One thing I have known for a long time is that money has different value in every country. For example when I traveled last year one dollar would be equivalent to 70 of that country’s currency. Three dollars can get be a box of Oreo, while two hundred and ten of the other country’s currency can get me about five boxes of Oreo’s. I have no doubt that we believe in a sort of ‘fake’ money, after hearing about the concept of Stone Money.

Friedman said that the acknowledgement of ownership is all it took to add value to the currency; and that acknowledgement is passed down. This surprised me because how can generations of people put trust in something, and not question it? Then I recalled, this is similar to religion people have faith on something that could or could not be real

The US setting aside gold for the French is exactly like the German marking a number on the fei, by adding belief to it, it adds value. This created a lower monetary value for the US, while increasing the France’s monetary value even though the gold was not even moved a few feet away. This goes back to show that money is not fluid, just because a person can make others perceive something differently

The story of How Fake Money Saved Brazil by NPR also shows the effect of how we perceive money. Their story was the value of money were not stable, and in order to stabilize and return faith into the economy they had to create essentially a fake currency. By changing how much the old currency values compared to the new currency and keeping products at the new currency the same, it restored the value of the new money. Because the money was no longer varied, products maintained a value, which restored faith in the economy. This plan could have easily backfired if they did not believe in the new currency, this shows how the faith we put into currency can change the value.

And now in modern-day we have electronic currency. We can now get paid by having our money deposited directly into our bank account. And because when we check our bank balance and it shows a number we believe in it, even though it’s just a set of number. We use it to buy real products with our debit or credit card, even though we didn’t pay physical money for it, the electronic money is treated as real physical money. Money that is not backed by something valuable like gold etc… we can consider it fiction.

We also have other fiction money, such as Etherium and Bitcoin known as cryptocurrencies. Even though they have an equivalent value for other non-electronic currency, what would happen if they stopped using cryptocurrency or say they get banned in a country? That might be what we will be facing soon as there are rumors about cryptocurrency ban in China. According to Josiah Wilmoth just rumors of the ban dropped values of the currency by ten percent or more. This proves that because we believe is some rumor we affect the cryptocurrency.

To sum this all up, just because we perceive or believe something, we are capable of making a value for it.

Work Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Wilmoth, Josiah. “Ethereum, Bitcoin Prices Lead $20 Billion Slump Amid Chinese Regulatory Turbulence.” CryptoCoinsNews, Cryptocoinsnews, 9 Sept. 2017, http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ethereum-bitcoin-prices-lead-20-billion-slump-amid-chinese-regulatory-turbulence/.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 9 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil&gt;&gt;

Money is Value 

         How do you answer the simple yet difficult question, what is money? Growing up I thought money was what you needed to do everything and anything. I always thought money was worth so much! I would ask my popop for dollars all the time and I thought I was rich! Then I realized my poppop had other kinds of dollars with larger numbers and I was confused as to why some things could be one or two dollars and something else could be five or ten and so on. As a little kid I would run around with the dollar showing everyone what I had received and then someone told me to save it so I could start a college fund. Confused, I said okay and put the dollar somewhere safe, not know that that dollar would decrease in value every day.

Now if you were to ask me that same question now, I would answer. Well the definition of money is a current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes collectively. But how can that be true if we have things such as credit cards and electronic banking where there is no physical exchange? In the stonemoneyessay.pdf it states “A noteworthy feature of this stone currency … is that it is not necessary for it’s owner to reduce it for possession. After completing a bargain which involves the price of a fei to large to be conveniently moved, it’s new owner is quite content to accept the bare acknowledgment without so much as a mark to indicate the exchange, the coin remains undisturbed on the former owner’s premises.”  But how can that money have a new owner if the old owner still technically owns it?

For example, again as it states in stoneymoneyessay.pdf  “When the German received ownership of the Caroline Islands, after the purchase of them from Spain in 1898 many of the paths and highways were in bad condition and the chiefs of the many districts were told that they have them repaired and put in good order. Coral was good for the natives and many were the repetitions of the command, which still remained unheated.” At last it was decided to impose a fine of disobedience on the chiefs of the districts… The fine was extracted by sending a man to every failu and pabai throughout the disobedient districts, where he simply marked a number on the most valuable fei with a cross in black paint to show that the stones were owned by the government. This worked like a charm and the people thus dolefully impoverished… Then the government dispatched its agents and erased the cross and the fine is paid.

