Stone Money—BTB100

The value of money for a german colonized island called Yaps, this island value of money was based off a large stone which was never moved or was touched just left there and had different owners. Based off exchanges and trades made the stone would have a different owner. “They often talk about the stones themselves not changing hands at all, “Fitzpatrick says. “In fact, most of the time they wouldn’t.” No matter where the money lied on the island it was yours. They even had an occasion where the stone had fallen off a man boat and laid at the bottom of the ocean, and the people of the island still agreed the stone had value to it. The Yaps never had a different system of money and they believed that their system worked they knew what stone they owned and how much it was worth during and exchange and never saw a problem so they kept with their logic. While in the U.S they used money as a monetary value for gold. France felt as if the value of money would fade and that France wanted there money in gold. U.S bank if New York just placed the gold aside and had it labeled for France. As time went on Frances banks increased while U.S banks collapsed which cause a major problem in the economy. Frances power of money increased while U.S drops even though France didn’t have physical possession of the gold or no where near them, meanwhile the gold is just sitting in a U.S vault while the U.S suffers but they can’t use the gold because it technically not theirs.    

For me I believe I should have possession of my money, if I wanted to make an exchange for a product I would want to be able to hold my side up which would be providing the money,  and be given the necessity I need to complete the transaction. I wouldn’t want to be like my money is down the street it is yours now. I would want to be able to show the money to make the deal. As well as the other way around, if someone is trying to buy a product off me such as milk I would want the money while the exchange is happening. In today’s world people don’t even carry money on them, they just have a digital showing of how much money they have in the bank by an app on there phone or a bank statement. Most people don’t care too much about having the hard cash on them as long as they look into there bank account and see the money rise they are satisfied which is something I don’t like. People today are paying in checks and credit cards and the seller could have no idea if the person really even has the money to make an exchange but they could care less as long as they see something in exchange that could help validate that the person may or may not have the money.

 While in Brazil they were having problems with inflation of money and keeping a stabilized economy. No one was able to figure out what was causing this inflation but it caused the people of Brazil to spend money instead of saving it due to the prices raising everyday. Then four economists, and they went on and had to create fake currency called URV. They believed people of Brazil needed to regain hope in the faith of a stable cruzeiro, and believed the URV was the thing to trigger a more stable economy. “But, just as important, you have to stabilize people’s faith in money itself.  People have to be tricked into thinking money will hold its value.” They went on to change all cruzeiro into URV, such as wages, taxes and food. By doing so whatever the inflation rate of a given item was the URV would stabilize it so that there was no inflation. The people in Brazil were using fake money that really meant nothing to them. Since it brought down the inflation of the economy no one cared and just brought happiness back to the people of Brazil.

I thought this would be a good idea in this type of need happiness to me comes from money because there are so many things you can do with it such as travel and buy nice and fancy stuff and just be able to enjoy some aspects of life that many aren’t able to do. But when you have to worry about spending your money because prices will increase I due in fact believe they should figure a way to find stability. Even though it was fake and means nothing me, I guess in a time of need every little aspect that can benefit you is worth a shot.

Work cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford                         University, Feb. 1991. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

Country Studies. “Brazil- The Real Plan.” Brazil- The Real Plan. U.S. Library of Congress,         2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

Novus, Stella. “The Megalithic Money of Yap.” Ancient Origins. Ancient Origins, 04 Jan.                   2013. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.