Let me start off by saying, “I’m worried about my money” and moving forward I’m re-thinking how I save and trust in the system.  I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know and how haunting the thought of money really is. I’ve been obsessed with this subject since Wednesday and I’m driving everyone on my household crazy.

The concept of the Yap currency is a crazy concept,.  I really didn’t believe that there was such an island with, “stone money.”  Large stones that weigh more than a car and larger than a man. After reading Milton Freidman’s article “Island of Money” I believe that the U.S. and other countries have the same concept.  Instead of large limestone currency we have paper and plastic that represents the stone and banks represent the ocean.   There is definitely a common denominator with the German “fei,” the French “franc,” the U.S. American “dollar,” and the Japanese “yen,” we all believe in the myth of what we call money. The Germans marked their stone money just as France wanted their gold marked in the U.S. Federal Reserves.  That sparked the banking panic in the U.S.  The U.S. dollar was considered weaker than the French franc.  A never ending cycle.

What a clever idea, the Bitcon, virtual currency.  The creator would like to remain anonymous invented the Bitcoin because of the global financial crisis and he wanted create a currency independent of any central bank or financial institution.   Bitcoins are legal, but not untraceable.  It sounds complicated and risky and I’m sure this is just the beginning.  Ben Bernanke, chairman of Federal Reserve, states that, the “Federal Reserve has not plans to regulate.”

I wanted to know more about the Federal Reserve and I found a book called, “The Federal Reserve – The Enemy of America” by G. Edwin Griffin.  Powerful statement, “The Federal is not Federal and it does not have any Reserves. The Federal Reserves it not an agency, it’s a private banking monopoly.  As I did more research I found myself ordering “The Creature from Jekyll Island”.  I really want to know more about a system that has such an influence on how money is valued.

Inflation in Brazil running at a rate of 80% per month.is a hard pill to swallow.  The Brazilian economy was in bad shape because the people did not believe in the system.  The Brazilian economy needed consistency; the Brazilians were tricked into a new currency system. The currency wasn’t the problem it was the people.  The virtual reality of the new currency call URV’s made the Brazilians trust the new system. Before the new economic structure, people would run down the isle of a grocery store to get ahead of the store checker to grab a box of cereal before the prices went up, crazy!  Changing the currency to, “Unit of Real Value”(URV), the Brazilians’ understood the concept and a sense of stability was adopted by the people and presto, the new system was a success.   The people in Brazil believe in the value of money.

Work Cited:

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

Federal Reserve – The Enemy of America by G. Edwin Griffin http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve2.htm

The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin By Anne Renaut | AFP News – Sat, Apr 13, 2013 https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bubble-bursts-e-currency-bitcoin-064913387–finance.html

Bitcoindeal.com – http://bitcoindeal.info/?p=97

“The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 30 Jan. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil&gt;