” What’s it Worth to You?”
As a child growing up [punc] I always thought as money being one definite amount value. And why wouldn’t I [punc] growing up in the United States [punc] in school its [punc] taught a dollar is worth just that [punc] a dollar. But moving forward in life I was able to experience that money is only worth what we as people give it. In the fifth grade I was able to travel to my families original country of Haiti. It was at this time that I found out first hand that money isn’t always worth what we know it to be here in the United States. Now imagine a young boy walking into the small store near his home in America. As he glances around the store he reaches in his pocket to see how much money he has and pulls out one dollar. He knows with this dollar he is able to either purchase a bottle of soda that cost one dollar or a bag a chips that also cost one dollar. Unfortunately the value of his dollar is not enough to purchase both items. Now if we were to move this young boy to Haiti doing the same thing [punc] walks into the store and pulls out of his pocket one dollar. But now the difference is being that he is in Haiti his money is no longer only worth one dollar. Being that he is now in a different country [punc] his dollar can not only get him that soda and the bag of chips but can also purchase some candy as well. That same dollar has increased in value just by relocating where it was spent.
At this moment right now the American dollar is worth 65.09 Haitian Gourdes according to exchange-rates.org. And that is the official rate from the bank but depending on what merchant you go to the dollar could be worth more or less. I know personally that American currency is much more in demand then the Haitian Gourde. Being that it is in higher demand there is more space to barter and discuss prices of certain services like cabs, workers, servants, and items within the street markets. At a young age I was able to see that American currency was worth a higher value than Haiti’s own currency. It provided insight of the faith and value that had been put on American money. America having a history of being stable and a secure government makes its money more reliable. Being able to experience this taught me that the intrinsic value of money is really only based off of the value that people give it which ties also into how stable the government the money belongs to is. As long as there is faith in the currency whether it be dollars, stones, gold or even corn as long we give it value and are willing to trade for it then it will always have value.
After figure out what it was that gave money its worth it wasn’t much of a surprise reading the article on Brazil’s inflation problem. The value of money ties into how stable the government is at that moment. When looking at Brazil the faith in their government was at an all time low. The only way that Brazil would be able to fix the problem is by starting over, creating a new rate and form of currency in order to sway the minds of its citizens. At this point Brazil was up to an 80% inflation rate a month which is outrageous. Inflation being that high causes the value of Brazilian currency to continue to drop thereby forcing everyone to spend as quickly as possible. In the video above by Doug Levinson he clearly states that this is not good for the economy. It would cause overconsumption and hoarding of goods which would only make the prices of goods and services rise even more thereby causing more inflation.
Inflation being that high meant that the value of Brazil’s currency was low and prices of items were only getting higher causing the trust in the government to diminish. The ways in which the government attempted to address this problem had barely any effect in fact in some cases it made it worse. Leaving the people of Brazil to lose faith in the value of money. In order to fix the problem they had to do just that create faith in the government and the money system. The system that was used at the time was tarnished it would no longer be accepted or trusted by Brazilians. In order to achieve this the Brazilian finance minister invited Edmar Bacha an economist. Bacha and his team came up with a new currency they would call Unit of Real Value “URV’s” for short. So in bring forth URV’s people could be tricked into thinking that money had value again. Because URV’s was a constant rate it was able to sway the minds of the citizens creating trust and in doing so putting faith back into the money. Doing this meant the citizens would continue to spend at a steady rate which will help the economy grow which helped create more jobs. By creating more jobs it’s a domino effect creating a bigger and stronger economy thereby causing faith in the government and its money system to grow fixing the original problem of trust between the citizens and government.
Milton Friedman’s article “The Island of Stone Money” introduces the people of Yap where there are no “valuable metals” and so as a collective the people of Yap decided to give value to stone coins. When I first read this it threw me for a loop to think that stones would be an adequate means of making purchases was beyond my comprehension. The fact that theses stone coins depending on their size could be left at another persons home but it would just be understood that this huge stone would now belong to someone else I couldn’t comprehend it. When put in comparison of the way we give value to our own money you find that it’s not so different after all. Here in the states we grew from a bartering system where goods would be traded for what we thought what was of equal value, such as trading a wagon wheel for a crate of corn. When then moved on trading gold from gold to paper money and now electronic. Now with the exchange of electronic money you never truly see the actual money its supposed to represent unless you withdrew it all. But I can go to any website enter my account number and make purchase. There is no visible transaction only the changing of numbers to my account balance to me that is not much different from the exchange of ownership the Yaps would do amongst themselves. Even though a person may have never even seen this so-called wealth by faith he owns it and is able to use it to make purchases just as we do.
Works Cited
Joffe-Walt, Chana. “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR. NPR, 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Goldstein, Jacob. “The Invention of Money.” This American Life. Chicago Public Media, 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Working Papers in Economics (1991): 1-7. The Hoover Institution Stanford University. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
“Exchange-Rates.org World Currency Exchange Rates and Currency Exchange Rate History.” Convert US Dollars (USD) to Haitian Gourdes (HTG). MBM Media, Inc., 2016. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
TEDEducation. “What Gives a Dollar Bill Its Value? – Doug Levinson.” YouTube. YouTube, 23 June 2014. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Rowan Counterintuitive 
feedback provided
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I didn’t provide you feedback on your original Stone Money post, Baritone, so this is my first chance to comment on your work on this topic. It has a title and a credible Works Cited, but its citations are pretty thin. You cite just one source specifically, leading readers to believe that the rest of the material is owed to no one. That makes your WC a bit of a fraud since it should contain only sources you’ve actually cited. You’ll need to fix that to improve your Scholarship grade.
