Leaders

"So why is money, particularly the dollar is a scam?" I waited to see if anyone would respond.

Dead silent. I was a bit uncomfortable.

"Uhm... Hama?" I called on a random student.

From the front, I could saw Hama, leader of the only women's gang in this prison. Even though her body and face appeared so pure and innocent, she acted like a barbarian and sit like men.

"Ugh! I don't know," Hama let out an irritated voice. She scratched her head and put one leg on the chair while the other still on the ground.

"God shouldn't give that sweet and angelic voice to her either," I thought to myself.

"Hey! You're picking on our boss!" her gang member spoke up.

"Not at all, ladies. I just called on her randomly," I quickly defend myself.

"She must be in your mind for her name to be the first one came to your head," Smasi poured oil into the fire.

"OOH! Our little teacher has his eyes on a student. Hey headmaster! Extend his duration! Ha Ha Ha!" Smasi's men joined with their boss.

I instantly turned to Smasi and looked at him like, "Can you stop?" and he turned the other way, smirking.

But then, a screeching sound of the microphone cut off the mood of the class, "Please settle down." That was from the headmaster.

From behind, the students could felt the deadly gaze from the guards, so they quickly got quiet.

"Thank god the headmaster is here. It's really difficult dealing with these guys," I thought.

"Ehem. As I said before. In the past, countries have ratios to exchange from their native currency to gold. Why is this important? Because since gold is a finite resource, meaning you can't create gold out of thin air, it keeps countries from printing money excessively. If they want more money, they have to find more gold. Using the example before, the country can only issue ten more feathers when an ounce of gold is mined. This is why money used to have value because it tied to gold which requires time and resource to mine."

"What do you mean by money 'used to have the value'?" Hama interrupted, still having her irritated voice.

"Great question. I'm on my way to answer it," I responded happily. "Before the U.S abolish the gold standard, the dollar worked in the same way. For a certain amount of dollars, you can go to the bank and exchange for a certain amount of gold, a term for it is the gold standard. But in 1971, the U.S announced that the dollar will no longer tie to gold, and other countries follow their policies as well. All the money in the world today no longer have a gold standard."

"Why is it a big deal then? Who cares if it's gold standard or not?" a voice that made all of the students' heads turned. The last gang leader has spoken. It was easy to identify since his voice was so lazy and carefree. It was Obla. If I see Hama as barbaric, Smasi as wise, then Obla is fake. He always seems so lazy and dumb, but when I approached him to talked with his gang, I found out that all of his men are smart and secretive. Definitely not someone I can underestimate.

"The problem is, without the gold standard, a country can print as much money as they want," I explained.

"Why is that a problem?" Obla asked again. This time he gave me a yawn as well. I can't help but felt he has already known all of this already.

"When something happens, let's say a debt that country has to pay, let say a billion-dollar. What's stopping it from printing up that amount to pay the debt. We saw this happened in Germany after World War I. Their solution to repaying the debt was to print money rapidly. The consequence of that was their inflation accelerated like a rocket ship. Imagine waking up, you have to pay five times as much for a piece of bread compared to yesterday. Many, many people who kept their wealth in the Deutsche Mark lost their purchasing power overnight and so their wealth was destroyed. This is to show many of you, who committed crimes for money, are risking your freedom for nothing more than a piece of paper!" I almost yelled at the end.

I paused there to give them time to think of what I just said. The atmosphere had changed. No more laughing and joking. Looking at my students, I could slowly see faces of disbelieve coming from individuals I thought wouldn't pay attention to the class at all. Some began to stare at the ground, zoning elsewhere. Some closed their eyes and grinned their teeth. Others looked back at their gang leaders, Smasi and Hama to find some comfort.

I looked at Obla's gang. They were all fine. While the others were shocked. They sat there peacefully, showing no reaction at all.

"I figured. They all seem to be well educated after all. Then what crimes did they committed? It couldn't be because of money," I thought.

"Then why are people still using the dollar?" Smasi voice took my attention from Obla's gang away.

"I'm sorry to say this, but it is the same reason that you are all in awe right now. No one had taught them about money, and so, they blindly trust that their sweats and tears of labor in their salary. But if you look at what the rich are doing, you will see that they are always getting rid of their cash. Either from buying stocks, bonds, gold, real estate... They are finding every way possible to exchange their cash into an asset, something that has value because they know that they can't trust money." I said.

From the shock before, I was able to get the class's full attention. I saw many of them even though still zoning out, nodded to what I just said.

"Yes! They are beginning to accept me as their teacher." I was so happy.

I was about to continue to the next section but was interrupted by the headmaster's voice coming from a microphone.

"I believe we have reached one hour. Please quickly finish the class in a few sentences."

I looked up and nodded at the headmaster. Taking a deep breath, I gave out the final saying, "Okay, guys. That took longer than I anticipated. The supply and demand and power of influence topics will be discussed next time. I hope you all learned something important. Like today, our future lessons will be important to your life. Keep your heads clear to absorb as much information as you can cause my class will change your lives!"