Visual Rewrite–Theadmiral

0:00, 00:1- A younger asian man looks to be sitting on the couch possibly in his home. There is a blanket, rolled up next to him. We also see a thermostat to our left and over his right shoulder. This could have been done intentionally by the director to give it a more homey feeling, and not just a set. He is looking at his phone, and appears to be texting. He sits on the middle cushion, probably because the director wants to make him the center of focus. He There looks to be a black and white picture on the wall, again probably for decor of the house. I cannot make out the image, it looks to be some sort of mountain setting. There is a red barn or some sort of shed out back, if you look through the sliding glass door.

0:02- The man is now sitting in a library. He is still on his phone, He is in different clothes, now wearing a grayish, blue sweater. This sweater could suggest it is winter time, because he was wearing another sweater in the first scene with a wool blanket raveled up. His hair is still in the same fashion, the kind of wave hairdo I used to wear in third grade. He looks to be sitting in the back of the library, with a copious amount of books behind to him. I cannot make out any titles on the books, probably done to not take away from the actor. There is one book to the right of his head that stands out tho, only because of its yellow color. The title of the video is “project yellow” so I think the yellow book can be a small sign used by the director.

0:03- The man has changed scenes again to a gym now. He looks to be doing some sit ups while texting. His outfit changed again, to a plain white shirt, and a yellow headband. He is still texting, fully focused on his phone. The gym he is attending does not look very occupied. You can see one man in the mirror, looking to be doing some tricep pushdowns, and the Tv is on, so we know he is not alone in the gym. He is now wearing a silver watch on his left wrist. The watch on his wrist seems unusual to me because it does not look like a fitbit, or some sort of runners watch, but a dressier watch.  There is a hand sanitizer dispenser to the right of his head. The texting while he is doing all of his actions suggests that a majority of his life is spent on his phone, and that with every task he does, or every where he goes, he is glued to his phone.

0:04- The man changed scenes from the gym, now to some sort of outdoor patio of a restaurant. There is a person, removed to his right, our left, that looks to be sitting down, and eating. We can tell he is eating because he is bringing something to his mouth, and that is usually how I eat a burger, so I think it is safe to assume he is eating some sort of finger food. He is wearing a long sleeve shirt, and the people in the background are wearing heavier clothing as well, suggesting that it again is colder outside where they are. The man is still on his phone, texting, but he has changed his outfit, or shirt at least. There are people in the background, it looks like they too are eating.

0:05- The man has changed scenes again to it appears to be his birthday party. It is safe to assume it is his party because there are a bunch of people standing up around him, and his is sitting with a cupcake with a candle in it in front of him. He is texting, as he has been in every other scene. The people to the left and the right of him are barely visible. This is done to show that the focus was not on the people at his birthday party, but that he was so focused on his phone. It is kind of an allusion toward the term “tunnel vision” where you cannot see anything around you, but you are so focused and engulfed in one thing. His shirt has changed again, to a white quarter zip sweater with blue stripes on it. He has a black watch on now.

0:06- Now we see the man in yet another location, on a carousel. He is still texting. There is nobody near him on the carousel. He is now wearing a cream colored sweater.In all of the scenes so far, he has been wearing long sleeved shirts, or sweaters. The director could have done this to keep the seasons the same, and to show that he is probably staying around town. The top of the carousel is yellow, which again could be another thing like the book in the library leading back to the title of the video.

0:07- The man is still texting, but now he is on a date with a red headed girl. I do not know where they are, maybe her house because it looks like a home, from the plants behind his head, and there looks to be a kitchen behind him and to the right. They are sitting on a couch, and he is wearing the same white quarter zip sweater from a few scenes ago. She is dressed in all black, and kind of out of the light, bringing more focus to the man texting, and so much her and their date.I do not know if it is the quality of the video or not, but again the female to his left looks to be in less light than. Probably showing that the focus of the video is more towards the man texting and not what he is doing.

