Monday, September 28, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
\\ Agonizing Beauty //
This was probably the most stressful, the most annoying, and overall the most painful part of my semester. Perhaps it was the same way for others as well. I put a lot of work into my spread and tweaked and stared at it for hours. We went through hell, yelling, poking, and nagging one another to get things done. I am sure we are pretty sick of everything that has to do with ZEROMILE. We all lost sleep, especially Peter, staying up late working on this project. I stayed up till 3 am (sometimes freaking 4 am) most of my weekend nights (week-nights too!), ignoring my friends when they came over just so I can finish my spread in time. I fucking gave up some of my other projects and assignments in my other classes just so I can get this stuff done (Okay... well not all of them. I just slacked on a lot of things I know I could of put so much effort into them).
I cannot say how much agony it took to get people to give me photos for my portion of the magazine either. Some people definitely got left out (and since I am a nice person, that kind of made me upset to have to leave them out because I thought they were awesome), but ya’ know, this is the life of a magazine and there are deadlines to follow. If you are serious about getting yourself out there and spreading your image (especially in regards to Cosplay where getting people to recognize you is key and very important in the hobby) then you will be serious about getting yourself in the magazine and communicate with the person who wants to feature you! Life happens and you just have to take to the consequences for things.
Everyone knows what it feels like having a looming deadline. Oddly enough, I work better when I have a day or two before its due, and I haven't done shit on it. Horrible, I know, but I work really well under pressure. Some of my best work comes flying out of my ass. Before I know it, I have something I can be pretty proud of (most of the time...My illustrations take longer and I am really picky about them too). I had images come almost close to the last minute, so I had to work a lot of my article around the photos and the writing portion of my feature. I felt like ripping my hair out that it took so much teeth pulling to bloody well get a person to hand over content. It didn’t help that I had deadlines to make and none of them were good enough until I actually got the content. I swear I had the same spread for weeks on end until I was finally granted passage and received content from a bunch of awesome people. I guess threatening them that I wouldn’t be able to get them in worked. In reality it was the truth.
There were major times that I found people seeing the entire project to be "just some school project". It was a school project; a real life situation presented to us like any other class we have taken at Metro. I didn't see this as an assignment for Typography III, (Okay sometimes I wanted to just say fuck it and put out super poo, but I reminded myself what it would really mean in the end). I saw it as an opportunity; a serious job that was bestowed upon 'US', The Brain Trust. We are the future leaders of design. We are defining the world with what we know and making a difference with our capable knowledge and skill in Communication Design. We are making the world see our design aesthetic and creativity go to the people and to definitely make a difference. By completing this project we would have something to be proud of, something to brag about, and something that we could show to our future employers and be able to say, “Hi, I am Blah Blah Blah, and I helped make this magazine that was published here in Colorado.”
The final product of this entire insane, hell hole of a process gives us a portfolio and major bragging rights. This project meant the world to me and it gave me and so many other people an opportunity to use this for the future. It hurts to know that some people were willing to slap together their parts of this project and expects to get on by without having to put anymore effort into it (as long its passing a grade it doesn’t matter about the rest of it, right?). It’s not just about you and your grade. It’s not about mine or anyone else’s grade. It’s about coming together (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US) and creating something that WE ALL can use in our resume and as a portfolio piece. By not pulling your weight, you let a lot us dangle by threads trying to compensate with more effort to make this work. In other words (don’t mind that I sound bitchy here, but it’s true) a lot of us worked really hard so that we all can be proud of the final project. Don’t get mad ya’ll. It’s damn true. I didn’t see anyone who didn’t pull their weight in this project, but others may know who did, and it may be true to some of us in the group. There is always someone that gets by on the minimalist amount in a project such as this. It is inevitable.
