful the woman the bigger the diamond and the uglier the man who gave it to her,” you know, so it’s—why is that? That has nothing to do with the daily transactions! That is something emotional. That’s how the man believes he’s going to feel with a beautiful wife, how the woman feels when she’s got an expensive rock on her hand. These are all feelings, they’re status, like, “I made it,” proving yourself to your third-grade teacher or your nemesis in high school or your parents.
There’s so many ways in which we project onto money the ability to not only make us happy but to make us “better” or better than other people or safe, or—so many deep gut level emotional feelings are playing themselves out in our relationship with money. And, you know, fine. I’m not saying it shouldn’t happen. “We will all be very conscious and we will not have any emotions in our relationship with money.” I’m not saying that. I’m just saying the more aware you are of what you’re projecting onto money in terms of meeting emotional and psychological and even spiritual needs the clearer you’re going to be in those daily transactions. In fact that’s part of why once you start to become conscious of money and stuff in your life this way, you stop spending so much money.
But around that is another level: there is the cultural narrative, the rules of the game of our economy, of the financial system which in so many ways governs not just our daily lives but who wins and who loses, who has power and who does not have power, who gets to say what the game is, who gets to play by the rules and break the rules. I mean this is a cultural context. It has nothing to do particularly with what’s going on in our individual traumas and histories, it has to do with a longer historical moment in time, and the basic meme of the financial system is growth.
I mean it’s really—in a way it’s sort of a very long-con Ponzi scheme, because it has to keep growing in order to keep meeting its obligations. Money is produced—I mean the actual pieces of paper and metal, the credit that you have isn’t just like you go to a job and somebody gives you some pieces of paper, it’s—money is loaned into being by banks. Banks have the authorization to create money but it’s not like they have to have $1,000 in the vault in order to lend you $1,000. No, they have to have $100 in the vault to lend you $1,000, and then they lend you the $1,000 with interest. So in the world of money everything has to grow. Everything has to keep growing or it’s Game Over, which is a difficulty for us now because of the capacity of the planet to support this ideology.
So that’s that construct of money, which is fascinating. People study economics and financial systems were mesmerized by how people have played this system to the detriment of many people except for themselves. And then but what we say is that outside of that whole thing, those are all stories.
What we actually know for sure as individual human beings we know that we have a body, that we know that we’re alive, and that we invest some of the minutes of our lives, some of the vital force of our lives in a process that produces money for us. However it produces it, whether it’s a job, whether it’s investments, whether it’s dog sitting, whatever it is whether it’s stealing the Topkapi diamond.
It’s like whatever it is, we invest some of our precious life energy in this thing called getting money. So money …
For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/vicki-robin-a-long-con-ponzi-scheme-how-money-rules-the-world
@bigthink
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
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@Kenny-tl7ir
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Bitcoin > all other assets
@rolloman667
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
50 percent of your life is spent at work, cummuting to work, preparing for work, educating yourself everyday so that you can get better work(job).
33.3 percent of your life is spent sleeping. That leaves 16 percent for your family and leisure. The only way to get out of this cycle is to make money work for you instead of the opposite.
@Freedomisintelligence
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
YES! All money is a ponzi scheme! Cost of living is not real. People waste away there lives working for fake money to pay fake cost of living. Enslavement to fake cost of living enslaving people with fake money. This is what humanity created and the fallout is climate change, oppression and false ideology with subliminal education. Less than 0.1% of the world actually understand the truth and see the reality the world lives in. 99.9% of the world distract themselves with entertainment, false religion and fake politics. It is the sad truth and it really does break my heart.
@markm3477
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
A system designed by the rich, for the rich, for the rich to get richer at everyone else's expense and for money/wealth to flow to the top….and yet they tell you if you don't succeed its NOTHING but your own fault. True insanity.
@tamlamoore7962
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
ALL CANCER RESEARCH CENTERS AND HOSPITALS ARE SIMIAN HYBRID PEOPLE PONZI SCHEMES..WE ARE ABORIGINAL PEOPLE..WE ARE NOT THE SAME SPECIES..ASE HEKA AMEN RA AHO MOORE NATION GRAND RISING KARMA.. NEVER EVER MOCK GOD
@Originalimoc
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
73 yet clear talking 😮
@gasierral16
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Wow
@Frequency369
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
This is exactly how BITCOIN the BLACKROCK fake money systems works!! They owns everything and pushing both sides of the system. Sells USDT sells BTC sells all the money and you have to work for it to get it. The only profit is from your neighbours!!!! You DUMBOS 👁️🙈🐑☠️
Criminals are created by this death cult regimes by the polarisation of it. The whole planet belongs to humanity there is no need for shortages. This DC DEEPSTATE mafia kartels created evil 🩸💉☠️ money reward punishment system by illegal laws the maritime laws by putting you from birth into a fictional personage as the the debitor the straw man to be pay your debts (fake money) to pushing you to labour. That’s how you are a prisoner of life in hands of the mafia elite cult. We the people build there empires. It was always this way by kingdoms and slavery. They created fear and poverty by wars and give the people savers as kings. Now those days it’s your political leaders. This strategy is a simple Phi-Ra-mid Fibonacci strategy Blackrock death cult families Mafia who created micro and macro worldwide PONZI SCAMS☠️👁️🙈🐑
YOU HAVE TO STOP THESE INFLUENCERS WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR TRUST IN MANKIND. THESE INFLUENCERS CREATES the ILLUSION of HAPPINESS but in fact they POLARISING humanity and you will lost you soul after all because you have sell it to devil. PAIN IS COMING FOR THOSE WHO ARE INVOLVED ☠️👽👁️
@TGSM19
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
I really enjoyed lisiting to you Misses Vicki , this opened my eyes a bit more about how i see money.