Stone money and numbers in your bank account are the exact same thing. Just because you do not have that money in your sight or touch doesn’t mean that that money is not yours. As long as everyone knows that you are now the rightful owner of the stone, it is yours.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 30 Jan. 2015. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil?gt=

Money, money, and more money.

To me money is so important. We as a society need it to get by in life but money has so much power over everything we do. From the earliest humans, we have always thought about ways to trade or pay people back. I have listened to the broadcast “The Invention of Money” and read the article “The Island of Stone Money” by Milton Friedman. Friedman says that The Island of Stone Money had no metal so they had to use stones. I thought that having a big stone to pay a person is kind of a ridiculous thing to do since you don’t move the stone if it’s too heavy. Everyone around you would know that you don’t have that stone anymore and it was someone else’s.

In the broadcast “The Invention of Money” the five reporters say that in the 1950’s a big limestone meant you can buy back a member that someone else has captive and trade that person for a stone. Saying you would get your member back while everyone knew the stone was not yours anymore. While a bank account is just numbers and the bank saying how much you have when the actual money isn’t there. A bank account means so much to people when its just numbers on a screen. To think a big limestone and a bank account are to mean the same thing but are so different from each other is crazy.

In The “The Invention Of ‘The Economy’” by Jacob Goldstein. Goldstein says that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is not a thing; it’s an idea. Also, That the U.S made the economy $500 billion dollars bigger just last year. The economy to me is just a big confusing thing.  The economy is huge and so many factors affect it. Whether it makes the economy better or worse. The Yap concept of money was way easier than it is today. They just had stones and you could trade them. The limestones were such a huge part of the Yap way of life. If it could not be moved it would stay where it is all the time, just with a different owner.

So, what is money? To society today it is just a number in your bank account and not actually in your pocket. Money is part of everyone’s life today. To all of us there are many different definition of what money is. Money is just used to purchase certain items and pay our bills. Money is a staple of life today.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Goldstein, Jacob. “The Invention Of ‘The Economy’.” Npr.org, 28 Feb. 2014.

“The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Abstract Money

I approached an ice cream stand one day while walking with friends and I decided to buy a cone. After receiving my cone, I pulled out my wallet to pay $2.88. A thought abruptly popped into my head: what is money? I pondered this idea for many days until I discovered the true definition. Money is an abstract concept that may hold a monetary and cultural value, however, not a physical one. Money is not one physical item, but it takes a multitude of different forms including checks, cash, and cards. When I bought my ice cream cone, I paid by debit card. I gave him a swipe of a piece of plastic and he game me a physical item that I could eat. The debit card withdraws money from my account into the ice cream company’s system, which in turn raises its account balance. Currency is not a physical item, but an idea that influences our society. 

When I head over to a gas station or convenience store, and use the ATM, you receive a slip of paper confirming your transaction, it gives you the balance of your account. If the balance of the account is for example $5,000 dollars, then that $5 grand isn’t right there in your hands on the slip of paper, and there is not a little compartment in the ATM that holds your 5 grand. The banks physically do not hold all of your money in a little room, your money is circulated all over the world. Here is a physical example to help you understand, say I get paid a 100 dollar bill. Holding this germ covered, green piece of paper with 100 written all over it, you see Ben Franklin looking at you with pride. Say I take this green piece of paper, draw a red X on it and deposit it in the bank, a week later I go and withdraw 100 dollars. Will I get my red X 100 dollar bill back, no I will not. When I deposited that 100 dollars the only thing that changed was a number on a computer system. That number can be viewed by the bank, by an ATM machine, and by me on a banking app. Our red X 100 dollar bill has now been taken into the banks safe where it is put into circulation. What does this mean, this means that if another person comes by to withdraw 100 dollars they may wind up getting my red X bill. Then they deposit it, and the cycle continues. If you think about it, money is just an abstract concept.

