Counterintuitive Spring 2024

The power of any monetary system depends on the value the nations public believes its currency is worth. The fact is, neither gold nor paper can feed us, shelter us, or sustain us in anyway. The creators of the money place the value on a dollar or a stone and decide if it is worth a loaf of bread for example. Now obviously the government physically prints the money. But there are other people, groups that control this money making process. Groups with much greater power and influence over the government even. Whether we examine the society of Yap or that of Brazil in the 80’s, we will find that faith in currency comes from the people who made it. For example, Brazil’s government in the 80’s physically produced the money but the people who came up with the idea for the money have nothing to do with the government. This is clearly a rather unusual and regularly unheard of situation. However this is how it happens; except the people/groups I spoke of earlier are in positions of more power and this is not regularly publicized.

Similarly, in the case of Brazil’s economic situation in the 80’s,the public felt as though they had no purchasing power. It got to the point in their country where inflation was about 80% a month. This means prices would rise everyday until simple things were no longer affordable. Over time, the country had a series of Prime Ministers who were ineffective against this problem. This is an example of how even governments have no control over the nations currency. Rather it is the people who create the money, these power groups of which I spoke, who instill its faith in public who use it. This problem was not resolved until 4 graduate students were called in to create a new system. That is exactly what they did; create a currency and tricked the people into having faith in it its value.

In the specific case of the Japanese government, the government believes that creating more money will save or boost the Japanese economy. The thought is that if their is more money in the economy businesses will be more likely to invest and try to get that money. Businesses will also be more likely to invest because there will be less of a detriment if investments don’t go as well. However, the more of something you have the less valuable it becomes. With that said, we can see how this plan can backfire and hurt Japans economy. Should that happen, just like the people of Brazil in the 80’s, the people of Japan will see no value in their currency.

To sum up, the thought is that objects such as stone (gold) or paper (dollars), have actual value. The people who create the currency have tricked us into believing they do, just like the 4 graduate students tricked Brazil. This is evident with the case of the French government. If you give your gold to someone else and you believe that gold has value, you will believe you are losing value. As an average citizen, you have no say in how much purchasing power your dollars have. If your nations monetary system says that your x amount of dollars make you poor, you will think and behave like a poor person.

Works Cited

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

Joffe-Walt, Chana. “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” Www.npr.org. N.p., n.d. Web. .

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

Tabuchi, Hiroko. “Japan Approves $116 Billion for Urgent Economic Stimulus.” Www.nytimes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. .

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;

Verbal Abuse is an underrated weapon used on victims very often in our society. Verbally attacking someone doesn’t leave cicatrices on the abused (at least not right away), therefore the abuser doesn’t truly see the pain of the victim which makes it impossible for the bully to feel any sympathy. But the constant repetition of downgrading words with the intention to hurt an individual could actually leave physical scars on them.

The more a person is described as a “looser, idiot, pathetic, useless etc…) the more he/she will actually start believing it. Human belief is the essence of our persona. Everything we do in life is based on what we believe is right and wrong, This is whether you are guided by a religious belief, family belief or just a general belief, if this is taken away from someone the person ends up broken. It is important that people realize this is not acceptable and effort should be put forth to make verbal abuse stop.

When first hearing about the concept of Stone Money in class, I could not help but think this is absurd and must be a made up story being told for affect! As I comprehended the lecture and began to read deeper into Milton Friedman’s piece The Island of Stone Money I came to realize that this is a very real piece of history and forced me to analyze how similar the Yap and their money system is with the monetary system we currently have in the United States.

As I read in Friedman’s essay, the whole ordeal that occurred with the French wanting their gold from the US is almost identical to what the German’s did the the fei. (Friedman) What is the point of money?! The gold was not helping the French at all by sitting in our national reserve, it was just the concept, or symbol of the French owning that gold that satisfied them. Was that idea of being wealthy that important that played a hand in the Great Depression? This train of thought then got me thinking what even caused the Great Depression? If money is fictional as the NPR Broadcast stated, then why were we in such a hole.

The NPR Broadcast also caught me dazed and confused when they mentioned the information about online banking. It is true, when my father pays the bills online he is not physically handing the money to Verizon, or whatever bill it is. And if the banks do not actually have our money in the checking or savings account, that they lend it out to circulate how are they getting the money to pay the Verizon company? Is it just the idea that money is getting transferred to each other that satisfies the companies demanding money? Knowing, ok, so and so has the money but the bank lent it out. He’s good for the payment. All this information has me digging deeper into all the things I once believed money to be. We are no different than the Yap who at the beginning I believed to be insane. How silly is our society that we use a piece of paper and hold it up to such high standards that we revolve our world around it. In fact the Yap’s may think we’re crazy for revolving around a piece of paper

I then went on to read How Fake Money Saved Brazil because I was intrigued at how invested citizens were in money. It kind of reminded me of what the NPR broadcast said that money is fiction, therefore the value can change from day to day. This is what was happening in Brazil, causing inflation. The Brazilians did not grasp the concept that the price of the dollar or cruzeiros in their case remained the same, but the value or how much they could purchase would change. It shocked me that a “fake” currency called URV’s could turn around a whole economy that quickly. It just reiterates that money is fiction and it has a firm hold on everyone because we all depend on it. (Chana Joffe-Walt, 2010)

As I read the article relating to Bitcoin, the E-currency I was interested, but not surpassed by what I read because it all relates. They mentioned the Bitcoin’s worth plummeted from $288 to just $54! This in a way doesn’t surprise me, no matter if money is huge ginormous stones, or paper, or virtual over the internet it is all unpredictable. And goes back once again to being fiction. No one can predict whether the inflation of value of the dollar will drop because no one knows exactly how much money is in the world because of the constant circulation!