@jackgoldman1
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
The fake score is not the real game. Children are sold into debt slavery transferred to evil vampire squid. Life, liberty, labor, happiness is transferred to the evil ruling elites who use IOUs to steal life from children. This is global tribal child abuse.
@jackgoldman1
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Please. Money is gold. IOUs, debt, debt notes, crypto, Bit Coin, pixels, digits are all two dimensional fantasy. Unborn children are sold into a criminal IOU income tax debt slavery Ponzi scheme. We are using dishonest measures. This will and must fail. The empire must grow the debt when debt is used as fake pretend money, two dimensional scores, not real. Just debt slavery. Gold is money. IOUs are debt.
@emiyanada4252
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
What a horrible video, had nothing to do with the title. I expected a lot more intellectual and interesting discussion.
@mkzhero
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
All money? No. All GOVERNMENT money? Absolutely
@SuperDeadRooster
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Remember when they had to have $100 to lend you $1000… Times change quicky
@TheBreezus
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
So why the hell would I ever work for money when its a damn ponzi scheme. Don draper was right…What is happiness? It's the moment before you need more happiness.
@James_Renz
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
If people understand how money works and how government spends it, then the rise of the Marxist culture advocating a Social Democracy, not the left but the psycho left, would almost disappear.
@garrettcole2251
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Money is just a numeral credit. It's lended, it's grown by buying more assets then sell it to the other banks so they can grow money. Money is not valuable
@deanotheo7928
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Continue counting down ur fingers son 😂
@natashaphillips4371
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
As a trade enthusiast who has made lots of money investing with Steve Hendricks, made 31k$ last week putting in 12k$ I will advice y’all get a professional to guide your investments as I can proudly say it’s the best way moving forward from now, y’all reach him for guidance to great earnings
@marcelohoss
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
1. Money is not currency. The later governments and banks print generating inflation. The former mantain the purchase power because has limited amount such as gold or bitcoin.
2. In order to go coffee shop and spend $9 who earns $36/h the coffee shop worker will earn $9 which is much less than 36. So only scaling up he/she will be able to match its earnings and therefore he/she will not have time to meditate as proposed. The argument is valid not for everyone unless we as society achive technological advances constantly to desinflation goods and services making money (gold/bitcoin) more valuable over time.
@jalvarez111
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
This is the best message I have heard in a long time. Not everyone will understand this concept. 💡
@Securepaymentsl
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
" how did I just spend $10 in 3 minutes, when I only make $9 an hour" in other words, I just spent an hour of my life on a drink.
@osochara
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
I think a more accurate title would have been “Are banks and the Federal Reserve a ponzi scheme?”. Money is just a tool to represent value. Value is continuously growing through enterprise. It might not be equally or fairly distributed, it might not grow at the same rate as shitty politians print money (which is what dilutes its value) but it keeps growing nonetheless. Anyways, the video isn’t really about that, it turns out; it’s about how you’re actually spending your time and enjoying your life…
@Ecocidologist-1
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Put simply – the richer you are, the less self-respect you're going to have, typically. Simple biology necessitates you've got to eat to live (and if you're not a hunter / gather, you're going to need to buy food). But the more you crave and earn money (often avoiding tax / voting right wing), the more you exploit nature / the planet / other people. What fucking use is a diamond ring exactly in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of all time that is likely to see us disappear in a couple of centuries at the current rate???
@dotanon
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
TLDW: Humans are talking monkeys on a floating rock hoarding resources while pretending to be more than monkeys and obfuscating how much of their self importance stems purely from the amount of resources they've managed to hoard and the subsequent social benefits they receive from other monkeys who want access to their resources.
For anyone without the time to watch, I think this covers it.
@penbunny9078
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Whats the message/substance?
@Tweetogreggieb59
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
That's right, TQQQ & SQQQ, it's only one option when someone's coming at you with a bunch of crap, you shut that ass down, that's how I did the stock market in 2022 by empowering you the people… ..
@Tweetogreggieb59
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
That's right, TQQQ & SQQQ, it's only one option when someone's coming at you with a bunch of crap, you shut that ass down, that's how I did the stock market in 2022 by empowering you the people… ..
@DelindaHenderson
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
This is why the population will decrease dramatically.
@twinsoultarot473
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
I don't think Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. Why? Because of the general consensus that it is decentralized and it's designed with sustainability in mind.
@earthpilot8500
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
I'm am grateful to have found this video and also blown away that it only has 110.371 views, wow. Thank you
@jish55
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
Yes, it is just one massive ponzi scheme, because there is no actual money value on anything. Cars, homes, food, water, tv, movies, etc. have no actual cash value. The only reason we see a value on it is that those in power say money is worth this and then those who control all the different things we use say those things are now worth these sets of numbers.
@InspektorDreyfus
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
There is no inherent need of growth in the money system. The existence of interest doesn't imply growth. Credits can default. If credits run fine, then the bank, its employees and share holders will receive money that they spend in the economy. So the interest is not something that gets lost in the money system, money from interest stays in the economy. Also, banks do not only create money, but they also destroy money when you pay back the debt.
Of course everyone prefers growth and wants profit out of investments. Otherwise there would be no meaning in founding a company. But there is no guarantee that every company makes profit or that every investor is successful.
@sfinxwojerz
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
To me a really bad answer when we ask about muffins. And happiness.
@millenialmusings8451
July 31, 2025 at 11:44 am
This is one of the worst made videos ever on big think. The woman talks a lot and says so little
Comments are closed.