The value of money
Money is a valuable resource that people around the world use every day. Whether it’s cash, credit card, or something else it still has the same value when you pay five dollars with cash, credit, gift card, Venmo or whatever else you use to buy something. Some places may view money completely differently than others but to everyone money is still money. A value of a dollar can go up or down depending on what the country’s economy is like. Just like how the price of food can go up or down when you buy it or depending on where you buy it. But money is not the only form of buying something. Some people trade certain things in order to have value like food, clothes, or gold. But in reality, money is just created by people, and they decide to tell what is valuable and what is not.
In an island out in the middle of The Pacific Ocean called Yap, there is a unique form of currency. They don’t use gold, silver or paper for currency. What they use is stone money as their currency. In the podcast of Jacob Goldstien and David Kestenbaum, the villagers took the resources they had and agreed to use it as money. However, they did not use the money for everyday purchases. The Stone Money was used for more major purposes because the stones were very heavy, and it would be tough to carry around the stone and some of them can be as heavy as a car. An example of this is people in the island would use The Stone Money in order to trade for crops if they did not have enough crops for themselves then they would often use their Stone Money to trade with others. Once a Stone was at the bottom of the sea, The villagers were bringing a stone to their Island from another Island, but then a storm hit and caused the stone to sink to the bottom of the ocean. When they got back to the Island, they decided that the money was still valuable even though it was underwater and nowhere to be found. According to the Milton Friedman Article, later on the Europeans found the stones around the village, outside of homes and all around the island. The Germans bought the Island from Spain and painted crosses on the Stones to show that the currency was now in control of the German government. This changed the value of the currency now that the Germans were on the island. Even though the Germans changed up how the Island was living, the people of Yap still considered their stones valuable in their own way.
In Brazil there was a huge problem with the economy. According to Chana Joffe-Walt’s podcast, the cost of food was going up every month. It caused the economy to be very unstable. In the 1990’s the inflation was 80 percent per month. People in Brazil have been living like this for many years. In the stores the prices changed pretty much every day. This was causing a huge problem for Brazil because the money you received six months ago is worth so much less now than it was when you got the paychecks. The Government for decades was trying to stop the inflation from going up so dramatically. An example of this is in 1985 the government tried to freeze the price but that didn’t work out because the merchants did not want to sell anything because they felt like they would not make enough money so then it caused the prices to go back up in order for people to sell stuff. When it looked like there was no hope for Brazil’s economy, new people were called to help the government’s economy. They were not experienced at all in the government. There was a new currency called a virtual currency that was not printed or coins. This was called URV’s and more things were posted in URV’s and this money was stable and did not go up or down dramatically at all. The regular currency was still being used though. If people wanted to use the regular currency then it was posted in the local newspapers. According to Chana Joffe-Walt’s podcast, One day one URV was equal to seven cruzeiros. The Next day, one URV was equal to twelve cruzeiros. This was causing the infiltration to go down and caused the economy to become much more stable. In the end this helped Brazil’s economy to be stabilized and therefore the currency became much more valuable with its cash and not having cruzeiros be worth nothing.
The Federal Reserve is something that helps the economy in the United States. According to David Kestenbaum and Alex Blumberg’s podcast, the Federal Reserve is not part of the government. It is really Ironic because it literally has the word federal in it .Although they do create money for the Country. Money can also be created out of thin air which is crazy to believe sometimes. When the economy was not doing so well, They created Billions of dollars just out of nowhere. If the Government creates money out of nowhere, it could help and hurt the economy at the same time. For one it could help people get more loans but on the other hand the infiltration rate could go up way too much. The Federal Reserve can change the value of a dollar by a lot just by creating money in thin air which can really do a lot for the economy.
Video games can have their own ways of currencies in their own game. This can really change the value of money that you can use in the game depending on how much money you use in the game. According to the article, Gamerant.com, in Pokemon, if you use 1 dollar in the game on your credit card it will equal 105 Pokedollars, but in Super Mario 1 dollar equals 11 coins. These examples show that depending on the video game, spending a certain amount of money can be different. Another example is According to the article, The Gamer. Com, you can buy stuff on games but sometimes they can be unplayable if people refuse to buy anything on the game itself. Some people just want to just buy the game itself and not anything else on it because it can already be very expensive to do so. More games nowadays have things you can buy on them rather than not which can be good and bad in its own way.
As stated before in these examples money and currency can have its own value depending on what you decide to do with it. It has changed value so much over the course of the centuries depending on how people used it in the past, present and future and it will continue to do so over time. As mentioned, money will keep evolving and changing as we change the way we live.
References
Bowen, Tom. “10 Video Game Currencies And Their Real World Values.” Game Rant.Com, 1 Oct. 2020, gamerant.com/video-game-currency-real-world-value/#coins-super-mario—1-11-coins.
Coulson, Josh. “Smash Bros. Ultimate Lets You Spend Money for in Game Currency.” The Gamer.Com , 8 Nov. 2019, http://www.thegamer.com/super-smash-bros-ultimate-money-ingame-currency/.
