Currency is one of the oldest human inventions. It can be an object, an IOU, or just a piece of paper. It can be as complex as it is in this day an age, or it can be simpler. There is much to be learned about currency and its conception from a civilization known as the Yap.
A broadcast by the NPR Explained the economy of an island called Yap. The islanders traveled 250 miles away to mine limestone rocks. they were then hauled, shaped into discs, polished and fitted with a hole in the middle. these doughnut-shaped rocks represented currency. The rocks don’t even have to be seen or moved as learned when one of the biggest rocks ever created was lost at sea but still carried wealth. This concept as a whole is ludicrous. One other interesting lesson to be learn comes from the crisis Brazil experienced with their economy.
In an audio file titled “The Invention of Money,” the narrator explains how Brazil fixed their inflated economy by using fake currency to stimulate the real one. Once their inflation was tamed, they created a new currency which was easier to manage. Since then, Brazil’s economy has prospered, unlike ours.
Hypothetically, if someone asked me my value two days ago, I would add up the money in my wallet and bank account. After reading, It is cool and scary to think that the metal and paper in my wallet is based off of a shared belief. This is because America runs on a fiat standard, a non-physical standard. Our currency is worth what we say, but nothing more. We cannot put it against gold or silver to represent our wealth.
According to the Federal Reserve’s website, there is currently $1.23 trillion in circulation as of the 15th of January, 2014. Of that, $1.18 trillion is in federal notes. That means $50 billion is not even physically represented. If we were able to base our economy back on a physical standard, the stock market is much less prone to crashing. If this becomes reality, America would have one of the top economies in the world. Currently, our debt is like us trying to dig ourselves out of a hole in the ground that we keep throwing more dirt in. It’s a cycle we can’t hope to get out of unless one side out-powers the other.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Professor, I scheduled a meeting with you tomorrow before class to discuss and maybe tweak this draft a bit more. I will see you then.
~Vinny
That’s great, Vinny. I look forward to it. If you want to help me find it in the meantime, categorize it by your name and the assignment. Thanks.
Sorry about that professor. This is categorized now.
Preliminary Notes:
P1. Vinny, I’m reading your introduction looking for a thesis. All I can say for sure is that you will demonstrate that currency can be a lot of things.
P2. You do make one promise in your Intro: we can learn a lot from the Yap. I’ve read P2 looking for that lesson. What would you say it is?
P3. It worries me a little now that you made me a second promise: what Brazil did is even crazier than rocks. I’ve read P3 now and stabilizing their economy sounds pretty sane. If they did so by using “fake” currency, I admit that sounds unorthodox, but if I hadn’t heard the broadcast, I wouldn’t have any idea what crazy method they used.
P4. I don’t see how you can say both: 1) the money in my wallet is worth nothing more than the paper, copper and nickel it contains, and 2) the money in my wallet is worth what we agree it’s worth: presumably a nice dinner.
P5. By “it doesn’t exist” I presume you mean, however it’s counted, there are no printed bills to represent it. The “physical standard” argument is only slightly related to the “no notes to represent the money” argument, right, Vinny? Or are you trying to combine them? What “sides” do you mean?
revised
Regrade provided. —DSH
Vinny, I’m going to stop reading in the second paragraph. If you could actually re-read this essay carefully, hoping to receive a grade improvement from resubmitting it, and not notice that two sentences in P2 don’t begin with capital letters, I don’t need more evidence that you weren’t serious in your intentions to improve this.
After writing that note, I read the rest of the essay anyway. Everything sounded so extremely familiar I decided to see what you had in fact changed in your “revision.” 5 words. You deleted “created in the entire world,” and re-submitted to me for a regrade.
The time has passed for you to improve this post, Vinny, but you do still have time to do real revisions on your Portfolio pieces before I do your final reading, whenever that occurs. Your grade is borderline now and needs a full two points to earn the next letter grade. 5 words won’t do it. Back to you.