0:08- The camera is now placed in the back of an open refrigerator. We see the man texting, and closing the refrigerator door. When we look at the refrigerator, it does not seem to have much in it, maybe suggesting he is a “broke college student” because he looks around our age. The contents of someones refrigerator can sometimes show wealth. If you can afford a lot of food, you are probably a little better well off than a person who has nothing in their refrigerator.

0:09- The next scene is the same man in the dark, bundled up in a blanket. He appears to be laying in his bed, with nothing but the light from his phone shining on his face. When we think of bundled up, we think of warmth, and the womb of our mothers. That is what the root of that comfortability is, so the director could have done this to show that his security is his phone, because he is constantly with it, and he is constantly using it.

0:10- The same man is texting, sitting in front of a ping pong table, with a blurred out white ball on the screen. The table is by a window, and it looks to be kind of cloudy outside. He is sitting on the arm of a couch, so this could be in somebody’s basement or somebody’s game room. Him sitting on the arm of the couch shows that the director is trying to make him the center of focus on the screen, because of the positioning of the couch, just like they tried to do in the first scene. He is now wearing a black shirt and a pair of grey pants.

0:10-0:11- We see the man in two different scenes in one second. The speed of the scene change is beginning to speed up. In the first scene, his is in a blue puff jacket with a hat and a blurred out label. The label is probably blurred out because they didn’t want copyright infringements. He looks to be on an escalator at the mall. He could have been meeting some friends but he looked to be alone. If this is the case, then he is shopping so he might have some disposable income, so he might not be a broke college student. He is still texting. In the second scene, he is back in the white sweater, and at some sort of club, or house party with lights flashing. The man is texting in both scenes still.

0:11- In the later parts of the eleventh second, we see yet another scene change of the same man still texting. He is now sitting on a blue park bench, in a jacket. The trees in the background are bare, and he is wearing a jacket, so it is safe to assume that it is winter time. This goes along with the winter theme that has been going on, with the long sleeves and the blankets that were shown. The cold theme could have been chosen because it is “cold” to text and drive because it does take many lives every year.

0:12-14- The twelfth second also has three rapid scene changes. They are all with the man texting, but just in different locations, and in different clothes. The first scene, it looks to me that he is on the second story of a mall. He is wearing a grayish black shirt, and texting and walking. The next scene is him in bed with blankets over his head. His face is lit up by the light from his phone again, but it still looks to be day time from the light coming in from the window in the back of his room. He also is shown back in the gym, behind a man doing some sort of benching. He is still texting (which is not the proper thing to do if he is spotting somebody in a gym, like he is shown in the picture.) In the thirteenth second, they show him back in the mall on the second story. After a short amount of time, he is shown back at the restaurant outside eating, and then back at the gym, but no longer doing sit ups. He also is shown back on his date, back at the ping pong table, back at his birthday party, back at the library, and then back on the carousel.

0:15- They show another rapid burst of scenes starting with him closing the refrigerator, at the ping pong table again, on the escalator at the mall, back at the party with the lights, back at the park, then back in bed.

0:16- He is shown still texting back on the second story of the mall, and then behind the wheel of his car, in a scene we haven’t seen yet. He is texting, in a blue plaid shirt, with no seatbelt on.

0:17-0:19- It goes to the side shot of him in the car with the passenger side, front door open. We see the right side of his body, and he finally puts his phone down. It then goes to an unlocked phone screen, with the rest of the messages blocked out, but only focusing on one message saying “Ok. Driving now so I’ll ttyl.” It stays on the same picture, and then the words “not here” pop up in white letters at the top right of the picture.

0:20- It shows the man driving off, with both hands on the wheel. The words “not here” show up on the screen again, and then underneath of that, a text bubble that says “never here” shows up.

0:22- The last scene shows the car driving away, and at the bottom shows the words “don’t text and drive.”