As you know, you’ll receive initial 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. The Writing Center offers free peer-to-peer writing instruction appointments to suit your schedule. And additional feedback is always available from me upon request.
Argument (Grade Q)
The argument in your first two paragraphs boils down to a simple claim, Baritone. “The very idea that American dollars can be used to buy Haitian Gourdes, and that some days it buys more of them than other days, indicates the odd and artificial nature of money.” I hope you will see the value of figuring out just how simple your claims are, that they can be reduced to simple sentences, and that readers are tremendously helped by authors who state their claims just that simply. Once you get your claims on paper, you can be as subtle as you like in describing the details and the implications of your claims. But first: SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AS CLEARLY AS YOU CAN.
That said, how would you clearly express the argument in your 3rd paragraph? It has something to do with lack of faith causing inflation, but it’s not easy to see exactly what you’re claiming. Did the Brazilians lack faith in their government, or did they just mistrust their currency? If so, why?
Your effort to explain the Brazilian solution is admirable, Baritone. I see your sweat. But the only reason I have some idea what you’re describing is that I read the material you read regarding the invention of the Real. If I hadn’t, I’m afraid I would be lost. Ask yourself this question: “How much of the story do I really have to tell to convey to my readers that the replacement of a mistrusted currency with one that seemed more stable solved the problem?”
Your final paragraph contains SO MANY claims it’s hard to follow them all. If I may be allowed an analogy: your ideas are like a pile of “pick-up sticks.” They could be laid end to end, or used to make a box, but as it is, they criss-cross one another and can’t be moved without disturbing the pile.
Shorter paragraphs won’t solve every problem, but they’d be a good start for you, Baritone. If you devoted a short paragraph to Yap, and one to the transition from barter to gold, another for the transition from gold to paper money, and finally one more for the increasingly abstract nature of our digital currency, you’d find that each paragraph needs a clear topic sentence (like the dollars-and-gourdes sentence above) that lays out its central claim. Short paragraphs, each with a definitive claim, can be laid end to end in a nice chain that guides readers through your argument.
Rhetoric (Grade Q)
I’m going to focus primarily on your language skills in this round of feedback, Baritone, because it’s essential you work hard to improve the fluency of your English before the end of the semester. I can’t easily describe all the errors present in your first paragraph; they are complex and numerous. So instead, I’ll revise the paragraph with corrections and hope that you’ll see the value of the differences. I will try to retain your original meaning when I can discern it so that I’m not re-WRITING your essay but merely copy-editing it.
As a child growing up I always thought of money as having a fixed value. And why wouldn’t I? Growing up in the United States, I was taught in school that a dollar is worth just that: a dollar. But moving forward in life I was able to experience that money is worth only the value we give it. In the fifth grade I was able to travel to my family’s original country of Haiti. It was at this time that I found out first hand that money isn’t always worth what we know it to be here in the United States. Now imagine a young boy walking into the small store near his home in America. As he glances around the store, he reaches into his pocket to see how much money he has and pulls out one dollar. He knows with this dollar he can purchase either a bottle of soda that costs one dollar or a bag a chips that also costs one dollar. Unfortunately, the value of his dollar is not enough to purchase both items. However, if this same boy walks into a store in Haiti and pulls out of his pocket one dollar, his money is now worth much more than a dollar. In a different country, his dollar can get him not only that soda and the bag of chips but also some candy. His dollar has increased in value just because of where he spent it.
I was going to stop there, but I have to mention two sentences in your second paragraph, Baritone. I’m sorry.
At this moment right now the American dollar is worth 65.09 Haitian Gourdes
[You’ll have to choose between “At this moment” and “right now.” I can’t let you have both. Be on the lookout for wordiness in all your sentences. You have a weakness for it.]
[Watch out for “being” too. It gets you in trouble every time you use it.]
NOT: Being able to experience this taught me that the intrinsic value of money is really only based off of the value that people give it which ties also into how stable the government the money belongs to is.
BUT: This experience taught me that the intrinsic value of money—whatever value people give it— depends on the stability of the government that prints it.
Mechanics (Grade R until you fix your citations)
Cite every idea you borrow from a source, Baritone. Once they’re cited in your essay, they can be part of your Works Cited. Citations should follow the pattern you used for Stone Money.
EXAMPLE: Ownership of the stone could change without the stone ever moving from its original locations. “They often talk about the stones themselves not changing hands at all. In fact, most of the time, they wouldn’t,” says Milton Friedman in “The Island of Stone Money.”
You can clear this grade easily by following that advice.
Scholarship (Grade R)
You aren’t giving your sources the credit they deserve. You’ve clearly absorbed a good bit of information from them, and I don’t think you’re trying to deceive your readers. Where you do give credit, you’re doing it fairly. So, again, this should be an easy grade component to fix.
OVERALL
Take heart, Baritone. Your current grade is a reflection of how this work would be graded if it were submitted as part of your Portfolio. 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. Furthermore, you can—and I think you should—enlist the FREE help of a peer writing counselor through the Writing Center for one-on-one sessions on your schedule. You may request a grade update in the Reply field for this post, but only after you’ve made substantial changes to your entire essay (not merely corrected the grammar and mechanics).
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