Needs a Title

PeterGriffin, this post was hard to find because you left it out of the Stone Money category. You did TAG it, but we don’t use tags, so it didn’t show up in searches. I didn’t want to grade you 00/100, but it was a narrow escape. You’re in the Stone Money category now.

What is money to you? How is money important in your life, and in a society? Money is defined as “assets, property, and resources owned by someone or something; exchanging commonwealth”. Money is very important to anybody throughout the world because money is what determines your social status in life. With having more money you can live comfortably in a society compared to somebody that may have a lot less amount of money that you have. 

There is a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that people love to study. This island is called Yap. Yap is owned by Micronesia and the island of Yap is broken up into four separate parts of the island. Hundred of years ago, the island of Yap is still famous because of how the people that lived on this island exchanged currency. The people of this island exchanged currency through stone. In the history of money this was the first “currency” to be recorded for people to exchange wealth. 

Hundred of years ago when European explorers arrived on the island of Yap, they noticed large stones all over the island. These stones were in weird places like in front of peoples homes, and or just randomly placed around the island. These stones were used as “money” for the island’s natives. The stones were as large as cars and they looked like discs. Since the stones were so large in size people didn’t exchange these stones by hand; however, they exchanged these stones by word of mouth. For instance, a owner of a stone would pass ownership to somebody else by just basically saying it is now the new persons to own. The stones were made out of limestone. 

The people of Yap would transfer these large stones across the ocean into the waters of their island by their bamboo boats. I believe that this is pretty amazing on how they were able to transfer these large pieces of stones on not so sturdy bamboo boats. Just to think that they were going against mother nature because of the waves along the coast of their island, with large weight on their bamboo boats is pretty astonishing. Just one wave could have made the boat turn wrongly and the weight of the stone could have sunk the boat. Stone money wasn’t used for everyday purchases. Purchases that the stone was made for were for crops, and places to live (shelter). In today’s world on the island of Yap, the villagers that live on this island consider these stones to still be important due to having history behind them but they don’t use these giant pieces of stones as currency anymore, they use actual paper currency like we do here in the United States. 

Brazil went through an issue with their economy not so long ago. Here in the United States we are used to the paying methods of “building up your credit” which means using credit cards. Credit cards are basically plastic cards that you purchase materials with, and pay back the bank that you borrowed money from to make that purchase. Credit cards are “fictional money”. The use of credit cards in Brazil is a new system that their economy is getting used to. Brazil back in the year of 1990, the country was facing 80 % inflation a month. Brazil started having an issue with their economy back in the 1950’s when they wanted to build a city in the middle of the jungle but didn’t have enough funds to support building the city. Because the government didn’t have enough funds to be able to afford this project, Brazil started to print money which leads to higher inflation rates which is terrible for housing markets, and credit cards. Four people saved Brazilians economy by realizing that the government needs to stop printing so much money so money that people have holds its value. 

In the past couple of days learning about different countries and or territories currency has opened my mind about money. I believe that it was very interesting to learn about the “fai” which is what the natives of the island of Yap considered to be their currency. I thought it was very interesting to learn that not only was their currency not actual paper money but it was pieces from the earth that those people could not even exchange by hand but rather by a word of mouth on who owns that “currency”. Learning about the problems that Brazil went through as a nation opened my eyes to what we are going through in America today. Inflation in America is at a very high rate which is frightening because I don’t want our economy to go through something similar to what Brazil’s economy has gone through. I believe that many people think it’s okay for governments to just be able to print money and nothing troubling can take place from it, but unfortunately that isn’t true.

When governments print money inflation rises which then decreases the value of what your money “holds”. America is going through inflation today which makes our money less fluid then what it used to be because of how much money our government has printed due to the Covid 19 pandemic and because we are funding Ukraine tons of money. I believe that money is very important in order for a society to be able to run correctly. Over the years currency has changed in history. Our money is different from the Yaps because we use actual paper currency that has different values depending on which bill your trading someone for. We also can exchange our currency “money” by hand which the Yaps could not do due to their currency being heavy rocks. This unit has taught me alot more on how to be smarter with my money and the history behind money from different parts around the world. 

References 

Friedman, Milton. (1991). “The Island of Stone Money” (WordPress.com)

Planet Money. (2011, Jan 11). 423: The Invention of Money. This American Life. The Invention of Money – This American Life. Accessed 11 Se. 2023.

Joffe-Walt, Chana. “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR. NPR, 4 Oct. 2010.