A living, animated economy inspired by Mike Maloney's Hidden Secrets of Money
It's 1860 — the age of the classical gold standard, empires and colonies, before any Federal Reserve exists. From here, watch 100 people across 50 nations grow up,
work the land or the workshop, trade, start enterprises, raise children, and pass their wealth (or their debts) down the generations — through war, gold rushes, panics, independence and the rise of the modern economy.
Underneath their daily lives runs the real machine: the central bank prints currency to buy government debt,
commercial banks multiply it through lending, and that new money quietly leaks into prices. You'll see who
it reaches first — and whose paycheck arrives last.
Child / Student
Worker (wages)
Business owner (assets)
Retiree (savings)
Money the bank just created
Prices rising (inflation)
Watch the headline number "$1 Buys Today" at the top.
In your start year a dollar buys a dollar. Keep your eye on it as the decades pass — that single number is the whole story.
Under the hood runs a living Ray Dalio economy: one person's spending is another's income, credit cycles drive booms and busts, and GDP, income per person and population evolve over time. Click 👥 People to browse everyone's balance sheet by job — lawyers, engineers, accountants, blue-collar workers, government, business owners — and watch promotions, investing vs. spending, and wealth & businesses inherited across generations. Click a person, a bank, a business or its bread to open its books. No city ever runs out of people.
❔ Controls & menus — what everything does (click to collapse · reopen anytime with the ? button)
Reading the top bar
Year — the year you're living through.
Money Supply — all currency in the economy (1860 = 100); watch it balloon.
$1 Buys Today — what a dollar is worth. It falls as money is printed — the whole lesson in one number.
Inflation — how fast prices are rising this year.
Population — the selected nation's people, a realistic head-count that grows over time (the sim animates a representative sample).
Average Wage — typical pay; compare it to “$1 Buys”.
The buttons
Country menu (top-left) — switch which of the 50 nations you watch.
🌍 World — all 50 nations at a glance.
👥 People — everyone's balance sheet, by job.
⚖ Two Lives — Saver vs Builder, side by side.
📊 Dashboard / 🎮 Play — live as one person & manage your money.
🎵 Music — toggle the background score (M).
⏸ ▶ ▶▶ ▶▶▶ — pause, then 1× / 2× / 4× speed.
? — reopen this guide.
Click anything for its books
Click a person to follow their life — cash, savings, home, debt, net worth.
🏛 Central Bank — money printing & the empire stage.
🏦 Commercial Bank — loans, deposits & the credit cycle.
🏛 Government House — the real leader in office & the public purse.
🏪 Business · 🏠 Home · 🏫 School — each opens its own ledger.
Drag to pan · scroll to zoom.
The living world
People commute to work & home, and shelter indoors when it rains or snows.
📰 Newspapers spin in for historic events — and name the leader in office at the time.
FOR SALE cards mark homes on the market.
Life throws curveballs — illness, accidents, taxes — and you choose how to meet them.
Keys: Space play · 1–4 speed · W world · M music · Esc close.
🎚 Now set up your game — then press ▶ Begin below
Cadence
Day-to-day lingers on daily life; Month-to-month fast-forwards — the years roll by quicker.
Start year
Pick the year your world begins (1860–2026) — the economy is fast-forwarded to that era.
Start country
Choose which nation to focus on when the simulation begins.
Begin in
Watch the whole world, live one person's financial life, or take charge of a whole nation.
Your start in life
You enter the world as an 18-year-old. Study first to open the professions, or start earning right away.
A teaching toy, not a forecast. The economics are simplified and dramatized to make invisible forces visible;
figures are illustrative. People, names, faiths and nations are randomized abstractions used to show how a monetary
system shapes ordinary lives — not claims about any real person or group. Controls: Space play/pause ·
1–4 speed · W world · Esc close.
DCA invests your set amount every month, rain or shine, and never sells. As the active trader you save your monthly cash, click “Buy the dip” to deploy it all at that month’s price, and “Sell to cash” to take profit at a peak — then redeploy the proceeds (plus new savings) on the next dip: buy low, sell high, repeat. Bitcoin uses monthly data (2011+); Gold and US Real Estate use annual data going back to 1860 (early real-estate values are approximate) — price dips to buy are common in Bitcoin, rarer in gold and housing. Press Play (or Step), watch the chart, and try to beat both DCA and simple buy-and-hold. When the years elapse, see who won — and why.