Existing Through Money
Money is the heart of our daily lives, even though we do not usually portray it that way. As civilization grew, our need for a stable and convenient economy did as well. All over the world people knew that we would need something that everyone would value enough to buy and sell goods. Whether we are from the United using the dollar bill or from the island of Yap using Fei, the value we put behind these items has built our economy drastically. The value we put towards our daily earnings is the prime reason jobs a done; no person in their right mind would do any work unless there was compensation that would end up in their bank account. Iris Glass in, This American Life, said money is simply fiction, we assume it is there when it never really existed in the first place. Money is so abstract that we do not even need to see money to believe it is there, our bank account numbers changing is just enough evidence.
Imagine a young boy on his birthday opening his birthday presents, so excited he has just received the new Lego set he has been wanting, and then the next gift he opens is a card with a fifty-dollar Visa gift card in it. The child is just as excited because he just sees a piece of plastic with a fifty-dollar value on the face of it. Though the child does not see the physical money that the gift card holds, he understands that it is a form of money that could buy him more Lego sets. How do we really know physical money is being used to purchase the gift card if it was just purchased with another credit card? We do not know; all we see is a value number that we decide is enough to make purchases.
On the island of Yap, one of the islands off the West Pacific Coast, lived the Yapese people. These people were building a place where they wanted people to live and trade and eventually realized that a monetary system everyone valued was necessary in order for the island to bloom into an economy. Most other places around the world decided on cash currency and bank accounts to be the way of transporting money, but the Yapese people decided to use stone money instead. On Jacob Goldstein’s podcast, “The Island of Stone Money,” he talked about Yapese crew workers that had to travel far off their island in order to access the materials that created these discs, limestone. The limestone was only located hundreds of miles away from their island that work crews would have to sail to get them, so they decided it was the best way to make money. You are thinking that it is ridiculous people gave big pieces of stone any value, but it is not too different than the United States economy if you think about it.
As the United States developed, we have moved from using gold, to cash, to checks and bank accounts more than any other form of payment. The numbers we are so eager to see change at the end of the demanding work week are simply just notetaking that you have earned money. How do we value these numbers if we have never even seen them in the form of cash currency? How do we value something that might not even exist? No one has the answer to these questions because the only thing that really matters is that everyone agreed on this method of payment that works best for us if we are getting transferable money. This also goes for the Yapese people all agreeing that the limestone discs would work best for them, because of the value they gave it.
When in the process of the United States changing the active currency from gold to cash, the bank of France was concerned. In the text, “The Island of Stone Money,” Milton Friedman explained that the New York bank switching around few labels in a basement that put the gold under the bank of France’s ownership. The bank of France just trusted that this gold was real and that the bank of New York gave them the ownership with word of mouth. This made the people in the United States believe that the French Franc was worth more than the United States dollar. They reacted this way because people in the U.S. did not agree that the dollar bill was being valued as highly as the gold France had “taken” from us, even though it was. Eventually, the people in the United States agreed that the money could be worth the amount of gold when they were able to make the same purchases with using cash currency.
Something more modern that follows a similar outline as bank accounts is e-currency Bitcoin. Often, people wonder bitcoins’ worth and question how people can use this as a form of payment when you cannot even see it. Bitcoin is just as valuable as cash money and gold, but the difference is it is all digital. Matthew Sparks in, “What is bitcoin and how does it work,” describes that bitcoins can convert to cash like any other asset, but how do we get cash from digital currencies? People who take part in this digital wallet trust that their bitcoins are worth cash currency if they decide to convert it, even though they only see numbers change on a screen. These people just trust that the system works and that this e-currency will turn into cash.
In the end, people can give anything value if they believe it does, like the child with his Lego set, Yapese people with their Fei, or e-currency users with bitcoin. Money is so abstract that no one questions if money is even real, we just use it every day. No matter what the items are that have maintained value, these items have built a diverse number of economies all over the world. Our dependence on currency has grown to such an enormous extent that no one actually notices if it is real or not. As long as people are receiving their payments for the work they do, I do not think they will be asking questions about their money anytime soon.
References
Iris Glass: The Invention of Money. (2017, December 14). This American Life. 423: The Invention of Money (thisamericanlife.org)
Sparkes, M. (2021). What is bitcoin and how does it work? New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/definition/bitcoin/
Friedman, Milton. The Island of Stone Money. (1991, February). Hoover Institution. stonemoneyessay.pdf (wordpress.com)
Goldstein, Jacob and Kestenbaum, David, directors. NPR, NPR, 10 Dec. 2010, The Island Of Stone Money : Planet Money : NPR.