A long time ago in the early stages gold was the only currency of our country. To buy food, or water you would actually have to hand the clerk a piece of metal. Then the abstract concept of paper money was born. Due to the unfavorable test of lugging gold around, you could go to the bank and exchange cash for gold. You could get 1 dollars worth, or 1000 dollars worth, just as long as you had the cash. The money was just an abstract concept because it represented the gold sitting in the bank. If all the gold suddenly disappeared one day, then all the cash would be worthless. For example if I went to the bank and exchanged a little bit of gold for cash, but suddenly the gold disappeared, my cash wouldn’t be worth anything, the cash was just a convenience. It was almost like a title on a car, you can give another man the title, and yes he may own it, however if there is no car then he is just holding a piece of paper with a name of a car.

Today our transactions are documented to the last detail; time of transaction, amount, and type of currency used. We use receipts, bank statements, and ATM slips to show that we have made the transaction of money. If someone asked me if who owns this dollar bill I can show my paycheck. However, in the late 19th century there was a civilization of people who did not record the transaction of money. Everyone knew who’s currency was who’s. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was an island near Germany called Yap. The people of Yap used fei as their currency. However, fei is very special because it is a large wheel like stone. The fei is made from limestone which can only be reached on another island. Milton Friedman talks about how these people on the island of Yap, use fei as their currency. “Their medium of exchange they call fei, and it consists of a large, solid, thick, stone wheels, ranging from a foot to twelve feet,” says Friedman. The people on Yap’s currency is enormous, it cannot fit in any wallet I own. The people on Yap had to go to another island which was 400 miles away, and had to carve the fei from limestone. Limestone was not found on Yap. The people used canoes and rafts to make the treacherous journey. With extremely heavy stones and flimsy canoes and rafts, something is eventually going to happen. When talking about the people of Yap and their currency the NPR broadcast states that,”You don’t actually have to have the stone to own the stone. The stone is sitting on a path or something, and everybody knows that I own it.” You physically do not have it, but in everyone’s mind you do. One day while sailing back to Yap, the canoes sank, sending all the fei to the bottom of the ocean. “They came back and told the people of Yap what happened, the people of Yap said that’s fine, thats no problem,” “the stones at the bottom of the ocean are still owned.(said in NPR broadcast)” So the people of Yap physically did not have the fei in their possession. They just had the possession of the idea of the fei. For example, say I’m on Yap and have 3 fei, ones in the ocean, ones on a path somewhere, and one is in front of my house. A random stranger from the US comes by and sees my house he would assume I have 1 fei, but my neighbors on Yap would know I have 3 fei.

While searching around about fake, abstract money I noticed an interesting article titled, “How Fake Money saved Brazil.” In the article, Channa Joffe-Walt talks about “how an economist and his buddies tricked the people of Brazil into saving the country from rampant inflation.” Joffe-Walt talks about the crippling inflation that had hit Brazil.” In Brazil, inflation was killing the economy. Milk, and eggs would be priced at a dollar one day, the two dollars the very next day. People would have to run faster than the clerk who would mark up the prices to get the lower prices from the previous day. With many factors like inflation, who knows what can happen? The stock market crash, and the housing market crash are all reminders how are economy can be crippled just like that.

What is money? This question has been asked forever, and is still being though about today. My definition is that money is fake, it is an illusion of our society today, it is a status symbol, a tool, and sometimes a savior. It does not accomplish anything physically, just metaphorically. You cannot build a house out of money, but you can pay for one. There may be physical items paper money, gold, coins, and fei, however money is just fake.

Work Cited

Work CitedFriedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 9 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil>;.

Money is one of the most important things in this world.  It makes the world go round. There is many different forms of money used around the world, its value is recognized by its significance. In Europe, the currency for one and two euro are coins while in the United States of America, the one dollar is paper. Many nations use different forms of currency, and the internet is no exception. The bit coin is used for trading and purchasing goods.

In economics, money is refer to as capital. This capital is spent by consumers and business and creates an economy. The economy fluctuates by how much capital is put into it, and by how much imported products are brought into the economy. The Yap simplified this economic system.

