Money, Money, Money
Money is what we all are looking for right now. Everything you do in your life is for. Money, all the success you work hard for, it is for money. Sometimes it can lead you to bad stuff to have it because it’s the money is you’re without money you cannot live. Issue like the story of money on the island of Yap is a fascinating exploration of the abstract nature of currency and the role of faith in financial systems. I have been searching and looking in different sources, including the three podcast segments by the Planet Money team at NPR, Milton Friedman’s article “The Island of Stone Money,” and additional materials related to cryptocurrency, in-game currency, and Argentina’s hyperinflation. These sources have provided me with deeper information into the concept of money, wealth, and our faith in intangible assets. In the old days, when there was no concept of money, people used the barter system. People used to trade goods or services of equal or similar value for other goods, such as tea, food items, labor, weapons, salt, clothing, animals. Over time, people started using metal coins, gold bars, or silver coins. We can consider coins as an important part of the history of money since it allowed people to count the number of coins for purchasing different items. That was not the case in the barter system. Today, we are talking about the Yap islanders’ concept of money is notably different from our conventional understanding of currency. They used large stone discs called “rai” as money, even though these discs were immobile and not easily transferable. The value of these stones was based on a communal belief system, rather than any inherent utility. Yap islanders placed their faith in the collective acknowledgment of ownership and history behind each stone, making it a unique representation of value. This contrasts starkly with our contemporary concept of money, which is predominantly based on fiat currency issued by governments and central banks. Our money exists primarily as electronic records or paper notes, with no intrinsic value. Instead, we place our faith in the stability and trustworthiness of the issuing authorities, such as the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve. His mission is to keep our money is abstract and relies on a shared belief in its worth, much like the Yap islanders’ rai, also it can create job opportunities by promoting the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad, strengthen national security by combating threats and protecting the integrity of the financial system, and manage the U.S. Government’s finances and resources effectively. The Yap concept of money may seem more abstract in some ways, as the physicality of the stone discs doesn’t inherently represent their value. However, perhaps this system was more concrete in terms of transparency and immutability. Every rai had a clear history, and everyone on the island knew who owned which stone. In contrast, our digital money system can be opaque and complex, with transactions occurring invisibly and the average person having limited insight into the inner workings of the financial system. The value of our money is also remarkably fluid, as we see in the Planet Money podcast about the Brazilian real. The governments decide to change the currency caused significant disruption and required people to adapt quickly to a new form of money. This illustrates how easily the value of our money can be manipulated or eroded by monetary policy and economic conditions, also this Law help to introduce material improvements to Brazil’s currency exchange rules and its treatment of foreign investors. The Brazilian real anecdote highlights the role of faith in our financial systems. People had to trust that the new currency, the real, would hold its value and serve as a reliable medium of exchange. They built this faith on the credibility of the government and the central bank. The Yap islanders’ faith in their stone money was deeply rooted in their cultural and social systems. They knew the history and provenance of each rai, and this collective knowledge reinforced their belief in the value of these stones. It was a system built on trust and communal understanding rather than government decision. Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, represents a modern-day twist on the abstract nature of money. I do not tie its value to any physical asset. You can have it between your hand or government, but to the trust of its users and the technology underpinning it. In-game currency, used in video games, showcases how abstract money can be even within virtual worlds, where players invest time and real money into digital assets. Argentina’s hyperinflation serves as a baffling reminder of how fragile faith in a currency can be. When hyperinflation strikes, the value of a nation’s currency can plummet rapidly, eroding people’s savings and faith in the financial system and a lot of economic issues can happen and people lost a lot of money. In conclusion, the story of money on the island of Yap and the related materials have educate more and keep me safer in my thinking about money like don’t trust a lot all the technology currency for example, wealth, and our faith in intangible assets. It has reinforced the idea that money is ultimately a belief system, whether it’s as stone discs, fiat currency, cryptocurrency, or in-game currency. Our faith in these systems gives them value as people, and their abstract nature allows for both resilience and vulnerability in the face of economic and social changes. Understanding this concept is crucial in navigating the complexities of modern financial systems and appreciating the historical and cultural diversity of monetary systems worldwide. Always remember that it nothing call money and the world used to Exchange food and service, also don’t forget too that some currency you won’t have always have access too has Cryptocurrency, so how can you pay for a peanut butter sandwich with crypto currency?