I imagine people got angry and ticked off about many things. Things that just sent us complaining and gossiping to other students about the pains and tribulations we all encountered. Hell, I probably have done it shit tons of times without realizing. I am not afraid of getting a rant out in the open (hell this kind of seems like a rant doesn’t it? Oh just wait, it really has a point...). In the end I suck it up, complain some more, and do what I need to do to get done.
There was one thing that just sent me into "ANGER" mode. Out of the entire semester (not this class) I think I was even more pissed off at trying to tell someone to change something because it didn't look right and looked like some fucked up piece of a chopped up graphic (in the nicest of ways you could possibly say that of course) and getting flack for telling them (by their own misfortune of not being finished with their work). Nothing reads immature and annoyed by snapping at someone who is trying to help make something look better and told that they agree and will fix it later on when they finish their already late work. What sent me flying over the edge though was noticing that they never fixed it. Even though it was a small change and they took the time to change some things around before they left early. I find it fucking hilarious really. Oh well… My opinion doesn’t matter to some people and that is life. There will be times that people will not give a flying bupkis what you have to say and stubbornly will refuse any critique or comments you have to give them. Though it is healthy to take in what you think it good and bad…Undeniably every time I do try to suggest something to someone, no one ever takes me for someone who knows what they are doing. Yes…I am quite bitter about that though, sorry to say. I get dubbed stupid and not knowing what I am doing a lot of the time. I am entitled to rant a little ya’ know? That is kind of what this thing is for…the painful and irritating process of magazine making (and semester bitch sessions that affect the magazine process).
God knows everyone I know tries to get me to change what they don't like by their standards and what they think good design is. I pretty much give up trying to appeal to myself in regards to design in the academic field because it seems like everyone else knows better and I don't (unless I definitely have my opinion set on something). I actually have a very opinionated idea of what design is, but I also am aware that design and art is subjective (as it should be). Nothing ticks me off than some “know it all” that thinks they know what good design or art is and tries to bestow his/her great ego on others to shape and instigate their beliefs on to them in hopes to change the world for the better. Hate to break it to ya’ ego pinchers, there is no right or wrong answer to design (except for the major rules to follow of course, everything else though is up to interpretation).
We shouldn't judge design by its aesthetics and style choices. It seems that is what people end up critiquing anyways. Not everyone is going to like everything, I know, but being a good designer (in my opinion) is letting go and accepting things for what they are and being rather neutral and critiquing what really matters like kerning, letter spacing, and possibly pushing the boundaries even of a design to make it stand out more. Be lucky that we get critiques though even though they are the most hideously boring things to traipse around the bend. In real life I presume we won’t be getting to many critiques. The times that we will be getting them, will be either from a firm, other designers, or even the client himself.
One example where a critique from a coworker would have done wonders for a print job was a local newspaper, The Highlands Ranch Herald. There was bad kerning and the full justified crap that newspapers make in every single article in that paper. This stuff is an ‘easy fix’, and quite possibly very easy to avoid printing out the eye sores of design sin around to everyone in the community. People do notice it; never think they will never notice something is off with their paper. Before I even knew what design, graphics, or communication in art meant or was (and I am talking about when I was 13), I noticed the flaws and gaps in the paper. God it was awful seeing the huge gaps and spacing between words, the hyphenations (which weren't that bad; minus the two letter stragglers at the end of a paragraph like ‘es’ from the hyphenation of the word kisses), and the obvious one syllable word that gets left alone at the end of a paragraph. Those rules are "must haves" in regards to designing a good print or web piece of work. Make the effort to notice those things, and learn early.
Now you all must be thinking, what the fucking hell has crawled up her ass, died, turned to diamonds, and come out in the sparkling ranty spam that is the blog entry,
WE ALL HAVE FELT THIS WAY THIS SEMESTER, quite possibly other semesters too. We go through this all the time. We all are opinionated and intelligent people! I ranted and pooed out my philosophy on life because hey, it’s easy to do and I don’t care if people agree with me or not. This is me take it as it is. You are all free to let it go and release your feelings too. Never hold it in because it makes things worse! I cannot be the only one that feels this way about stuff that happened this semester. We all have our opinions, ideas, and most definitely our rants of what we went through. The most interesting things of a process of a magazine are the gritty and bad side of production.