The Yap people’s currency is made up of lime stone rocks carved into cylinders. These rocks would be decorated and customized for whoever had them made. These stones, being huge in size, would not move from its final placement. The Yap people relied on word of mouth for financial records. This is almost like today’s modern credit system. Our credit system is based on invisible money that appears electronically.

Currency can be anything, as long as it has value to whomever wants it. In the past money was made of rare metals. Gold was the most saute after currency since it does not really loose its value. Most countries used gold to back their paper currency. The United States of America used gold to back the currency all the way up to the 1930’s. During the Great Depression, America suffered. Its economic growth dived to the pits. The once great economic power lost its way. Foreign countries became scared. They did not want to risk the money they had tied up. Many countries wanted to insure their assets would be secured. France being the first of them, wanted to secure its credit in gold. The United States dived the French shares. Eventually this would change. The gold would not be used to back the currency’s value, instead the government regulated the value based on the economy. Essentially this would start the modern day system of credit.

Inflation is good and bad for an economy.  To much inflation is bad because it discredits the moneys worth. Prices for everyday goods would jump. An example of this is Brazil. It had to much inflation and no one had money to buy the things they need. People would live paycheck to paycheck.  Basic items would cost a tremendous amount of money because of the lack of value in the currency. A new currency was introduced. Eventually the currency was changed and the economy leveled out. Products and services would then have normal prices. This made it better for the Brazilian people because they could live in a society that was “on their side” and made the way of life better.

Another example of how to much inflation destroys an economy is Germany after World War 1. The German nation after one of the most horrific wars of the twentieth century suffered economically and their reputation disappeared. Germany was blamed for the start of the war and many countries sought after reprisals because of it. At the time Germany was forced to pay large amounts of money to all the countries involved in the conflict. This shocked their economy and inflation began. The German people thought that printing more money would solve the problem. This is what caused their economy to collapse and sent the nation into a depression. Eventually Germany would fix their economy but in the end create another world war.

It is sad to say, but war either leads to a booming economy or a crumbling one. It is not good either way because of the events that lead up to it. The United States benefited from Word War 2, because of the booming economic growth but after the war most jobs were not needed and the economy shrank significantly. Germany again was crippled from the war just like the previous one, BUT, since the nation was split the western allies helped.

In the end money is truly one of the most important things to have. It can be anything as long as it retains its value. People ever since the existence of man, traded and used items as money. Money does not have to be a specific paper or coin, but anything with value. In the end it is truly whatever is found to be needed.

Work(s) Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 30 Jan. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil&gt;.

P1. Currency is a crinkled piece of paper and a hefty limestone rock. Currency is whatever we want it to be. The definition of currency depends on an individual’s belief and culture. As Americans, we are raised around the mindset that the paper in your wallet and the number on a ATM slip make your worth. While others across the globe could hold the standard of wealth to the greatness of your limestone. Our currency is controlled by people who decide on the importance of said currency. Increase, decrease, demand and value are all set in place.

P2. As we learn in, “Island of Stone Money” by Milton Friedman, a small island made of five to six thousand people base their wealth on a large limestone rock in their possession.  Yaps are pre-industrial people who used massive stone sculptures as currency, known as fei. They collected this limestone from an island several hundreds of miles away.  Fleets of boats were sent to travel the distance, across dangerous water, just to seek the limestone. Once found, they began to work on shaping the large stone.  After this task was completed they heaved the heavy stones into the boats to bring back to their homeland. The ownership and possession of the stone was known amongst the people even though the stone never moved from its resting place outside. These giant stones were never exchanged between hands; simple acknowledgement of ownership was all that was warranted. The Yaps knew which families were in possession of which stones. Although, one wealthy family had no stone in sight the Yaps were sure of its existence. While the men were bringing back stones, there was a storm in which the stone went overboard and sank to the bottom of the ocean.  When the men told the people back home of the lost stone they were unwavering in their trust that the stone was out there. The stone in the ocean was possessed by a family who had never seen the stone along with all the other villagers. The importance was unquestioned. The men who ventured on this journey to bring back the stone determined the source of currency.  Just like the Yaps the American system has certain men who determine our currency.