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Thanks for posting early, BlogUser. I hope the feedback I offer you here will help both you and your classmates who might be reading along. We won’t have time to do feedback for EVERYTHING on this first pass. Let’s concentrate on Argument first. In future sessions, if you request more advice, we can focus on Rhetoric, Mechanics, and Scholarship. Ready?
P1. Money is the heart of our daily lives, even though we do not usually portray it that way. As civilization grew, our need for a stable and convenient economy did as well. All over the world people knew that we would need something that everyone would value enough to buy and sell goods. Whether we are from the United using the dollar bill or from the island of Yap using Fei, the value we put behind these items has built our economy drastically.
The value we put towards our daily earnings is the prime reason jobs a done; no person in their right mind would do any work unless there was compensation that would end up in their bank account.
Iris Glass in, This American Life, said money is simply fiction, we assume it is there when it never really existed in the first place. Money is so abstract that we do not even need to see money to believe it is there, our bank account numbers changing is just enough evidence.
P2. Imagine a young boy on his birthday opening his birthday presents, so excited he has just received the new Lego set he has been wanting, and then the next gift he opens is a card with a fifty-dollar Visa gift card in it. The child is just as excited because he just sees a piece of plastic with a fifty-dollar value on the face of it. Though the child does not see the physical money that the gift card holds, he understands that it is a form of money that could buy him more Lego sets.
How do we really know physical money is being used to purchase the gift card if it was just purchased with another credit card? We do not know; all we see is a value number that we decide is enough to make purchases.
On the island of Yap, one of the islands off the West Pacific Coast,
lived the Yapese people. These people were building a place where they wanted people to live and trade and eventually realized that a monetary system everyone valued was necessary in order for the island to bloom into an economy.
Most other places around the world decided on cash currency and bank accounts to be the way of transporting money, but the Yapese people decided to use stone money instead.
On Jacob Goldstein’s podcast, “The Island of Stone Money,” he talked about Yapese crew workers that had to travel far off their island in order to access the materials that created these discs, limestone. The limestone was only located hundreds of miles away from their island that work crews would have to sail to get them, so they decided it was the best way to make money. You are thinking that it is ridiculous people gave big pieces of stone any value, but it is not too different than the United States economy if you think about it.
As the United States developed, we have moved from using gold, to cash, to checks and bank accounts more than any other form of payment. The numbers we are so eager to see change at the end of the demanding work week are simply just notetaking that you have earned money. How do we value these numbers if we have never even seen them in the form of cash currency? How do we value something that might not even exist? No one has the answer to these questions because the only thing that really matters is that everyone agreed on this method of payment that works best for us if we are getting transferable money. This also goes for the Yapese people all agreeing that the limestone discs would work best for them, because of the value they gave it.
When in the process of the United States changing the active currency from gold to cash, the bank of France was concerned.
In the text, “The Island of Stone Money,” Milton Friedman explained that the New York bank switching around few labels in a basement that put the gold under the bank of France’s ownership.
The bank of France just trusted that this gold was real and that the bank of New York gave them the ownership with word of mouth.
This made the people in the United States believe that the French Franc was worth more than the United States dollar.
They reacted this way because people in the U.S. did not agree that the dollar bill was being valued as highly as the gold France had “taken” from us, even though it was. Eventually, the people in the United States agreed that the money could be worth the amount of gold when they were able to make the same purchases with using cash currency.
Something more modern that follows a similar outline as bank accounts is e-currency Bitcoin. Often, people wonder bitcoins’ worth and question how people can use this as a form of payment when you cannot even see it. Bitcoin is just as valuable as cash money and gold, but the difference is it is all digital. Matthew Sparks in, “What is bitcoin and how does it work,” describes that bitcoins can convert to cash like any other asset, but how do we get cash from digital currencies? People who take part in this digital wallet trust that their bitcoins are worth cash currency if they decide to convert it, even though they only see numbers change on a screen. These people just trust that the system works and that this e-currency will turn into cash.
In the end, people can give anything value if they believe it does, like the child with his Lego set, Yapese people with their Fei, or e-currency users with bitcoin.
Money is so abstract that no one questions if money is even real, we just use it every day. No matter what the items are that have maintained value, these items have built a diverse number of economies all over the world. Our dependence on currency has grown to such an enormous extent that no one actually notices if it is real or not.
As long as people are receiving their payments for the work they do, I do not think they will be asking questions about their money anytime soon.
There’s good writing all through your essay, BlogUser, and a really good one here in early draft form, ready for revisions. You’re under no obligation to rewrite this particular assignment, but you’re permitted and encouraged to do so, and further feedback is always available (following significant revisions).
Your preliminary grade reflects how well you met the requirements for a first draft on this assignment. You may certainly improve it with revisions if you wish.
Graded. Thanks again.