Sources:
- (n.d.). Money Vocabulary. Splash Learn. https://www.splashlearn.com/math-vocabulary/money/money
- (n.d.). Megalithic Money on Yap Island. Ancient Origins Reconstructing the Story of Humanity’s Past. https://www.ancient-origins.net/
- (n.d.). Role of the Treasury. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. https://home.treasury.gov/about/general-information/role-of-the-treasury
- (n.d.). Title: Money and Currency. Laws of Brazil. https://lawsofbrazil.com/2023/01/03/brazil-has-a-new-foreign-exchange-law/
- (n.d.). Money and Currency. BITESIZE. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zfsvy9q
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Urbie, your middle paragraph is insanely long.
The rule of thumb for paragraphs is that they should develop a single main idea. I’ve inserted some recommended break points at the locations that suggest to me that you’ve begun to develop a new idea.
Sometimes just breaking your work into paragraphs is a good way to recognize that some of your paragraphs lack development. At other times, you’ll discover you have enough material to break a long paragraph into two or more.
• I’m testing out an html bullet.
It’s hard to talk about html codes without triggering the resulting characters in a Reply, but I can describe the code for a bullet as:
ampersand (&)
plus the word (bull)
plus a semicolon (;)
without spaces
here’s the sequence WITH spaces, which will NOT trigger a bullet:
& bull ;
Remove the spaces and you’ll get a bullet:
•
Urbie, I’m genuinely mystified how so many peculiar sentences and phrases can appear in the same essay as some very sophisticated syntax and economic language.
Among the more perplexing items are these:
Some of these peculiarities can be explained as typos or sloppy first draft errors, but they don’t occur at all in the more fluent sections.
Meanwhile, some paragraphs are breathtakingly fluent, economically astute, and brilliantly phrased. Such as
I’ve added bold type to identify the particularly apt phrases, but the whole paragraph is hard to reconcile with other language in the essay.
A few more:
That should be enough to make my point. Would you like additional feedback, or do you want some time to make revisions first?
Can you give me a little bit of time for revision please .
The whole course is about Revision, Urbie. Take as much time as you need. And don’t hesitate to return after your first batch of revisions to make additional changes. First drafts are SHREDDABLE SCRAP PAPER. They exist only to awaken my critical faculties and, with a bit of luck, to generate useful advice for the next, better draft. Welcome to the process. Just tell me you’re learning.
By the way, and I hope this is true, there is probably a very simple explanation for the disparity between your own text and the probable imports from other sources. You haven’t cited any of the sources your References list SAYS you’ve cited.
You are more than welcome to absorb and incorporate the lovely language of other authors with appropriate attribution. Clearly identify which source you consulted for each of the topics your paragraphs cover and be sure to put into quotation marks any language you didn’t generate yourself, including pertinent phrases like “the stability and trustworthiness of the issuing authorities.”
You’re not excused from citing the IDEAS or the LOGIC and ARGUMENTS of other authors either. You don’t need to quote them to be responsible to cite them. Close paraphrases, for example, can be handled like quotes, by incorporating the credit for them into your own sentence.
For example:
According to Maya Nichol’s story on Ancient-Origins.net, the Yap traded huge limestone discs of no inherent value for large transactions. While the stones were good for nothing but trading, says Nichol, their value as currency was “based on a communal belief system rather than any inherent utility.”
I don’t know if that’s an accurate citation of where your material came from, but if it is, you should include the author’s name (since it’s available at the Ancient Origins website) in your in-text citation AND in the References note.
Does this help?
I don’t want to have to guess in the future where your work originates.
Thanks.
And finally, here’s the link to our Citation Mechanics page:
And a link to the References List Model:
I’ll be happy to return with a general review of your Argument, your Rhetoric, your Mechanics, or your Scholarship at your request, Urbie. You haven’t made revisions or asked for new feedback, so I’m not adding anything to the recommendations and observations I’ve already provided.
Provisionally graded. Grade may not appear immediately.
Revisions, further feedback, additional revisions, and regrading are all possible. Always put your work back into Feedback Please and leave a Reply if you want any of the above.
Urbie, I don’t know what’s going on here, but the revisions you made do not address the feedback I gave you. If anything, the complete elimination of all paragraph breaks makes things worse. Your language still careens from casual and non-grammatical to perfectly-phrased. It’s hard to imagine all of them were written by the same person. You haven’t done any citations within your text, so nobody can tell what you’ve written, or summarized, or quoted.
Feedback is a conversation that so far is all one-sided. Your grade will remain unchanged until we get a better understanding of your actual writing skill.