I implore you ALL to write how you felt about this semester and what was good and bad about this magazine. Do not target people though, it gets mean and caddy, but do feel free to be abstract and release your frustrations; be raw and edgy. It’s the fact that we had our ups and our downs with this semester, especially with this magazine looming in to its final preparations.
Now for a close (but most definitely not the end of me posting in this place even after we are long and gone from this class and school)…
We have all worked really hard on this magazine everyone. I am proud of the outcome (even though its not completely over yet). We are all amazing designers and I totally think we are going to rock the world of design. Metro is an amazing school full of awesome people who have been in the field. The memories we have all had with class, the inside jokes that we can brag about (“Ah SNAP!” and various other jargon that has infected our verbal vocabulary).
You have no idea how glad I am that I got rid of my full scholarship to the Art Institute and came here for my degree instead. I saved money for the best damn design education (according to Marie when she was still here) in the entire United States. (How do you like that RMCAD? >:3 ) How many of us are so lucky to be taught by published and well renowned individuals that came to THIS SCHOOL and THIS PROGRAM to teach us the best damn knowledge that we all know now? Scott for gods-sake has done so many acknowledgeable branding designs that it blows my mind. Patrick has been published and continues to make awesome communicative illustration. Peter is so well versed in publication design and knows the print field so well, that I know I am going to be ready for the world when I graduate. The knowledge and experience he has taught to us (especially the underground stuff) is unfathomable and so precious to me that I know I am ready for the real world of design. Kelly (though she was stolen into the digital art program, lucky bastards) has given me a great foundation of the web and interactive media side of design that I think about websites and its structure as much as I can.
I am proud that I came to this school and I actually have school/department spirit for the first time in my life (all the schools I went to sucked and never made a major impact on me or my life). I have met awesome and amazing people that I don’t just call my student body, but that I also call my friends. Even the professors to me are friends and people that I feel I shouldn’t stop communicating with even when I leave (though you will see me eventually again after I work the field, I plan on teaching here at this same school because it rocks so hardcore). These are people I hope to stay in touch with for a very long time (I hate to think people think I am annoying or weird, I really am not annoying…Weird yes, but not as much as you think). Metro, this department, and most of all, this magazine project, has changed my life and I wouldn’t change it for the world. This experience means so much to me and thank you for all the hard work you put into this blog as well as your portion of the magazine. This project is definitely something we can call our own, and we worked to hard on it! I hate to see it go to another unsuspecting design class, but I am curious to see how it goes.
Despite the blog never taking that extra step to complete pretty CSS (cascading Style Sheet) land, I can say that I am really proud of it. Coding is still not my forte, but I am self taught in regards of the coding language. I didn’t use Dreamweaver to make this blog. I took a template and altered it heavily to fit our needs (especially under the time constrictions to make it look… decent >_> ). There were templates I wanted to instill onto this blog, but I am afraid there was no time for me to get it up and I think I would have broken the brains of the next class since we all haven’t been formally taught code. I can just see it now… the next web editor taking one look at the code and going wtbuck is XML. I don’t even know what XML is, but man I would have been able to get that code into the blog. I know how to do it; its just way too time consuming. Perhaps I am assuming the next web editor will NOT be competent…Perhaps they will be smart and know how to function a blog (hey you snarky smart asses, there is a lot of complicated crap that goes on with the html in the code portion of a blog; let me see you try it!). I hope for the best in the end though. Whoever takes my place… I certainly hope you work this blog like a model strutting down a runway. You need to love writing, ranting, posting bullshit, and most of all, have knowledge of code and some interactivity to get this thing going. Hell it would be cool to see this blog get deeper into code! Make your first web editor proud! Those are my rules for the next web editor, Peter; make a note of that. OH and don’t forget to badger your web director if he’s a little lazy. They need a good poke to get going. Its okay! Don’t be frightened. Just do it! :3
Thank you everyone for a great semester, and a lot of hard work to make a cool piece of print production. We did some awesome shit! :D WE ROCK!
