Since the early days of mankind, humans have traded precious items and commodities for other commodities and services. These items could have ranged from small shells to large stones carved by man. But what made these items valuable was the agreement of the people that these items held value and were worth something. We call these things today money. One of the earlier accounts of people using money were the people of the island of Yap. The people of this tiny island in the South Pacific Ocean created a monetary system with giant stone wheels called fei. The fei were created by man on an island 400 miles away from Yap, in which crews would have to take a small raft or kayak to this island and quarry the stone and shape it and then transport it back to their home . Once at home these stones where so large and heavy, some of them stayed in place. However everyone knew who owned what fei and who held all the wealth on the island. The stones never moved but the transfer of wealth still occurred. A much similar event happened in the 1930’s between America and France. Due to the looming economic collapse in America, France asked the Federal Reserve to convert dollar assets that it had in the U.S into gold (Friedman). The only thing the Federal Reserve did was take some of the gold, put it in some drawers, and labeled that this gold belongs to France. The U.S gold reserves went down and France’s went up. There was never a physical transfer of gold to France yet people knew and understood that the gold now belongs to France. Today we now have our own drawer of gold called the Bitcoin. The Bitcoin is a digital currency with no central bank and its value is determined by whomever is willing to pay for the bitcoin. As of today 9/13/2016, one Bitcoin is worth 609.10 USD. While once again there is no actual coin the bitcoin is an idea that people have agreed on that holds value, same as the US dollar. in actuality the paper the dollar isn’t even worth the amount printed on it’s face yet people accept and agree that the piece of paper that cost 5.7 cents to make is worth 100 dollars. Money is nothing more than an idea that people agree upon that regulates the flow of an economy and gives value to commodities and labor.
WORKS CITED
Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” The Island of Stone Money(1991): 3-7. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
“The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011. 13 Sept. 2016
Renaut, Anne . “The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin.” Yahoo.com. 13 Apr. 2013. 13 Sept. 2016.
Levinson, Doug. “What Gives a Dollar Bill Its Value? – Doug Levinson.” TED-Ed. TED-Ed, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Rowan Counterintuitive 
Since the early days of mankind, humans have traded precious items and commodities for other commodities and services. These items could have ranged from small shells to large stones carved by man. But what made these items valuable was the agreement of the people that these items held value and were worth something. We call these things today money. Today money is a small piece of paper with a portrait of a dead man on it that was a written amount much higher than what that little green piece of paper is actually worth, but where does this value come from? to find out we must look back through the history of currency and monetary systems to figure out why people give objects, like the green crumpled piece of paper, value. (end paragraph)
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You breathed life into money with your illustration of that little crumpled piece of paper. That’s the essence of the E02 Cows and Chips Exercise.
Coded Grade: H
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