 

Visual Rewrite – theintern

0:00- Looks like this scene is taken place in today’s time because we can still see that people go to appointments. In this scene we see a woman and a man are in an office in a building. We can tell they are in a building because we can see the body of trees because only the first floor would be able to see the tree trunks which means the office must be on a higher floor level. The office is like an ordinary office theres cubes in the center with executive offices surrounding them. In the office there windows sills to look outside and the lobby where the cubes are located. The man is a white older man who is wears glasses and seems like he is one of the executives because only people higher in position get to make the decisions of a company. He seems to be comfortable not only because he is an executive but because he is also in his office. It looks like he is beginning shake hands with a black woman, he wears a nice light charcoal suit with a baby blue buttoned down dress shirt, meaning that he is dressing business casual. His office has a plant inside with a desk that has a paperweight and pencil holders and some sort of certificate hanging from the wall. The black woman is there to discuss a proposal or just to have a meeting with the man she is reaching out to shake his hand. She wears a black suit with a black appropriate skirt and her hair is braided and tied up; she must’ve had to do that to look more professional because having her hair in a different manner would give off a bad first impression. Later the man asks her to sit with is hand gesturing. There is a man outside of the executive office in one of the cubes holding a phone to his ear perhaps talking to a client while looking at his desktop but he is blurred out. There seems to be another cube in front of him but we can not see who is there.

0:01- They are both sitting and the camera is angled from the woman’s right shoulder and faced to the man. The man looks amazed but also having a curious look on his face. The man looks like early or mid fifties with his lips puckered up a bit. His hair is receding a bit where it looks like he has a bigger forehead. His eyes are green.

0:02- The camera is again outside the office and near the cubes now we can see the woman better she wears a light orange buttoned down dress shirt and by the looks of her face it looks like she is waiting to answer a question from the man who is looking at her with is hands up and crossed in front of him near his face. The man seems like he is getting a better observation of her and at the same time asking her a few questions. As the meeting is going on everyone outside his office are working the man with the phone is still there but there is one man walking by the office almost blocking the man, he is also blurred out a bit. As the second keeps going he is talking to her.

0:03-  Now the camera is angled on the man’s left shoulder facing the woman’s face. She looks puzzled but at the same time it looks like she is about to answer the man. The woman’s eyes are brown, she has a young face seems like she just got out of college.

0:04- She just answered a question she had for the man with a smile on her face. She is now waiting for his answer and hopes the answer she gave was good enough.

0:05- The camera switched back to where the cubes are located and is looking through the window sills of the executive office.

0:06-0:08 – The camera is up in her face, we can see her mouth open ready to speak with her eyes looking very concerned. Now I see that on her left her she has an earring.

0:09- Now the camera is angled on her shoulder facing him, he is looking down either at her resume, desk, or a gesture of disappointment who knows. His face has changed a bit, now he has a more serious face and left wondering from her answer.

0:10- He is now beginning to talk while leaning back in his chair but still looking downward with no eye contact. We can tell a person if they seem confident and comfortable he/she is definitely in high rank of position because not just any employee can just lean but in a chair all day long.

0:11- He has a serious look on his face once he asks her a question but his face is more rude than serious like there is something bothering him.

0:12-0:16- The camera turns from him quickly to her from his left shoulder to her face and she begins to answer to him but her face expression is sharp, confident she knows what she wants.

0:17- Quickly turned for a close up on the man who listened very closely to her answer but is now thinking of a question to ask her again.

0:18-0:20- The camera faces the man and he looks her straight in the eyes and is slightly smiling but questioning whether to hire her or look for someone else to do the job he wants to be fulfilled and then gives his final thoughts.

0:21- The camera is right outside the window sill looking at her. She looks like she is about to get up. The office has more detail he has a dial up phone on his desk. Near the the widows to look outside he has a shelve with books lined up together.

0:22- The woman stands up and reaches out to shake the man’s hand which is usually the conclusion of any meeting.