Ketsenbaum, David, and Alex Blumberg. This American Life , http://www.thisamericanlife.org/423/the-invention-of-money/act-two-0. Accessed 24 Sept. 2023.
Goldstein, Jacob, and David Kestenbaum. “The Island of Stone Money.” NPR, NPR, 10 Dec. 2010, http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money.
WordPress.Com, counterintuitive2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/stonemoneyessay.pdf. Accessed 25 Sept. 2023.
“The Invention of Money.” This American Life, 19 Feb. 2018, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/423/the-invention-of-money#play.
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Your Introduction meanders, RebelPilot, and doesn’t clearly identify the course it’s taking. You appear to be either Defining or Categorizing money without naming your categories.
Money is a valuable resource that people around the world use every day.
—We don’t usually think of money as a resource, so it sounds as if you’re making a special claim, but it might just be unclear. Do you mean it’s like oil in the ground, or ripe crops: a commodity? a natural resource? Or just a resource as in “something useful,” in which case your claim is that “Money is something that we use that people use every day. In which case your claim is: “People use money every day.”
Whether it’s cash, credit card, or something else it still has the same value when you pay five dollars with cash, credit, gift card, Venmo or whatever else you use to buy something.
—The category here is “Forms of Money.”
—Combining your first two claims: “People use money in different forms every day.”
Some places may view money completely differently than others but to everyone money is still money.
—We have no idea what you mean by “view money differently.” You might mean they prefer different Forms of money. Otherwise, . . . ?
—Combining your first three claims: “People use money in different forms every day.”
A value of a dollar can go up or down depending on what the country’s economy is like.
—This is brand new. You haven’t addressed Value yet.
—It won’t be easy to combine the new claim with the others, which confuses readers. Where are we going with this?
—Maybe they combine this way?: “Money, in whatever form it takes, gets it value from what it will buy in the local economy.”
Just like how the price of food can go up or down when you buy it or depending on where you buy it.
—This is really vague, too, but it’s still about fluctuating value. If you’re going to use an example (or do ANYTHING ELSE in an essay), be specific. I’ll provide an example.
—Combined claims, with example: “Money, in whatever form it takes, gets its value from what it will buy in the local economy; an apple in season bought as part of a truckload of apples from an apple farmer will be MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE than a single out-of-season apple from the supermarket.”
But money is not the only form of buying something. Some people trade certain things in order to have value like food, clothes, or gold.
—You’ve already named a few forms of money (cash, credit, venmo).
—Here we can’t tell whether you’re suggesting that some people TRADE FOOD instead of using money. It’s the “gold” that’s really confusing. Are these “some people” SPENDING gold or BUYING gold?
—Combined claims: I don’t know what to do with this, so: “Money, in whatever form it takes, gets its value from what it will buy in the local economy; an apple in season bought as part of a truckload of apples from an apple farmer will be MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE than a single out-of-season apple from the supermarket.”
But in reality, money is just created by people, and they decide to tell what is valuable and what is not.
—Still unsure. Do you mean people COULD or DO use food AS MONEY?
—Or is this just a standard claim of the sort: “The Yap use big limestone discs; ancient Romans used gold; we swipe cards; the form is irrelevant. Any method of recording transactions still counts as money.”?
My general advice for any essay writer struggling to craft a meaningful Introduction that provides an overview of the argument to come is DON’T try so hard. If it comes naturally, by all means pick the most arresting and specific claim you can use to get your readers’ attention and compel them to read the next sentence.
But if you can’t, . . .
Take a look at your second paragraph. It starts with just such an arresting claim.
Why not start THERE?
I’ll bet you anything your Stone Money paragraph contains more than one main idea. If I break it at the natural breaking point, the first section will probably make a nice introduction with a little effort.
That’s a perfectly good introduction to the theme you were addressing in YOUR introduction: Various forms of money. It also introduces the theme of RARITY to explain why money might be WORTH something to everyone.
The rest of your Introduction material can illustrate other themes. For example, the ABSTRACT nature of money we never see (like the digital transfers to our bank account).
The rest of your Introduction material can illustrate other themes. For example, the SYMBOLIC nature of money (like the apparently good credit card that LOOKS like a form of exchange until your bank DECLINES it at the cash register and you can’t buy groceries).
Let me know if this sort of feedback is useful to you, or whether you’d prefer something else, RebelPilot.
Provisionally graded.
For grade improvement, if you wish, revise your text in Edit mode and Update. Alert me that you’ve made improvements and want a Regrade.
As always, Responses to feedback are strenuously recommended even if you decline to revise.
It’s really hard to find clear claims in any of your paragraphs, RP.
These are particularly vague in your “game currency” paragraph:
—Video games can have their own ways of currencies in their own game. This can really change the value of money that you can use in the game depending on how much money you use in the game.
—These examples show that depending on the video game, spending a certain amount of money can be different.
—you can buy stuff on games but sometimes they can be unplayable if people refuse to buy anything on the game itself.
—Some people just want to just buy the game itself and not anything else on it because it can already be very expensive to do so.
—More games nowadays have things you can buy on them rather than not which can be good and bad in its own way.