[00:00.30]
[00:05.90]The silver ore was ground up, refined with mercury and then shipped to Europe as bars and coins.
[00:15.97]Empire, it seemed, had made the Spanish Crown rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
[00:33.56]And yet, all the silver in the mines of Potosi couldn't halt the inexorable economic and political decline of Spain's Empire.
[00:42.00]Why was that, when Pizarro seemed to have struck it so incredibly rich?
[00:46.32]The answer is that the Spaniards had dug up so much silver to finance their wars of conquest
[00:51.69]that the metal itself suffered an extraordinary decline in value.
[00:56.39]More silver coins didn't make Spain richer,
[00:58.93]they simply made prices higher as an increased quantity of money chased the same amount of goods.
[01:05.20]What the Spaniards didn't get was that money is only worth what other people will give in exchange for it.
[01:11.80]