Sincerely,
Jamiesama AKA Sama Williams, Web Editor, and awesome with rants extraordinaire!
I cannot say how much agony it took to get people to give me photos for my portion of the magazine either. Some people definitely got left out (and since I am a nice person, that kind of made me upset to have to leave them out because I thought they were awesome), but ya’ know, this is the life of a magazine and there are deadlines to follow. If you are serious about getting yourself out there and spreading your image (especially in regards to Cosplay where getting people to recognize you is key and very important in the hobby) then you will be serious about getting yourself in the magazine and communicate with the person who wants to feature you! Life happens and you just have to take to the consequences for things.
Everyone knows what it feels like having a looming deadline. Oddly enough, I work better when I have a day or two before its due, and I haven't done shit on it. Horrible, I know, but I work really well under pressure. Some of my best work comes flying out of my ass. Before I know it, I have something I can be pretty proud of (most of the time...My illustrations take longer and I am really picky about them too). I had images come almost close to the last minute, so I had to work a lot of my article around the photos and the writing portion of my feature. I felt like ripping my hair out that it took so much teeth pulling to bloody well get a person to hand over content. It didn’t help that I had deadlines to make and none of them were good enough until I actually got the content. I swear I had the same spread for weeks on end until I was finally granted passage and received content from a bunch of awesome people. I guess threatening them that I wouldn’t be able to get them in worked. In reality it was the truth.
There were major times that I found people seeing the entire project to be "just some school project". It was a school project; a real life situation presented to us like any other class we have taken at Metro. I didn't see this as an assignment for Typography III, (Okay sometimes I wanted to just say fuck it and put out super poo, but I reminded myself what it would really mean in the end). I saw it as an opportunity; a serious job that was bestowed upon 'US', The Brain Trust. We are the future leaders of design. We are defining the world with what we know and making a difference with our capable knowledge and skill in Communication Design. We are making the world see our design aesthetic and creativity go to the people and to definitely make a difference. By completing this project we would have something to be proud of, something to brag about, and something that we could show to our future employers and be able to say, “Hi, I am Blah Blah Blah, and I helped make this magazine that was published here in Colorado.”
The final product of this entire insane, hell hole of a process gives us a portfolio and major bragging rights. This project meant the world to me and it gave me and so many other people an opportunity to use this for the future. It hurts to know that some people were willing to slap together their parts of this project and expects to get on by without having to put anymore effort into it (as long its passing a grade it doesn’t matter about the rest of it, right?). It’s not just about you and your grade. It’s not about mine or anyone else’s grade. It’s about coming together (EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US) and creating something that WE ALL can use in our resume and as a portfolio piece. By not pulling your weight, you let a lot us dangle by threads trying to compensate with more effort to make this work. In other words (don’t mind that I sound bitchy here, but it’s true) a lot of us worked really hard so that we all can be proud of the final project. Don’t get mad ya’ll. It’s damn true. I didn’t see anyone who didn’t pull their weight in this project, but others may know who did, and it may be true to some of us in the group. There is always someone that gets by on the minimalist amount in a project such as this. It is inevitable.
I imagine people got angry and ticked off about many things. Things that just sent us complaining and gossiping to other students about the pains and tribulations we all encountered. Hell, I probably have done it shit tons of times without realizing. I am not afraid of getting a rant out in the open (hell this kind of seems like a rant doesn’t it? Oh just wait, it really has a point...). In the end I suck it up, complain some more, and do what I need to do to get done.