0:23- The camera is near the widow sill to look into his office and you see the man holding out his hand to shake the woman’s hand but then we realize she is not there and there is no one in front of him just two empty chairs.

0:24-0:25 – The camera focuses on him with his puzzled and concerned face looking beyond his desk. It seems like he’s having a flashback to the time where he chose to hire her and is waiting for another recipient to be just like her.

0:26-0:27 – The camera is angled from his left shoulder and is looking facing his chair there is no one sitting in it, it’s empty and facing him as well.

0:28-0:30 – The commercial ends and you see the man faded and looking downwards with white words in the middle of the screen reading “GRADS of LIFE. org” and Ad council copyright on the screen to the bottom right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8T85zLF4m4

A01: Stone Money–collegegirl

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.

Open Strong Exercise

Essay in need of a Strong Opening

Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary and death in a Nazi concentration camp made her a symbol of the Holocaust, was allegedly baptized posthumously Saturday by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to whistleblower Helen Radkey, a former member of the church. The ritual was conducted in a Mormon temple in the Dominican Republic, according to Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher who investigates such incidents, which violate a 2010 pact between the Mormon Church and Jewish leaders.

Radkey discovered that Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank, who died at Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945 at age 15, was baptized by proxy on Saturday. Mormons have submitted versions of her name at least a dozen times for proxy rites and carried out the ritual at least nine times from 1989 to 1999. This time, Frank’s name was discovered in a database that can be used for proxy baptism — a separate process, according to a spokesman for the church. The database is open only to Mormons.

A screen shot of the database shows a page for Frank stating “completed” next to categories labeled “Baptism” and “Confirmation,” with the date Feb. 18, 2012, and the name of the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple.

Mormon posthumous proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims or Jews who are not direct descendants of Mormons has continued, despite church vows to stop such practices. Negotiations between Mormon and Jewish leaders led to a 1995 agreement for the church to stop the posthumous baptism of all Jews, except in the case of direct ancestors of Mormons, but some Mormons have failed to adhere to the agreement.

The name of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was recently submitted to the restricted genealogy website as “ready” for posthumous proxy baptism, though the church says the rite is reserved for the deceased, and Wiesel is alive. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, was among a group of Jewish leaders who campaigned against the practice and prompted the 2010 pact by which the Mormon Church promises to at least prevent proxy baptism requests for Holocaust victims.

Wiesel last week called on Republican presidential candidate and Mormon Mitt Romney, a former Mormon bishop who has donated millions to the church, to speak out about the practice. The Romney campaign did not immediately reply.  The Frank case follows closely on an apology from the Mormon Church last week for recent posthumous baptisms of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s parents.

The latest baptism of Frank by proxy is especially egregious because she was an unmarried teenager who left no descendants. Mormon officials have stressed that in accordance with the agreements, church members are supposed to submit only the names of their own ancestors.

“The security of the names submissions process for posthumous rites must be questioned, in view of the rash of prominent Jewish Holocaust names that have recently appeared on Mormon temple rolls,” Radkey said about her latest find. “This one sailed straight through, with Anne’s correct name in their ‘secure’ database.”

Radkey said she expects, once word gets out, that church officials will scrub the records as they did with Wiesel and Weisenthal’s parents. The Mormon Church responded later Tuesday in a statement: “The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism. While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions we are committed to taking action against individual abusers who willfully violate the Church’s policy. Ritual baptism should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect; we regret when it becomes a source of contention.”

Exercise Specifics

In the Reply field below this post, write your strongest Opening Paragraph.

Your paragraph must contain a thesis sentence that clearly and boldly proclaims the claim you promise readers you will prove.

In addition, your Opening Paragraph will:

  1. Will make strong, perhaps paradoxical claims.
  2. Will sum up a very strong argument your essay will make.
  3. Will NOT LOSE the argument.
  4. Will itself be an arugment.
  5. Will be memorable.
  6. Will be debatable, demonstatable, illustratable.
  7. Will be a good example of itself.

