Money is a broad concept and can define in so many ways. It is used in our everyday lives and we can list all the scenarios how money is used. For example, if you wanted to travel around the world, you would need money in order to do so, or buy a car, along with many other situations. Like the saying goes, “Money does bring happiness”. In society, people portray money as distinguishing someone’s social status. People look at how much one is worth due to their specific income. Furthermore, people generally think money has value, but the money made from reality TV shows doesn’t have any inherent value, it is simply pieces of paper or numbers in a ledger. In the Milton Friedman’s piece The Island of Stone Money, I noticed the idea of how the Yaps monetary system and concluded the American monetary system is identical, but is a different concept of how it’s being used. The Yaps used stones to make a higher purchase like if a warriors dead body was being kept held it at another village and the village requested it they would buy the body using the stone. And then people would know that this he or she has claimed the stone. Americans use paper bills for purchases and seems cliché, but the Yaps certainly had creative manner to use money.
The NPR broadcast was very interesting, and what surprised me was that the claims were correct in my opinion. I never realized that money had changed so drastically over time. In the past, we used gold as a currency, then paper bills, and now electronic transactions. Today, although we claim to use paper bills and coins for small matters, we have already progressed to digital cash. We pay our bills by computer; those transactions consist of information only. At any time, all or part of a bill can be paid off or transferred without any money being involved. The only way we use paper now is to send checks through the mail, but that’s highly rare nowadays.
The next most intriguing topic was Bitcoin. Bitcoin basically changed how traditional currency is being used. Bitcoin shared database between of computers all keeping track of accounts and their associated balances secured by mathematically encrypted password. And people are so consumed in buying bitcoin that they don’t realize it does not have a true value. Yes, virtual banking sounds amazing because it is so easy and accessible, but there are some tweaks that could be issued. Bitcoin is just like the stock market, the value changes every day. And the money you spend might not have the equal value as the price drops or arises. Money comes and goes there is not a financial base structure to accommodate users; it is simply the game of chance. NPR broadcast mentions how money is now just information and Bitcoin is prime example.
P4. Fake money to the rescue! I just wonder if America should do this or not. The Brazilians used fake money, such as URV, to save the economy from falling. The idea of fake money baffled me because of how easy it seemed to raise the economy using fake money that didn’t have sentimental value. You would think the opposite because it did not make any sense as to how the whole country would use this. As soon the URV arose the Brazilian inflation ended.
P5. I completely changed my mindset over how simple as money can change drastically. Every time I look at dollar bill my perspective will change and I will realize this dollar has no internal value. And I did not know how money grew overtime from our hands to the computer. I will certainly have a different view of how money works and the general idea of why we have this monetary system.
Works Cited
Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.
Renaut, Anne . “The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin.” Yahoo.com. 13 Apr. 2013. 30 Jan. 2015. <https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bubble-bursts-e-currency-bitcoin-064913387–finance.html>.
Date, By. “The Invention of Money.” This American Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
“How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.
Rowan Counterintuitive 
NAKED GRADES for Argument/Rhetoric/Mechanics/Scholarship: KKLL
Your argument is no clearer than it was in your Stone Money post, Yeezy, and you’re still failing for mechanics and scholarship because of flaws in your citations (plus some grammar problems).
I could help more, but you’ll have to start a meaningful dialog for that and not simply ask for feedback.
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The system of which money to exchanged is built on a bed of trust that is supported by the self-worth we deem the value of the money there is. In Milton Friedman’s piece “The Island of Stone Money Friedman” explains that the exchange of the stone is explicitly formed with trust since the stone doesn’t move from hand to hand. The value of stone is formed from the person who currently owns it. This transaction is relatable to modern banking as we currently do not see money being exchanged rather we trust that the person whose goods we purchase are worth what we perceive. Before we buy something we consider if that item is of the same value as the money we exchange it for. Both money and goods hold value, whether if we feel comfortable in our transaction does not affect the good, moreover how we value our money controls its worth.
To participate in the financial world one needs to start with some sort of money to put trust in, to further grow their profits. In Chana Joffe-Walt’s, “How Fake Money saved Brazil” Walt explains how Edmar Bacha tricked their economy into saving itself. He created fake money to use in Brazil’s businesses that would in encourage more business all around Brazil. He knew that more money in the system could help the people when they had limited resources to start with. For example, you and a friend play poker with a set number of poker chips, you can only play until one of you loses all their chips. Moreover if you want to win, you need to increase the number of chances you can play until you win a large bet. If you added fake chips to your lot, you can draw more hands until you break even or win. Edmar allowed Brazil to continue their economic game by creating more opportunities for his country to be active in the business world.
The idea of using inflation to relieve stress from a central bank is a double edged sword, but knowing how to swing that sword can result in saving the well-being of a country. In, “Japan tries to Ease Fears That Its Policies Will Lead to Currency Wars” japan uses inflation to put the country in a state of relaxed spending. The central bank aims to increase inflation that would move more money away from local hands into the hands of businesses. By increasing inflation in Japan, banks want to discourage local spending and encourage more foreign business practices. For instance, if small businesses in japan want to survive they would have to stop spending money and put more money into their savings accounts to see the full benefits of the inflation. Another example would be large Japanese businesses needing to cut spending and maintain their balances to receive small amounts of profits. This approach to fixing Japan’s economy is a slow process that puts their business elites in change of the whole country.
For money to flow into a business it is important to have the support of others to allow your product to grow. In Anne Renaut’s, “The Bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin” the growth of Bitcoin fell short before reaching its full potential. The humble beginnings of the Bitcoin boom with its vast capability in liquid transactions have exposed its interest all across the internet. Bitcoins ability to form self-worth through generating information has said a lot about the future of money, but the support that money needs, requires all the steps of its creation to be actually useful. Money is formed to hold value and is used to make more money (more productivity). The more necessary use of money is how it holds value. Bitcoin was valuable because its investors believed it had potential to create new opportunities in the banking industry; however when its investors take away their trust of its potential the entity that was Bitcoin became deflated. This shows how anything that is formed with money can be devalued by taking away its trusted worth.
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feedback provided
—DSH
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You have me very confused here, Yeezy. I can’t tell if this new material is supposed to completely replace what appears in the post or whether it’s additional material. If you really want competent feedback, make the post look the best you can, either by incorporating the Reply material, or using it to replace the original.
There is good and bad in what you’ve written in the Reply. Good: There’s plenty of new and fascinating, highly-detailed material, much of which would make good support for strong arguments about money as it is used in different societies. Bad: Unless your reader has read all the material before reading your essay, she won’t understand much of what you say about the sources.
Here’s an example:
In “The Island of Stone Money,” Milton Friedman explains that the exchange of the stone is explicitly formed with trust since the stone doesn’t move from hand to hand.
From the very first sentence, you ask your reader to understand what you mean by stones exchanging or not exchanging hands, which she cannot do because she has no idea these stones are the size of midsize cars. This problem pervades your entry. You write as if your readers are your classmates while you should be writing for all readers, including the vast majority of readers who have not read your sources.
All things being equal, at this point of the semester you should spend your energy revising your Portfolio assignments, not this essay that will not be part of your 75% Portfolio Grade. However, if you wish to proceed, I will certainly respond to your feedback request once you’ve blended your two versions.
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