There was one thing that just sent me into "ANGER" mode. Out of the entire semester (not this class) I think I was even more pissed off at trying to tell someone to change something because it didn't look right and looked like some fucked up piece of a chopped up graphic (in the nicest of ways you could possibly say that of course) and getting flack for telling them (by their own misfortune of not being finished with their work). Nothing reads immature and annoyed by snapping at someone who is trying to help make something look better and told that they agree and will fix it later on when they finish their already late work. What sent me flying over the edge though was noticing that they never fixed it. Even though it was a small change and they took the time to change some things around before they left early. I find it fucking hilarious really. Oh well… My opinion doesn’t matter to some people and that is life. There will be times that people will not give a flying bupkis what you have to say and stubbornly will refuse any critique or comments you have to give them. Though it is healthy to take in what you think it good and bad…Undeniably every time I do try to suggest something to someone, no one ever takes me for someone who knows what they are doing. Yes…I am quite bitter about that though, sorry to say. I get dubbed stupid and not knowing what I am doing a lot of the time. I am entitled to rant a little ya’ know? That is kind of what this thing is for…the painful and irritating process of magazine making (and semester bitch sessions that affect the magazine process).
God knows everyone I know tries to get me to change what they don't like by their standards and what they think good design is. I pretty much give up trying to appeal to myself in regards to design in the academic field because it seems like everyone else knows better and I don't (unless I definitely have my opinion set on something). I actually have a very opinionated idea of what design is, but I also am aware that design and art is subjective (as it should be). Nothing ticks me off than some “know it all” that thinks they know what good design or art is and tries to bestow his/her great ego on others to shape and instigate their beliefs on to them in hopes to change the world for the better. Hate to break it to ya’ ego pinchers, there is no right or wrong answer to design (except for the major rules to follow of course, everything else though is up to interpretation).
We shouldn't judge design by its aesthetics and style choices. It seems that is what people end up critiquing anyways. Not everyone is going to like everything, I know, but being a good designer (in my opinion) is letting go and accepting things for what they are and being rather neutral and critiquing what really matters like kerning, letter spacing, and possibly pushing the boundaries even of a design to make it stand out more. Be lucky that we get critiques though even though they are the most hideously boring things to traipse around the bend. In real life I presume we won’t be getting to many critiques. The times that we will be getting them, will be either from a firm, other designers, or even the client himself.
One example where a critique from a coworker would have done wonders for a print job was a local newspaper, The Highlands Ranch Herald. There was bad kerning and the full justified crap that newspapers make in every single article in that paper. This stuff is an ‘easy fix’, and quite possibly very easy to avoid printing out the eye sores of design sin around to everyone in the community. People do notice it; never think they will never notice something is off with their paper. Before I even knew what design, graphics, or communication in art meant or was (and I am talking about when I was 13), I noticed the flaws and gaps in the paper. God it was awful seeing the huge gaps and spacing between words, the hyphenations (which weren't that bad; minus the two letter stragglers at the end of a paragraph like ‘es’ from the hyphenation of the word kisses), and the obvious one syllable word that gets left alone at the end of a paragraph. Those rules are "must haves" in regards to designing a good print or web piece of work. Make the effort to notice those things, and learn early.
Now you all must be thinking, what the fucking hell has crawled up her ass, died, turned to diamonds, and come out in the sparkling ranty spam that is the blog entry,
WE ALL HAVE FELT THIS WAY THIS SEMESTER, quite possibly other semesters too. We go through this all the time. We all are opinionated and intelligent people! I ranted and pooed out my philosophy on life because hey, it’s easy to do and I don’t care if people agree with me or not. This is me take it as it is. You are all free to let it go and release your feelings too. Never hold it in because it makes things worse! I cannot be the only one that feels this way about stuff that happened this semester. We all have our opinions, ideas, and most definitely our rants of what we went through. The most interesting things of a process of a magazine are the gritty and bad side of production.
I implore you ALL to write how you felt about this semester and what was good and bad about this magazine. Do not target people though, it gets mean and caddy, but do feel free to be abstract and release your frustrations; be raw and edgy. It’s the fact that we had our ups and our downs with this semester, especially with this magazine looming in to its final preparations.