P3.  The Federal Reserve is not a part of the government, although federal is in its title, and they do not look to the government for any decisions.  “Invention of Money” discusses in detail, how the Federal Reserve can create currency out of nothing. It can whip up pieces of paper and small coins within moments.  These items make the world go around. Paper and chips of metal are what people spend their whole lives working for; yet the Federal Reserve can produce it in seconds.  They decide every six weeks if there should be more or less money in the US. More money which can mean more jobs and opportunities but also can mean high inflation.  Less money can slow down the economy too much.  This is a balancing act that if not done right can devastate.  Federal Reserve gives money to banks in return for treasury bonds. Button pressing, that’s what it comes down too. Our money system relies upon this magic trick. If the determination of our currency was left in the hands of the people madness would ensue. Citizens would print more money every day. This is problematic because the more money in circulation the higher the inflation.

P4. Money is not only the paper in our pocket but it is also something we can’t see. Digital money is easier to manage and easier to lose. From our phone screens, we can move money to one account into another. But people hundreds of miles away can move that money into their possession just as easy. My debit card account was recently tampered with and it feels as if someone walked into your home and broke into your piggy bank.  Whether the paper is in your pocket or a number on an ATM screen it doesn’t make it any less personable when someone steals from you. Someone taking your money makes you feel unsafe in all aspects of money handling.

P5. Its bewildering to look at a stock market or housing market crash; we wonder how did the value just plummeted. We ask where did those millions and trillions of dollars go? The answer: it doesn’t go anywhere because it never existed. In “Invention of Money”, the Planet Money team questioned the idea of disappearing money. As logical people who understand million and trillion is a very large number the enormous loss confuses us. The Plant Money team explains that money is only a concept and not tangible thing.  Money doesn’t exist as a thing but rather an idea.  Money isn’t solid and its value could disappear at any given moment. So, one day your house could be worth three hundred thousand and a week later be reduced to two hundred fifty thousand.  Your house didn’t change but the market did.  Nothing made your house worth fifty thousand less, expect the fact that perspective buyers changed.

P6. There isn’t much difference between a stone at the bottom of the ocean and a number from the ATM. Both we cannot see; we simply trust they’re present.  We depend on the rock at the bottom of the sea and the printed numbers from the bank.  We never hold or even lay our eyes on such measurements of wealth yet we believe in them.  The power of money is only registered and fueled by our unyielding belief.

P7. In “Invention of Money” we learn the Brazilian people had to be tricked into believing that their money was more valuable than it currently was. In the 1950’s Brazil’s president wanted to build Brasilia, a beautiful new city.  In order to get the money for such a pricey expansion. He printed more money which raised inflation dramatically.  From this point on, Brazil was on a downward spiral.  The price of milk one day could be one dollar and over the next few weeks it would double. The changing prices were sky rocketing and grocery stores were always adjusting prices. Four underdog economists working with the Brazilian government, created virtual currency in hopes that this would fix the economy. Virtual currency was created which is synonymous with imaginary money.   People trusted this new currency after they saw prices steady. For milk, the price was one URV (Unit of Real Value), but the one URV might be worth 10-20 cruzerios (Planet Money). Fake money became real money when the people believed in it. They used their virtual currency to purchase items that would normally take several months to pay off. With virtual currency the price was attainable and would be paid off at a later date. People began spending. This brought Brazil into the eighth largest economic country.  From nothing to everything; all in the belief of this new money. This idea relied on the publics belief.

P8. Americans, Yaps and Brazilians are all on the same page. Americans believe in paper, Yaps believe in stones, and Brazilians in virtual currency.  These do not become currency without belief.  We give meaning to our own currency’s.  A dollar bill means nothing to the Yaps while the same goes for a large stone in America.  And virtual currency would mean nothing without the Brazilians belief.  Money is what we make it.  Money is both our rise and our fall.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1991.

Goldstein, Jacob. “The Invention Of ‘The Economy’.” NPR, NPR, 28 Feb. 2014, http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/02/28/283477546/the-invention-of-the-economy. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.