Well, maybe it won’t accomplish all 7 goals, but the more the better!

You have until the end of the day to write your best first draft.
TIME LIMIT: 30 MINUTES

Stone Money Rewrite–NewEditionLover

Money Is Powerful

P1. Does having money make you a better person socially or economically? As I listened to the story of the “Stone Money Of Yap ” from the planet money team I learned many new concepts in which I thought were very interesting. I spent a long time thinking where money goes and how people in the United States go about using it. How does money just disappear without anybody knowing where it went? I view money as a concept of life and without it you basically cant survive. Without money you cant do the things you want and live life without any worries. But in the end is money always there? Do we just work just to have the idea or thought of having money?

P2. If my mom goes to work just to pay bills and pays online she technically didn’t pay them the money from her pockets but from her debit or credit card. Now this has me thinking am I just another worthless person just thinking that money is gonna cause me happiness in the long run? Its kind of a scary thought but its something to think about.

P3. I’ve learned through the broadcast that dollar bills represent the idea of money and money is never currency as you get paid. They say this because most of the money simply doesn’t exist and money is technically created out of nothing. That idea had me confused because how doesn’t money exist? Without money no ones daily routine would ever be the same again. Money comes and goes but it is a very beautiful sight to have when the money hits your account after tremendous amounts of working. When you make a purchase its basically like your signing your rights over and that’s it. Having money to me means that I can be happy and flourish with life.

P4. Money does exist and it shows how much status and “stain” you have in your town or city. What does money mean to you? Money gives me a feeling that I’ve never felt before!

P5. In the article “The Island Of Stone Money” by Milton Friedman taught me a little more about wealth and supremacy. How can you and your family be known but not have anything to show for it? Is the idea of wealth a good thing generally speaking you basically have nothing but you just a known figure. To me money is very real. The bible claims that money is the route to all evil? But without money I wouldn’t have everything that I’ve ever wanted! Money has gotten me a car, food , shelter and all my worlds greatest necessities. To me money makes you who you are without the money your nobody and your just another broke person, with money you can have all the nice things in the world and have all the power in your hand . You can clearly look at someone and tell whether or not they have money.

P6. The source i gathered by Christopher S Penn article “The fictional nature of money” he describes life’s most precious values stating “without it , you don’t eat, you don’t have a place to live, no clothes to wear, unless it doesn’t involve money. Penn also stated  Money can be a tremendous amplifier of personal power. ” meaning you can basically break the rules and do what you want just because you have money.

Work 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.

Christopher Penn. “http://www.christopherspenn.com/2010/05/the-fictional-nature-of-money/”

Stone Money Rewrite—thebeard

A Penny For Your Thoughts

“Money is fiction” is one of the weirdest quotes I have heard from the NPR Broadcast and just one of the oddest quotes I have heard in general. I could have never thought of the money that I have not actually meaning something. The money that I have in my wallet or bank account is the money that I have to spend and I need that money to buy something. The little piece of paper that I receive from the ATM that tells me how much money I actually have in my account is as close to holding all my wealth in my hands. When I heard the story of Stone Money I did not think this could actually be real.

When I was reading Friedman’s essay I was just thinking about how the Yap money system is so similar to ours. The money that the Yap use are big round stones, called fei. The fei have a hole in the middle so when they are created they can easily bring them onto the island and leave them in one spot for eternity. The Yap have their money just sitting in the streets but they know who owns which stone. They don’t need to see their money to make a purchase to someone, just like I don’t need to see my money to use a debit card. That money just goes from my account into someone else’s account. The German government put red X marks on the Yap’s stones saying that they were the governments money now. The Germans did not move the money back to Germany but just simply left it in the same spots, but now with a red X on it. What the Germans did with the fei is almost similar to the the French did with the US gold. They just put a label on it saying that it was now theirs and couldn’t be used. Its odd that just labeling some gold in a basement could cause the Great Depression. The US could have just given France the gold and taken the money from them and maybe the Great Depression wouldn’t have happened.  It is crazy to think that a label could do something like that.

