When first being introduced to the story of the Yap it had seemed very far fetched from reality and laughable.  The notion that one could be considered wealthy just based on something you cannot see or touch is senseless and seems like an idea a child had come up with. After an analysis of this concept of wealth it can be correlated to our very own society. Our very own concept of wealth is not far off from the yaps. Our society almost completely circles around the dollar. Our dollar is backed by gold, a shiny metal rock.  This as a matter of fact is extremely similar to the yaps concept of wealth.

In the 1980’s, to save Brazil’s economy the government had created the Unit of Real Value.  This was another from of wealth that was completely imaginary and in reality has no actual value. The only thing that makes the US dollar valuable is the ability to use this made up currency to obtain goods.  Also these currencies only have value based on the fact we ‘say’ it has value.  As explained by the professor, money has no value at all, the objects that you buy with the money that is almost the same as monopoly money is what has value.

Works Cited

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

Joffe-walt, Chana. “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” Planet Money. 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.

Joffe-Walt, Chana. “The Invention of Money.” Thisamericanlife.org. N.p., n.d. Web.