Specs of Money

Learning about Stone Money has opened my eyes to see how it correlates to “valuable” paper money we use today. My professor began class with Stone Money and I wondered to myself what he was going to talk about. He began to explain the background of money and how it wasn’t how we see money today in our century; he said many years back there was an island called the Yap Island where many natives lived but the currency they used were big limestones and it would usually be located right outside your house, many of you might be thinking how could a big limestone be used as payment?; he gave us an example of how this currency was used. So when someone wanted to buy a land or a house from the person selling it they would pay them with the limestone (the bigger the more money it was worth). However, this limestone was never moved, it would remain in the same spot where it was first put even though it was yours and everyone in the village knew it was yours there was nothing you could do about it. It sounds awful to have my money in stone be at someone else’s house and not mine but with little to no technology there was no way to move it. In this era 2017 there are no more stones considered as money; times have changed and it will keep changing. Before we used to have dollar coins now we barely do, then paper money became more existent, and now it’s cards from swiping to chipping.

Still wondering the same questions you might have about stone money I searched up the topic and all what my professor said in class was true. I could not believe the information I was absorbing while reading the article. Me wanting more information I opened up the story The Island of Stone Money by Milton Friedman, explaining how stone money became to be and how the natives would transport the stones from a mountain on a small raft across 400 miles to another island. I said to myself this is physically impossible especially with the little to no technology. Friedman explained in his article how impossible it is to move stones from one small island to another. Especially for the people living on the island to move those big rocks without any advanced technology. From reading what Friedman wrote, I analyzed that it had to be some kind of miracle for the natives to transport the stones onto the raft and unmount and roll it into town. There is still not enough data to know exactly how this brilliant or fake men did it.

Friedman tells us that once the German government bought the Caroline Islands from Spain they came to visit the natives. The Germans saw an opportunity and an advantage they could easily have upon these natives. First of all they saw that the natives idolized their stones because that was their currency and second of all the advantage was that the Germans could just easily say that the stones were theirs and make the natives work for them. The job that the German government gave the Chiefs of the natives were for the roads to be improved because most of the island was rundown. The Germans marked a big X with paint on the stones showing the natives that they were in debit and that they must complete the job if they didn’t, the Germans wouldn’t give back the stones. The natives agreed to the deal and worked until it was finished, in return the Germans rubbed off the paint and gave it back to the natives. My thoughts of reading the German’s experience was funny because in our generation stones are stones not money. However if you think about money, before money was credit/debit cards or paper slips there were stones. It is odd to think of how different our “money” was back then but we will probably say the same thing in the future.

Reading the last article with two stories involving the stones and the compromises I now have an understanding of what was used as a replacement for paper money.  I began to read How Fake Money Saved Brazil the next article about the Brazil real. It said that in the 1950’s Brazil was in a deep economic crisis and inflation moving up higher than eighty percent. Brazil’s presidents were no help to the economy they just made matters worse. Each of the presidents had plans of freezing the prices so that it would not be so expensive for customers to get their items, it never worked. The downside was that store owners were not willing to sell their merchandise at a low cost because that meant they were losing so they hid everything until the prices were to unfreeze and go up again. As Chana Joffe-Walt explains how the economy turned around because of these four graduates who figured out a way to bring the economy out of inflation. The four friends pitched the idea that they came up with which was making a virtual currency that would be called Unit of real value (URV) this would let people know that this new “fake” currency was dependable and safe to use.  The new currency helped inflation drop and everything became more affordable. After six months the inflation that was around eighty percent dropped to being even and equaling to a dollar. Once the economy was running smoothly Brazil made the real the official currency.

Money is a mirage, you think you know what is it and it looks so real but at the same time it’s fake and your eyes are just fooling you. Money in my opinion is considered as a substitute for trade of some goods and I have always questioned myself about money like why do we have it? Why can’t anything just be free? From payment many creations are made for example, money made the world turn to a more advanced technology era where we have touch screen cell phones, high speed computers, machines to determine if you have a certain disease and specialized fields like doctors. Now if you think about money, sure it is real and money is somewhat fake but it’s a lie that moved the world forward. First it was rocks, then papers and maybe later it will be scissors.