While listening to the NPR Broadcast it really made me think what that would be like to just have a new currency. Its weird to think that Brazil can just create a new currency but they did and it made their economy better. I feel like it would be hard for Brazilians to trust the new currency at first because it is something brand new to them. If I was a Brazilian during the whole crisis I would have defiantly loved the new currency. From what it seems I would be paying so much less for things that I need and want. I feel that it would have been easy for the Brazilians to trust the new currency, it helps them out. They would be able to save their money and not spend it right when they received it. They would not be over paying for some necessities.

While listening to the guys at the NPR Broadcast I find out that even thought the Federal Reserve includes the word “federal,” it is not actually part of the government. They are tasked with something simple but very large: Creating money from nothing. It is really cool how they make new money and suddenly it is in people pockets. Well not instant but almost. The Federal Reserve buys bonds from banks and the banks then give the money received from those bond purchases out as loans to people. See pretty easy, for the person trying to get the loan it sometimes turns out in their favor because interest will go down so the bank can get this money into circulation. It is crazy to think that my money is just transferred to someone else’s account when I buy something. Even if I use cash it will soon be in someones bank account and eventually in someone else’s after that. From listening to this podcast and and reading the articles its really made me think what my money is actually worth to me. These flimsy slips of linen covered with silly green symbols seem so worthless; do I really work hard at my job to earn a handful of these? Then just to spend them on worthless items.

I decided to read two articles about Bitcoin. It has always been something that interested me but I have never really looked into anything about it. In the article “Bitcoin has no place in any portfolio,” it says that the value of bitcoin has ranged from $13 in January of 2013 to roughly $1150 at the end of November 2013. The value of bitcoin changes almost every day just like the stock market. Most investors do not like to use bitcoin simply because they do not understand it. You can also simply go from millions of dollars worth of bitcoins to zero the next day if someone hacks into your computer and takes them. The cool thing with bitcoin is that you can exchange ownership of products very quickly. I read a story that some people buy expensive gaming graphic cards and sell them on bitcoin for more and that is one reason that makes those certain products hard to find in stores like Best Buy. There is no guarantee that bitcoin will be around for a while but for now it is a good way to make money and buy or trade products, that is if you know what you are doing.

So after reading and listening all of those articles about different types of money, it is still hard to tell what money actually is. Could it be a big round stone sitting next to my house that may or may not even be mine or is it a virtual coin that I may have received from trading a product I bought online. Maybe money is fictional and its just the trust in our government and each other that its is actually in our bank accounts or wallets and that we can use it to purchase our needs or wants. I have never really thought that my money that I use to purchase things with could really just be a number going from my account to someone else’s account. Just thinking back the Yap must think we are crazy when we want to buy something and hand the cashier a plastic card or paper. But then again we think they are crazy for trust that someone has a stone in the bottom of the ocean that gives their family wealth. It is also crazy to think that just a couple of guys can create a whole new currency for the people of Brazil and have it actually work out in the countries favor. Those guys basically saved that country when they were in a crisis. We live in one crazy world. But I am still going to go to the store tomorrow morning before work and buy a cup of coffee with my money that may or may not be fictional.

Works Cited

“Bitcoin has no place in your – or any – portfolio.” Marketwatch.com. 31 Jan. 2015

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

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

Stone Money Rewrite

Money Makes The World Go Round

The definition of money is a form or denomination of coin or paper money. After reading multiple articles about the creation of money, how other countries deal with there money problems , and how people from other cultures view and use money. My views on money has changed, I’ve realized that money isn’t worth as much as I always thought it was.I grow up believe that money is everything, after reading these articles I was wrong. The value of  money has changed since I was a child, because of inflation every year the value of money goes down little by little. In the 70s a dollar could go along way and could last you a week. Today you are lucky if you could purchase a waterbottle for a dollar. Now I view money as numbers in my checking account.

