It All Began With Stone Money
P1. Money is the idea of worth in a physical form. Before there was a physical form of money people used the barter system. The barter system was the exchange goods for things people needed and sometimes even labor exchanges. For example if someone had a goat that produced high quality milk they would get a lot of people trying to barter for the goat. If those people tried to barter something that held no value for the goat the trade would be unsuccessful. The barter system only works if both parties benefits from the exchange. Somewhere along the line the idea of money was invented. Money made it easier to acquire goods because everyone can benefit from having money. In the barter system someone had to have exactly what the seller needed or wanted. Money has this made up value that would be easier to exchange for goods. If someone had a pig that they thought was valuable but no one wanted it, the pig would then be worthless. People may value this pig differently. On the other hand everyone values money so it would be easy for the pigs owner to get an even trade.
P2. The value of money is the mental reassurance of wealth. One might question what mental reassurance of wealth has to do with money. Simply it is the only reason we are able to keep track of the value. We are reassured that the money we have can purchase a curtain amount of things. People place a value on money to keep track of things that can be purchased with the money. The mental value of money will change but the money will always be worth something. In the past America has had it’s hiccups with the value of the U.S. dollar. There was a request that was granted by the U.S. from the French to convert dollar assets they had in the U.S. into gold. This made the markets look at the U.S. dollar as weaker. The French believed that the their money was worth more than the U.S. dollar. The French wanted something they thought was worth having so they asked for gold. Even though the gold was worth the same in U.S. dollars the French wasn’t reassured that the U.S. dollar was worth its weight in gold.
P3. The Yap’s way of using money was similar to ours, but its different in many ways. The Yap had money that was made of stone. The Yap never exchanged hand and hand with their stone money “fei”. They might think our concept of exchanging money hand and hand to be bizarre. The Yap simply changed the ownership of their fei without moving it. Their stone money was to big to move. Their money was made of a carved, large, solid, stone wheels. Some of them had a diameter of twelve feet. These stone wheels would be take a lot of work to move so they left them stationary. We exchange money for most of daily our transactions. The Yap might also look at our money itself as bizarre. To them our money might look like just a wired and colorful piece of cloth with a picture on it.
P4. Even though we have differences from the Yap we also have similarities. The Yap could have ownership of a fei even if they have never seen or touch it physically. Similar the Yap we also have money we never see or touch. When we get our checks directly deposited into the bank we don’t see the physical money but we know its there.The Yap’s belief in each others word is like beliefs in religion. Believing in something that you have never seen before is the basis of religion. In religions, people believe in their Gods even though they have never seen God. If the economy was the religion of the Yap the fei would be their God. There was one specific fei that was claimed to be at the bottom of the ocean unseen.The only people that claimed they saw it was the people who carved it. Although it was out of sight people still believed it was there. This is similar to the way people believe in God. No one has ever seen God but we believe in God. This stone changed ownership many times like religion is passed on for generations.
P5. Brazil had similar problems as the U.S. with the value of their money. Brazil’s citizens lost faith in their currency same as the markets viewed the U.S. dollar as weak. The inflation rate in Brazil would go up 80 percent per month. This meant that a item can go from costing one dollar all the way up to one-thousand dollars at the end of the year. This caused the citizens to devalue their money. The government of Brazil tired to restore the faith of their citizens, but it took an idea of four guys at the Catholic University in Rio to actually restore the faith. They came up with a idea that tricked the citizens into thinking their money would hold its value. They used a currency that didn’t use any coins or bills. The currency was simply not real. This new currency was called Unit of Real Value. The original currency was the cruzeiro witch was still used but everything would be listed in the fake URV currency. The URV’s stayed stable while the amount of cruzerios each URV was worth changed. This system worked because on any day a product would cost 1 URV. That 1 URV might be worth 30 cruzerios. The next month the product will still cost 1 URV but that URV would cost 35 cruzerios. They wanted people to think in URV’s. As time went on people started to see that URV’s were staying stable. Soon the URV became the country’s actual currency. They called it the real.The economic system was now based upon the real. Inflation ended and the country’s economy got better. Brazil became a major exporter, and 20 million people came out of poverty. The trick they pulled was nothing short of a miracle (Joffe-Walt).
P6. The public’s faith in the value of money is so important because we determine what things are actually worth. If we don’t have faith in our money we will reject the currency. Brazil had that problem with its citizens and they struggled to get there economy out of depression. We try to place a dollar mount on everything we deal with on a daily basis.
P7. Every nation deals with their economic issues differently. For example, Japan spent 12 trillion yen in fiscal stimulus measures to boost its nation’s economy. Their plan was to accelerate a recovery from recession as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledges to boost growth and end deflation in Japans economy. This can be a good thing short term, but when the time comes to pay the money back it will be a problem (Sharp).
Works Cited
Chana, Joffe-Walt “How Fake Money Saved Brazil” NPR.org http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil
Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1991.
Sharp, Andy. “Abe Seen Spending 12 Trillion Yen to Boost Japan’s Economy.” January 7, 2013. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-07/japan-to-spend-12-trillion-yen-to-boost-economy-yomiuri-says
Rowan Counterintuitive 
You write competent sentences, 31Savage, but they don’t transition well to compel your readers’ understanding. In the first paragraph (P1), you fuss over the same points more than once instead of declaring your claims decisively once and for all. In your second paragraph (P2), you make a series of flat declarative sentences that don’t appear to be advancing an argument. I will offer details below.