Work Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 30 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil&gt

“The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Concept of Money

P1. Although money may be a small, rectangular, green piece of paper, a magnetic strip on a card, or a coin, people around the world see it as a prized possession, something extremely valuable to their lives. Quick keystrokes on a mobile device are also forms of money, like the Venmo app, which allows people to transfer money to each others account with the touch of a button. Money can also been seen as a way of having power over others. Despite the fact that there are many forms of money in the world we live in today, money, as a whole, can have an impact on our wellbeing.

P2. Money can also be seen as an enormous sized disk like object. At first glance, it seemed bizarre to hear the story of the Yap an how they consider, gigantic, limestone disk to be as valuable as a home would be to us. In the Yap village, the villagers lived to believe that these gigantic stones ranging to 10 feet high with large holes cut out in the middle of each stone, was their form of currency which they called fei. Strange. We, see currency to be something that is paper like and easily transferred from hand to hand. Because of the large size of the stones, in most cases, the stones did not move locations when given to the next person for their services. The villagers would walk past stones and know who they belonged to and would go along with their day. While reading Milton Friedman’s article regarding the Yap villagers, I discovered that, years ago, a voyager was returning to the village after finding a massive stone, when all of a sudden came a storm that sank the stone to the bottom of the sea. When the voyager returned to the village, he explained to his family of the incident that happened regarding the fei. Shockingly, after years later, it was believed by the entire village that the stone at the bottom of the sea, that no one has ever seen, was still valuable to the owner as if it was in their physical possession. Although the stone remained at the bottom of the sea, it certainly had an impact on the family’s well being. The Yap in the village always acknowledged the families wealth and was never questioned.

P3. Unlike what the villagers believed in about the stones not being moved when possessions changed, people around the world believe that if we do not have physical possession of something, then it is not considered to be ours. Having physical possession of money is a necessity for us unlike there Yap.  For instance, there’s a ten dollar bill lying in the middle of the street on a sunny day, someone picks it up, puts it in their pocket and now it’s theirs. They can spend it wherever and however they’d like and no one will ask them or bother them as to where they got the money. Our concept of currency compared to the Yap’s concept of currency have differences for obvious reasons. Around the world, we need to have possession of our currency for obvious reasons. When money is in our possession, it allows us to buy things that are essential to our lives such as water and food. Meeting these needs are essential to our wellbeing because without them we will suffer from not being able to provide ourselves with things that we need to survive.

P4. Most surprisingly in the NPR Broadcast was the statement: “Money is fiction.” How can it be that a rectangular thin green piece of paper with small symbols be something other than real? Money being as powerful as we’re making it seem to be, it’s just buying power. Online, it’s just a number jumping back and forth from screen to screen and account to account. Money can be the root of all evil. It controls almost everyone in the world besides those who are wealthy enough to not desire it as much. Money is just a means of exchange for us to get something that we want or need.  Before coins and dollar, people used fish, tools or wood for example as a means of exchange for good and services. If the world revolted back to exchanging things like these instead of money, then money would lose its value. If money loses its value, and people used things such as services in exchange for things, less people would rely on money. But, this can affect our wellbeing being that people will actually have to provide services for other people in order to get something that they need. Compared to now, when people have money they can easily spend it on the things that are essential to life and essential to them. When governments don’t exist anymore, there will be no need for money itself because it will lose its value. Then, we’ll return to a more direct exchange of good and services for other goods and services.

P5. Also shocking, CBN made a statement claiming that money is not the root of all evil, in fact its the love for money that is the root of all things evil. A wealthy man may begin to feel superior to those who have to earn a living. Because the concept of money being as powerful as it s, we can spend millions of dollars on flashy watches and fancy cars which are thing we don’t particularly need but want. Imagine what the world would look like if people spent those millions of dollars, or even less than that, giving back to communities or other parts of the world that are in poverty such as victims who lose everything due to natural disasters. If we as humans rely on money for our wellbeing, why not try to help others well beings who are unfortunate instead of buying things that mean nothing or have no value to anyone but your own self. All in all, money has certainly made a huge impact in the world we live today. Whether for the good or for the bad.

Works Cited

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

“The Invention of Money.” 423: The Invention of Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

CBN. “Is Money the Root Of All Evil.”  2017. Web.