The NRP broadcast 423 The Invention of Money had discussed “that money is as real as the stones on the bottom of the ocean floor.”  They claim that money is fiction, Money value can disappear it is not set in stone. Back when we were on the gold standard each dollar correspond to a dollar of gold. Ever since we got off the gold standard the value of money has been fluctuated. It has not been constant ever since.  Currency has changed into information, numbers and commas on a computer screen. Another interesting fact is that their are not even a trillion dollar bills in the world. Their aren’t even bills for most of the money that exits according to NRP broadcast. It is sad how much power the idea of money can make people do ridiculous and foolish things. The idea of money can be overwhelming to people, but I like to believe that if they truly understood the value of money than they wouldn’t act like it will solve all of their problems.

The way money is imported into our economy is not as you would imagine it would be. When I think our economy need money, I think the Federal Reserves sends freshly printed dollars bills to some of the biggest banks in our countries. Unfortunately that is not the case, what really occurs is the Federal Reserves types how much money they think our economy needs and they put the numbers into the computer and buys however much of treasury bonds from banks. Just like that money is sent into our economy according to NRP. They literarily make money out of nothing. Without printing any new bills or anything, they just type in numbers and with a click of a button money is created. It is hard to believe that money is fiction and not a reality. We created this idea of money and pretty soon their will be no dollar bills to exchange anymore. We will be exchanges numbers from accounts to accounts.

As I read other articles, My eyes were opened and  I realized that money value is all in our minds. At least it was in this small Island in Micronesia a Germany colony. This people on this very small Island had huge stones as there currency. Not even gold but stones that were round like big stone wheels. Now according to Milton Friedman there was a family on the island that was very wealthy but has never seen the money. But no one on the island has never questioned them about their wealth because of their ancestor. It was known that one of their ancestors went on a search for a stone that would have valuable in their currency.  But after coming across a deadly storm they had to let valuable stone sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean because if the hadn’t then it would have costed them their lives. When he returned from his travels he told all of the people on the island about what he found and what happened when they ran into the deadly storm. Ever since than the family has been wealthy because of their ancestor failures.  Its crazy to think that because of their ancestor failures the family is well off, with nothing to show for it. This just makes the augment on money being fiction even stronger. Their was a whole Island that used stones as currency, and today we use numbers on a screen as currency.

Money has evolved into a fictional thing that people of our society fight, killer, and rob each other over. Recently on the internet the bitcoin has been making moves on the world in the last year. According to Jeff Reeves “the bitcoin has no federal bank to back its value. This means that there is no true value for this, its value is whatever the person is willing to pay for it.”.  It is ridiculous that people are making their value for this Bitcoin. If it doesn’t have a sent value, Why are Americans still willing to pay for it? Every year money value goes’s down so who is to say that the idea of money won’t be relevant in a few more decades.

Work cited

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

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

Jeff ,Reeves . ”Bitcoin has no place in your -or any-portfolio” 31 Jan.2015.

Stone Money Rewrite—PlethoraGaming

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;

 

