Yes, the documentary I watched went into great detail about how the government pays high interest rates to the privately owned Fed and gave some great info on the creation of money by both the Fed and the banks. It didn't specify that the money is created by my signature, but did say that the banks are creating money out of nothing and certainly not lending me the deposits of others. I didn't know that before. I had always thought banks worked by lending out deposits and by investing those same deposits.

It's crazy that it has managed to stay afloat this long.

I've tried to do research as to where gold gets its value from, but I haven't found much beyond, "Well, it's rare, but not too rare." Why is it such a valuable metal? It's soft....? I know that our currency used to be based on the gold standard, but I guess I'm at a loss as to how a gold standard would be intrinsically more valuable than a Redwood standard or a Fossil standard. It's just a thing that some people decided was popular and valuable and that belief seems to bolster its value.