Now after gaining all that knowledge on the history of money along with current issues about money my mind is boggled to say the least. It gave me a whole new perspective on just what money is. Even though I still haven’t figured out what it is, I gained new knowledge and look at currency and the monetary system in a whole new light!

Feedback requested.
—Feedback provided. DSH

Works Cited

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

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;.

Renaut, Anne . “The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin.” Yahoo.com. 13 Apr. 2013. 30 Jan. 2015. <https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bubble-bursts-e-currency-bitcoin-064913387–finance.html&gt;.

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

Children’s oral health-dressing lesson.  The video starts out with a mother talking to her shirtless toddler.  She is very close to him bending over looking him right in the eyes showing her seriousness.  The mother then begins to explain to her son how to dress himself.  As she is throwing all of this information into her son, his expression imposes the child to be overwhelmed, not able to keep up with all of it.  While pouring this knowledge of how to dress oneself into the toddlers head she is throwing clothes around, one which ends up crossing the room and hitting the toddler across the face.  He then picks up the shirt while the mothers mouth has not stopped moving and attempts to put it on.  He concentrates so much on putting the shirt on it is easy to tell he is not able to attain any of the information his mother is telling him. It is then shown that not all parenting can be done in a short amount of time like in 2 minutes. 2 minutes is although enough time to help parent and brush your children teeth. If helping your child brush their teeth takes such a short amount of time and is shown to be extremely easy, why isn’t everyone doing it?

VIDEO

• The “ad” begins with a wide camera shot of a loving couple in a church getting married, with family and friends supporting them. There are colorful flowers decorating the church’s benches, making the scenery romantic and inviting.

• Once the vows begin, the camera angle zooms up on the bride and groom’s faces as they look into each other’s eyes with passion. The couple maintains eye contact which symbolizes the deep connection the couple has made together over time.

• Next, the camera turns the opposite direction and focuses on the parents/grandparents of either the bride or the groom. The elderly couple is smiling, honored to partake in the ceremony combining two families. The parents/grandparents are proud of the couple in front of them.

• As the sacred vows continue, the couple continues the intimate eye contact. The groom gently strokes his bride’s hand to comfort her and show affection as she continues her vows.

• The wedding scene in the “ad” doesn’t seem anything out of the ordinary… if you’re viewing the “ad” silently. However, once the commercial is viewed with sound, the entire dynamic of the situation drastically changes. The commercial isn’t portraying a loving, healthy relationship. The bride begins the vows with “I vow to make excuses when you humiliate me in public”. This sets the unusual tone for the video, having the audience wonder “Why would the bride say something like that?” The audience is now informed that there’s a huge problem in the couple’s relationship.

• The bride continues her vows by saying “…forsake my friends and family when you isolate me, to devalue myself less when you belittle me. I vow to blame myself when you hit me and to fear for my safety and the safety of our children till death do us part”.

• I analyzed the video and concluded the bride’s vows in several different ways. The bride may have experienced abuse by her partner before and thought things would change for the better once they’re married. The bride may have also been thinking the words in her mind but the commercial told us her inner thoughts. The bride may actually love her partner but ignored the early warning signs of abuse and the vows foreshadow her depressing future.

• There are many ways to interrupt the Ad Council video on domestic violence. Regardless of which way you interrupt the domestic abuse scenario, there’s a strong message at the end. It’s important to remember that things aren’t always as they seem. The couple in the “ad” looked happy on the outside to all their friends and family, but the audience knows that’s not the truth. The video also displays the idea that “things aren’t always as they seem” perfectly by having the couple look happy the entire time at the wedding. The audience wouldn’t of viewed the couple more closely if the sound wasn’t attached.

At the beginning of the video there is a man riding a little rocking horse in the park. He has the complexion of a Latino and the way that he is enjoying the ride gives the idea that he is mentally challenged. In addition, by his clothes, we can say that he is not working that day and that he is not a person with money.

A female sits on a park bench. We see the female between some bars of one of the attractions of the park; probably the mentally challenged man is looking at her. Moreover, she pulls a stroller where she has her baby, which by the blue color of his bottle can be predicted to be a little boy, after she was looking at something probably was the man with the complexion of a Latino. The woman probably felt threatened by the man because a man who is alone at the park can be a kidnapper, but she stayed seated; therefore, I assume that the man on the rocking horse was not a danger for her and her child, or he was not alone after all.

