I am not an expert on the concept of money, what so ever. Thinking and understanding these stories and issues are not easy. Places like Yap, with their stone money, and Brazil with their fake (now real) currency isn’t easy to understand the concept of. Being an American teenager, now a young American woman, there is very little thought about what the value of money really is. I know that one receives money and one spends the money. Only that seems relevant to me.
While studying where the concept of money came from, I realized there are more connections with different currency than none at all. People can have thousands of dollars in a bank that gives them only a number on a screen of how much money they have. People do not physically see this money, they only just assume it’s there. Though people put money into their own bank accounts, the bank then gives that same money for a loan to someone else. The Invention of Money discusses how money is only fiction and doesn’t really exists. How can that same money a person owns, go to someone else, yet each person has more than what they started with. How can that be if money was real? It can’t.
The people of Yap are doing no different than what we, Americans, are doing today. The citizens of Yap did not see the gargantuan limestone boulders, yet they knew who the owner was. “Is the one practice really more rational than the other?” Milton Friedman states in his Island of Stone Money essay. This got me thinking that, no, I don’t think that there is much of a difference. A person works all their life to make their number on the screen at the bank the highest they can possibly get. A person in Yap trade for their stone money and they work for their stone. Neither of which can carry to a store or put in ones pocket.
Brazil, on the other hand, had a different issue, though still not too different from America. Back in the day, when we used gold as the value of our money, it eventually started not to work in our favor. There was not enough to spread around to all Americans. We then came up with another plan. Something new but not unheard of, paper money. We printed them and shared with the banks to spread to the people and a new way of money was made. Brazil achieved with their new currency, using URVs. This stood for Unit of Real Value. Which, for me, seemed pretty iconic since the money wasn’t real at all until much later.
Fortunately, this worked out for them and helped their inflation problem. As discussed in the broadcast, How Fake Money Saved Brazil, this only succeed because of the people’s faith in the value of the money. People had to have faith in the concept, the progress, and the money itself. This might remind the young people of this world today of the addicting beverage of alcohol. It’s not tasty or satisfying, but people make it a necessity because how it makes them feel and act. Money can be put into similar assumptions because money is only a need because of how it makes them feel. Alcohol is not needed to have fun, but people assume that it helps. One does not need money to be rich, but it helps.
Bitcon money, on the other hand, was also very similar to URV. This digital currency was not seen, and was only to exist online. My view point with this system is that it could easily become hacked by anyone. Also, this money would not be seen by any kind of banks, and it would most likely put banks out of business. There would be no more loans, money in the banks, and there would be less money to spend. Companies borrow money from banks everyday, if that was gone, jobs would go with it. Companies will be forced to lay off and not hire. This would end up in a global depression. Anne Renaut, who seems to believe Bitcon is a reasonable concept, did not encounter these consequences. Though my views on these concepts may not be the most accurate and the money concept still does not have my full understanding, I now believe that money is not real. It is hard to think about that concept, and it is for anyone.
Works Cited
Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Standford University, Feb. 1991. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Joffe-Walt, Chana. “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
“The Invention of Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life. WEBZ. Chicago. 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Renaut, Anne. “The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcon.” Yahoo.com. 13 Apr. 3013. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Rowan Counterintuitive 