Now for a close (but most definitely not the end of me posting in this place even after we are long and gone from this class and school)…
We have all worked really hard on this magazine everyone. I am proud of the outcome (even though its not completely over yet). We are all amazing designers and I totally think we are going to rock the world of design. Metro is an amazing school full of awesome people who have been in the field. The memories we have all had with class, the inside jokes that we can brag about (“Ah SNAP!” and various other jargon that has infected our verbal vocabulary).
You have no idea how glad I am that I got rid of my full scholarship to the Art Institute and came here for my degree instead. I saved money for the best damn design education (according to Marie when she was still here) in the entire United States. (How do you like that RMCAD? >:3 ) How many of us are so lucky to be taught by published and well renowned individuals that came to THIS SCHOOL and THIS PROGRAM to teach us the best damn knowledge that we all know now? Scott for gods-sake has done so many acknowledgeable branding designs that it blows my mind. Patrick has been published and continues to make awesome communicative illustration. Peter is so well versed in publication design and knows the print field so well, that I know I am going to be ready for the world when I graduate. The knowledge and experience he has taught to us (especially the underground stuff) is unfathomable and so precious to me that I know I am ready for the real world of design. Kelly (though she was stolen into the digital art program, lucky bastards) has given me a great foundation of the web and interactive media side of design that I think about websites and its structure as much as I can.
I am proud that I came to this school and I actually have school/department spirit for the first time in my life (all the schools I went to sucked and never made a major impact on me or my life). I have met awesome and amazing people that I don’t just call my student body, but that I also call my friends. Even the professors to me are friends and people that I feel I shouldn’t stop communicating with even when I leave (though you will see me eventually again after I work the field, I plan on teaching here at this same school because it rocks so hardcore). These are people I hope to stay in touch with for a very long time (I hate to think people think I am annoying or weird, I really am not annoying…Weird yes, but not as much as you think). Metro, this department, and most of all, this magazine project, has changed my life and I wouldn’t change it for the world. This experience means so much to me and thank you for all the hard work you put into this blog as well as your portion of the magazine. This project is definitely something we can call our own, and we worked to hard on it! I hate to see it go to another unsuspecting design class, but I am curious to see how it goes.
Despite the blog never taking that extra step to complete pretty CSS (cascading Style Sheet) land, I can say that I am really proud of it. Coding is still not my forte, but I am self taught in regards of the coding language. I didn’t use Dreamweaver to make this blog. I took a template and altered it heavily to fit our needs (especially under the time constrictions to make it look… decent >_> ). There were templates I wanted to instill onto this blog, but I am afraid there was no time for me to get it up and I think I would have broken the brains of the next class since we all haven’t been formally taught code. I can just see it now… the next web editor taking one look at the code and going wtbuck is XML. I don’t even know what XML is, but man I would have been able to get that code into the blog. I know how to do it; its just way too time consuming. Perhaps I am assuming the next web editor will NOT be competent…Perhaps they will be smart and know how to function a blog (hey you snarky smart asses, there is a lot of complicated crap that goes on with the html in the code portion of a blog; let me see you try it!). I hope for the best in the end though. Whoever takes my place… I certainly hope you work this blog like a model strutting down a runway. You need to love writing, ranting, posting bullshit, and most of all, have knowledge of code and some interactivity to get this thing going. Hell it would be cool to see this blog get deeper into code! Make your first web editor proud! Those are my rules for the next web editor, Peter; make a note of that. OH and don’t forget to badger your web director if he’s a little lazy. They need a good poke to get going. Its okay! Don’t be frightened. Just do it! :3
Thank you everyone for a great semester, and a lot of hard work to make a cool piece of print production. We did some awesome shit! :D WE ROCK!
Sincerely,
Jamiesama AKA Sama Williams, Web Editor, and awesome with rants extraordinaire!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Show me the...