Stone Money Rewrite—Princess

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=

Stone Money Rewrite – jadden14

The Idea That is Money

Money acts as a gear in the clockwork of today’s society. Take the gear out, and the whole clock stops working. However, did you ever once consider the idea that the money you hold in your bank account holds no value? Upon reading the article The Island of Stone Money, I realized that money could very well be an idea, or just an acknowledgement of value. The article describes an island called Yap in Micronesia that has a unique form of currency. On the island, the people used these gigantic, carved stone disks as their currency. The people would use these disks otherwise known as fei to buy houses and make other large purchases, and because they were so heavy they would sometimes just leave the stones where they were and acknowledge the owners. In one case, one rich villager sent workers to an island to make the biggest fei any of the villagers have ever seen. They went to the island, and created the massive fei out of stone, said to be perfectly carved. It was said to be the biggest fei they have ever seen, and because of its massive size, it held much more wealth than the other fei. On the way back, the stone was lost at sea during a massive storm. So, did the man lose his precious fei at sea? The answer is both yes and no. The villagers knew that the fei stone was his, and instead of considering it lost, they remember that the fei at the bottom of the ocean, was his. I’m shocked by the idea that these people just kept track of who owned certain fei, as someone could have their entire savings out by someone else’s house. Friedman stated that later on, the Germans took control of the island, and found that the island badly needed new roads and requested that the district chiefs repair them. However, They wouldn’t listen, so the government painted black crosses on the fei, as an attempt to claim their fei. The people of yap saw this, and then decided to fix the roads. The roads were fixed, the crosses were removed, now restoring the people of yap’s wealth. To me this seems counterintuitive to accept that by marking one’s fei automatically they lose their wealth, however, they accepted it. The people of the island revealed to us that money is not a physical object, and that you can have wealth without any physical identity to show for it, and that theory holds true to this day.

Further research led me to look for current economies that can prove this. Upon reading the article How Fake Money Saved Brazil, I can never look at the dollar bill the same way anymore. In brazil, there currency has an issue with inflation. Their currency is increasing in value day by day. At one point it was at 80%, which is astounding! If we had the same inflation rate in the United States, our economy would be in chaos! How people and shops in Brazil are able to operate is unbelievable, and the fact that the prices changed rapidly made it hard to buy goods at a consistent price. Holding onto money is useless in an economy like this, as the value of items will skyrocket and your money will hold no value. Political candidates tried to fix this, but in most cases it just made it worse. Presidents in the past tried to freeze prices, print money, but all of their efforts have been proven unsuccessful. The people of Brazil have managed to adapt to this economic system, even if its somewhat unstable.

The most unpredictable form of currency by far is cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, otherwise known as BTC, is starting to become accepted as a new form of currency in the United States and in China. In the article The Bubble Bursts on e-Currency Bitcoin, the crypto market experienced a significant crash in value. Right around April in 2013, Bitcoin reached an all time high of 266 USD, and was rocketing in value. Just three days later, it fell off a cliff. It went down to 54 USD, and people were left broke. This is very similar to a stock market crash, because of that some investors were able to predict this event and didn’t buy. Some people sold their bitcoins and took their losses, others held theirs in hopes of a rise in value. Today, you can buy a bitcoin for 4187 USD, and it will probably change once your done reading this. Cryptocurrency, like stocks, can sporadically change value in a moments notice. Think of cryptocurrency like a race car. It can take fast turns, accelerate and brake fast, and when in the wrong hands, can crash. The thing that’s interesting about bitcoins is, it’s just an icon on a screen, or a line of encrypted code. It has no physical backing, and yet people have become very rich off this.

Even in the United States at one point their was an issue with our currency system. In Friedman’s article, he talks about the gold standard and how it failed. France wanted to transfer its dollars into gold, and at the time US currency was backed by a guaranteed amount of gold, that was yours any time you asked for it. However, the United States didn’t want to have to ship all the gold overseas, so France agreed to just have them leave a note on a desk with the gold, kind of reserving it for them. This lowered the US dollar’s value, and helped raise gold value in france. This acknowledgement of value, is what money in the world today is. The value in your account, the cash in your pocket, is no longer backed by anything. It’s crazy to think that our cash isn’t really worth anything physical, but is instead a symbol of wealth. When you look at all the currencies and how they are backed, you will find out that almost every one does not have a set value. They run off what the government says they are worth. There is no more gold, or any sort of backing, just word or a stone in your yard. This idea that we call money is what paid for our house, food, and all our necessities, and is only that, an idea.

 

Work Cited

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

Renaut, Anne. “The Bubble Bursts on E-currency Bitcoin.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 13 Apr. 2013. Web.

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;>