The documentary of the week | The economy deciphered

Knowing how to count is not enough to understand the economic system in which we live. The documentary series Economy format skilfully dissects it, from the origin of money to this famous inflation which burns holes in our pockets.

The economy is not just about numbers. It’s even anything but numbers, we say to ourselves while watching Economy format. We caricature, of course, but to highlight an element of the economic system whose importance is highlighted several times in the documentary series produced by Michel Barbeau: trust.

We hear almost every day, in fact, about the level of “confidence” of investors, financial analysts, business leaders and consumers. It is an essential cog in the complex economic system put in place over the centuries. For what ? Because, basically, the value we give to a coin or a bank note “is not based on anything,” as Nathalie Elgrably of the Montreal Economic Institute says. It is based on an agreement reached between two parties.

This famous confidence appears very early in the economic history of humanity, tells the documentary series broadcast from Tuesday on Savoir Média.

Since barter had its limits – what to do if we have potatoes and we want carrots in exchange but our counterpart only has onions? –, humans had to agree on an “intermediary” to facilitate transactions.

Salt, used to preserve meats and fish, was one of these intermediates called “general equivalent” by economists. Until King Croesus had the idea of ​​imposing a currency minted with his image on the kingdom of Lydia, which was located somewhere in the current territory of Turkey. Very early on, too, notes of debts and payment of debts began to circulate.

What was the value of these tickets based on? The confidence individuals had in a borrower’s ability to repay. The same logic applies to these ultralocal currencies which are exchanged in certain communities in Europe and elsewhere, sometimes in response to a serious financial crisis as was the case in the early 2000s in Argentina.

Good popularizers

The interesting Savoir Média series relies on experts to decipher the economic system and its main principles. Some are known, like Monique Leroux, former director of the Mouvement Desjardins, and Nathalie Elgrably, who regularly appears in the media, and others less so. However, all of them are excellent popularizers, in particular Éric Pineault, economist and professor in the sociology department of UQAM, whose interventions are punctuated with concrete and enlightening metaphors.

In their mouths, notions not always digestible like inflation, deflation, recession, consumer price index or key rate become pieces of a complex and fragile puzzle that human societies both nourish and suffer from.

Inflation – the major subject of concern for States and citizens in recent months – also occupies a large place in the first half of the series of ten episodes, which also focus on the stock market, savings and finally to financial planning.

Economy format makes enlightening remarks, but sometimes remains very theoretical. The episodes that we were able to watch, for example, simply explain, but without ever questioning it, the economic system in which we live. Can we talk about the bursting of speculative bubbles or the financial crisis of 2008 without mentioning the flaws in this system and their sometimes disastrous consequences for the public good and the population? Can we talk about growth in a purely theoretical way, when our system is based on the consumption of goods and imposes, for example, a high environmental cost? Are these not also essential elements for thinking and understanding the world in which we live?

From Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., two episodes per evening, on Savoir Média and online