Money... doesn't grow on trees. Ever wonder where it really comes from? The Mint, DUH! Yeah but not really.
In school, you might have been lucky enough to take a class trip to the mint, and smeared the d-jon mustard from your lunchable on that kid in your class that always smelled like cat urine when your teacher wasn't looking. But watching money get printed on paper doesn't exactly explain how the monetary system truly works. Unless you've read "Modern Money Mechanics", a document created by the United States Federal Reserve to describe the basic process of money creation using various banking terminology, then you probably (for reasons beyond your control, until now...) have no idea how it works.
In essence, it goes something like this:
The US Government decides it needs some money, so it calls up the Federal Reserve, and asks for, say, 10 billion dollars. The fed replies, saying "sure… we'll buy 10 billion in government bonds from you."
So, the government then takes some piece of paper, paints some official looking designs on them, and calls them "Treasury Bonds". Then, it puts a value on these Bonds to the sum of 10 billion dollars, and sends them over to the Fed. In turn, the people at the Fed draw up a bunch of impressive pieces of paper themselves, only this time calling them "Federal Reserve Notes"…also designating a value of 10 billion dollars to them.
The Fed then takes these notes and trades them for the Bonds. Once this exchange is complete, the government then takes the 10 billion in Federal Reserve Notes and deposits it into a bank account and upon this deposit, the paper notes officially become "legal tender" money, adding 10 billion to the US money supply. And Pow! 10 billion in new money has been created. Of course, this is a generalization, in reality, this transaction would occur electronically, with no paper used at all. In fact only 3% of the US money supply exists in physical currency. The other 97% essentially exists as a number on a computer screen.
Wondering how this all started?
Pissed off about the current state of the economy?
Like cartoons?
Me too! Watch this, it's educationally delicious:
or... you can just roll your eyes and continue on with your day
.
In school, you might have been lucky enough to take a class trip to the mint, and smeared the d-jon mustard from your lunchable on that kid in your class that always smelled like cat urine when your teacher wasn't looking. But watching money get printed on paper doesn't exactly explain how the monetary system truly works. Unless you've read "Modern Money Mechanics", a document created by the United States Federal Reserve to describe the basic process of money creation using various banking terminology, then you probably (for reasons beyond your control, until now...) have no idea how it works.
In essence, it goes something like this:
The US Government decides it needs some money, so it calls up the Federal Reserve, and asks for, say, 10 billion dollars. The fed replies, saying "sure… we'll buy 10 billion in government bonds from you."
So, the government then takes some piece of paper, paints some official looking designs on them, and calls them "Treasury Bonds". Then, it puts a value on these Bonds to the sum of 10 billion dollars, and sends them over to the Fed. In turn, the people at the Fed draw up a bunch of impressive pieces of paper themselves, only this time calling them "Federal Reserve Notes"…also designating a value of 10 billion dollars to them.
The Fed then takes these notes and trades them for the Bonds. Once this exchange is complete, the government then takes the 10 billion in Federal Reserve Notes and deposits it into a bank account and upon this deposit, the paper notes officially become "legal tender" money, adding 10 billion to the US money supply. And Pow! 10 billion in new money has been created. Of course, this is a generalization, in reality, this transaction would occur electronically, with no paper used at all. In fact only 3% of the US money supply exists in physical currency. The other 97% essentially exists as a number on a computer screen.
Wondering how this all started?
Pissed off about the current state of the economy?
Like cartoons?
Me too! Watch this, it's educationally delicious:
or... you can just roll your eyes and continue on with your day
.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
A message from Tom...
"Hey guys... you remember me? It's Tom from myspace. I was your only friend in the world, before anybody else! Remember that? Of course you don't, you're too busy with your facebook. I'm going to go take pictures of myself in the bathroom."
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
What else can I say?
Since Mr. Fairey is a known appropiator, I can't imagine he'll mind my own little alteration of his image.
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