As you know, you’ll receive quick grades in four grading criteria: Argument, Rhetoric, Mechanics, Scholarship (ARMS). Grades can always be improved by revision. To understand your grades, you need to know your Grade Code, which I shared with you in class MON SEP 19. I’ve numbered your paragraphs for easy identification. Additional feedback is always available upon request.
Argument (Grade F)
This grade reflects only how your P1 would be graded if it were part of your end-of-semester Portfolio. Your later paragraphs may be better.
Your organization pattern makes it hard for readers to follow your argument, 31Savage. I’ve clustered your sentences below into categories.
Invention of Money:
1. Somewhere along the line the idea of money was invented.
2. Money is the idea of worth in a physical form.
3. Money made it easier to acquire goods because everyone can benefit from having money.
4. Money has this made up value that would be easier to exchange for goods.
5. On the other hand everyone values money so it would be easy for the pigs owner to get an even trade.
The Barter System:
1. Before there was a physical form of money people used the barter system.
2. The barter system was the exchange goods for things people needed and sometimes even labor exchanges.
3. For example if someone had a goat that produced high quality milk they would get a lot of people trying to barter for the goat.
When Barter Fails:
1. If those people tried to barter something that held no value for the goat the trade would be unsuccessful.
2. The barter system only works if both parties benefits from the exchange.
3. In the barter system someone had to have exactly what the seller needed or wanted.
4. If someone had a pig that they thought was valuable but no one wanted it, the pig would then be worthless.
5. People may value this pig differently.
Before this organization, your argument wandered among the three categories, 31Savage. Now that’s it’s easier to see your claims, let’s try to condense the sections into the most straightforward presentations.
When Barter Fails: Before money, when our ancestors wanted corn, they had to trade their pigs with someone who had corn and wanted pigs. If corn was scarce, or pork eaters were few or distant, they had to accept bad deals or eat their own animals.
[The Barter System: We don’t really need this section now.]
The Invention of Money: Money eliminated the need to find a perfect trading partner. Because money represented both pigs and corn, pig owners could sell for money when pigs were most prized, and buy corn for money when it was cheap. Whatever they eat, whatever they produce, everyone values money because it represents value in physical form.
Your paragraph revised:
Before money, when our ancestors wanted corn, they had to trade their pigs with someone who had corn and wanted pigs. If corn was scarce, or pork eaters were few or distant, they had to accept bad deals or eat their own animals. Money eliminated the need to find a perfect trading partner. Because money represented both pigs and corn, pig owners could sell for money when pigs were most prized, and buy corn for money when it was cheap. Whatever they eat, whatever they produce, everyone values money because it represents value in physical form.
Rhetoric (Grade E)
Now with your permission, I’d like to take an in-depth look at P2 for its rhetoric. Your many capable sentences make reasonable individual points; what they don’t do is transition well from one idea to the next. Here are your 12 sentences.
1. The value of money is the mental reassurance of wealth.
2. One might question what mental reassurance of wealth has to do with money.
3. Simply it is the only reason we are able to keep track of the value.
4. We are reassured that the money we have can purchase a curtain amount of things.
5. People place a value on money to keep track of things that can be purchased with the money.
6. The mental value of money will change but the money will always be worth something.
7. In the past America has had it’s hiccups with the value of the U.S. dollar.
8. There was a request that was granted by the U.S. from the French to convert dollar assets they had in the U.S. into gold.
9. This made the markets look at the U.S. dollar as weaker.
10. The French believed that the their money was worth more than the U.S. dollar.
11. The French wanted something they thought was worth having so they asked for gold.
12. Even though the gold was worth the same in U.S. dollars the French wasn’t reassured that the U.S. dollar was worth its weight in gold.
Let’s combine them for better effectiveness.
[1-6] Money reassures us of our economic wealth. While the volume of goods and services it can buy will change from time to time, knowing that we have enough to meet our needs is reassuring.
[Transition needed] But even money can vary in value compared to other currencies.
[7-12] When the French began to doubt the stability of the value of American dollars, they demanded the US convert their holdings of dollars into gold.
Most of your individual claims can be made in a word or two so that the sentences provide their own internal transitions.
Mechanics (Grade G)
Using only P3 and P4 as examples, I find many small problems of grammar, 31Savage, plus a few that violate the FFG rules. I have highlighted words that need your attention in these paragraphs alone. Among the problems, you have broken Rules 2, 4B, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14.
Scholarship (Grade G)
This one is easy to fix, 31Savage. We cite informally in this class, as I have demonstrated several times in the Lecture on Mechanics. Here’s an example
Use inline citation INSTEAD of the MLA parenthetical method.
UNCORRECTED
Friedman also discussed an instance where the french technically owned some portion of gold. However, they never physically retrieved the gold, instead a deal was made with the U.S and was stored in a drawer on our homeland.(Friedman)
CORRECTED
Friedman further demonstrated the abstract nature of ownership with an anecdote in which the French took possession of some US gold not by physically retrieving it but by agreeing to leave the gold in the US in a drawer labeled “France.”
Use this technique whenever you present material you owe to any source. You offer no citations at all in Paragraphs 1, 2, 3, or 4, which must be an oversight. Surely you gathered much of the material for those paragraphs from your readings.
OVERALL
Take heart, 31Savage. Your current grade is a reflection of how this work would be graded if it were submitted as part of your Portfolio. You can easily improve the Mechanics and Scholarship grades quickly. For the Argument and Rhetoric sections, the semester is young and help is available. Every post can be endlessly revised. I will meet with you any MON or WED in personal conferences and provide continuous feedback in and out of class.
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