Although the article “The Island of Stone Money” provided useful information about the origin of money and how we evolved into the monetary system that is today. I am very skeptical as to why this is relevant in today’s society. Understanding history is one thing but, the author of  “The Island of Stone Money” is trying to understand an origin story that dates back further than the Yap Island. Although money was not really widespread that each and every early civilization had it, there was one thing that dates back to when man first became civilized. Bartering or the exchange system would be our first form of an economic system.

Bartering dates back to about 6000 B.C and the way it worked was one person is a hunter willing to trade some extra meat to a taylor only if the taylor could make the hunter a new jacket for the harsh winters. This system still holds merit today country trade goods to one another in exchange for other goods. Although there is money involved today and goods are usually translated into a monetary value i.e an average cost of a metric ton of wheat according to index mundi was about $202.46 in 2017. Meaning in order to trade the wheat usually the parties would trade in equal value or higher value. This is the trading system that we use today and that is how we value money on the macro level.

My opinion on money after reading the article “The island of stone money” has not really change if anything I am fairly confident on my stance about money. Money is what runs the world and as much as people want to decline it money makes life easier and better no matter who you are. Money can get people out of jail, money can buy a house, money pays for you doctor, and money makes people look better. Money doesn’t define success but money does measure successs. All those whom are deemed successful today have a good career with nice materialistic things with assets such as a house, car, and/or 401k. These people that successful could lose their job and could be fine for a year because of their money/success.

Money comes in different forms throughout the word and money is not anyways physical it could be in the form of cyprto currency Bitcoin, which is digital currency, is also available. In the MarketWatch article, Bitcoin has no place in your San Francisco, California starts a $100 million company called “Coinbase”. I get the idea of online shopping and having money available for you in that regard, but what happens when people can’t distinguish their digital cash from their paper money. It will literally cause a currency clash. I do not recommend doing any form of cypro currency anymore because of the sketchy things people ar willing to do to make any form of money. The digital currency space is sketchy because the investment itself is risking and there is no telling if there would be any return on your investment. Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, can be extremely volatile; investments can result in remarkable gains, but equally staggering losses. Trading cryptocurrency is very risky. The industry is not regulated and the currency is not backed up by any kind of government or central bank. Even though cryptocurrencies are designed to be theft proof, there’s still a considerable risk for fraud and cyber crime. The internet becomes a risker place every year and with money being involved it makes the space more confusing and risky.

Yap is very specific example of money being used in ancient civilization.  The use of the disk of stone is a very old example of money using used. The stone money is very interesting because it shows how any civilization could start a monetary system as long everyone is on board. The people of yap all agree that the huge piece of stone had monetary value and although the stone never moved it changed from owner to owner because of yap’s people use of money. This understanding of money is still being used today although it evolved to a something much lighter, flexible, and understable. Money is much more simple but we cannot help but be fascinated in the yap’s way of life.

References

“Island of Stone Money.” Milton Friedman, Feb. 1991. https://counterintuitive2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/stonemoneyessay.pdf

“Beware of cypro risk – 10 risk to watch”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dantedisparte/2018/07/21/beware-of-crypto-risks-10-risks-to-watch/#518323b05f17