In another place appears a White man sticking his nose into a glass. The glass has a sign that says “hot dogs,” but facing to the side where the man was standing; therefore, I can say that he was buying something and acting crazy because he saw something he might like to eat or he wants to bother whoever is on the other side. The White man doesn’t look homeless; as a result, I can predict that he is not acting strange because he is in need of whatever he is looking at. As the man plays with the glass, another gentleman with glasses from inside the counter looks at him, maybe asking himself what the White man was doing.

A third scenario appears, where a dark-skinned man with a blue shirt and a tie is jumping on a trampoline placed in the yard of a house. While the man jumps full of joy, a female stares at him, but in this case we never see the female’s face. In his excitement, the man makes a hand position of a ballerina.

A little girl around three years old appears, laughing and looking at the man with who was playing with the glass. At this point, it is evident that the White man wasn’t being immature, but making a little girl laugh; this little girl might be his daughter or someone else’s child. More important, he is making funny faces to at this girl, whose relationship with the man we don’t know; therefore, molesting the small girl might be one of the reasons why the light-skinned man makes funny faces in order to earn confidence from the girl. From the complexion of the girl, it is not likely that she is related to the seller, who is Black and indeed sells candies. After the girl started laughing, the candy man understood that the silly behavior of the other gentlemen was to make the little girl laugh. Nevertheless, reacting positively is a clue that the candy man saw the white man arrive together with the girl; otherwise, the candy man would have made faces of discomfort when he saw the white man making silly faces to a little girl.

Then, once again, the man with aspirations of to be a ballerina appeared, but this time with a little boy. Then, as the video almost ends the man from the park is shown with a kid from six to seven years of age.

After I saw the entire video, I replayed the video with sound and in the background of the video a male voice confirms that all the gentlemen are the fathers of the kids. I started to make my own observation for each father and environment that surrounded them. For example, the fact that the man in the park who was so happy with his kid and made the young woman, who was looking from the distance, get her baby close to her, brings me the idea that she was surprised because usually the mother of a family takes the kids to the park. Even deeper, from the size of the kid we conclude he should be in school, and because the man doesn’t appear to have an easy job, we can assume that it is the weekend. Therefore, I would ask myself, why isn’t the kid’s mom there? The mother of the kid riding the rocking horse is expected to be there. As a result, I think that the man in the park is a single parent, is getting divorced, or is separated from the kid’s mom and this is a weekend visit. Even better, the young mother pulls her son close to her because she might wish that the father of the kid was there because her role in the video might be to show the absence of the fathers in the daily life of a child.

As for the man buying the candies, he looks like a driver, but more interesting, why is the mother of the girl not there either? More than in the other two cases, the mother of the little girl needed to be there because going to an amusement park is not something that happens often in a family. I assume that the man and little girl were at an amusement because a little store to buy candy is something seen at fairs and amusement parks; elsewhere there is no way to survive as a candy seller.

The man with the tie really called my attention, not only because his clothing is of a person with a good job and his house shows that he lives comfortably; but also, because he started imitating a ballerina when he was with his son. Being part of a tea party, nail panting or even dressing as a princess are sacrifices of a father with a daughter. However, when fathers spend time with their sons behaving like a girl is unusual. Therefore, I assume that the well-dressed father might be homosexual. Also by pretending to be a ballerina, the man makes his son his priority by ignoring what his neighbor might think of him by acting as a ballerina. 

As the video’s narrator says, “Sometimes all it takes to be a dad is remembering how to be a kid again,” is the best way to interpret the message of the video. Nevertheless, showing how fathers of different social status, probably single, homosexual, or not living with their children are capable of making their kids happy is the takeaway message of the video.

Reference

Fatherhood Involvement (video)

Women’s Heart Disease 

• The ad starts out by showing a woman of color standing in an old fashioned kitchen with clothes lined up hanging to dry from the ceiling.  This suggests that this specific part of the scene is held during the time where women did not exactly have equal rights as men do.
• Because there are clothes hanging on the ceiling it suggests that she is the typical housewife who cleans the house and keeps it in good shape.
• Since there is no man in the scene, it suggests that he is off at work making money while the wife (making an assumption that she is a wife) taking care of the house.
• The next scene shows the woman elevates through the ceiling from a textile style room. The floor then elevates and busts through the roof which mounted the woman behind a podium.
• The elevation showed her as a woman empowering herself and rising above the old reputation and the old lifestyle of how women were portrayed.
• The crowd is all women of different races showing that no matter what kind of woman you are, they all have something in common; that they are strong and independent.
• Along with the “WOMEN UNITED” posters that are hung around the walls showing again independence from society and that women can do anything anyone else can do.  The American flag is directly behind the woman on the podium, suggesting that there is a change in America and how society views women.
• The next scene shows once again the floor elevating to a higher level, maybe a higher social status, or in the business world.
• She is standing in an office that looks high class along with the suit that she is wearing.
• At the closing scene she says, “Today women can do anything men can do. And there’s one thing we’re even better at.”  America has changed the way in seeing and treating men and women equally. When she is lying on the floor it is because of heart disease and the thing that women are better at than men is dying because of heart disease.  This disease does not just occur in men it occurs in women as well.  All in all, we are all human; we can achieve the same successes and catch the worst disease.