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10 Strange Currency

Decent Essays

In the article “10 strange forms of ancient currency” by Ross Yaylaian, many of the forms of currency talked about were odd. The strangest was Rai Stones, which are a circle ‘coin’ carved out of a large piece of limestone. The ‘Coins’ almost never actually moved places, just changing owners, which is what makes it strange. Owners would value the ‘coin’ depending on the amount of work it took to get, if any villager died in getting the coin and what struggles the team that was getting the coin faced. None of the currency’s talked about in the article are effective ways of regulating trade. For example, salt being used as a currency would allow anyone to go and mine salt therefor circumnavigating the entire department of treasury, and almost equal to copying the dollar bill. For another example, knives …show more content…

The United States no longer uses the gold standard to back its currency; the dollar is backed solely by trust in it and in the union it represents. There is too much money to back it all by gold. The dollar is per say not worth the paper its printed on in gold. Inflation is the generalized increase in cost of goods or services sold. Inflation causes a decrease in purchasing power. Purchasing power is how much can you get for your dollar. For example, with $1 I could buy 3 apples or I could buy 2/3 of a book. You get more purchasing power with the apples. With inflation you might for $1 get 2 apples and 1/3 of the book. Inflation is an indicator of a healthy economy. An exchange rate is the value of a currency compared another currency to find a ratio and a rate of exchange if one were to take place. According to X-Rates these some exchange rates with the United States dollar; 1 USD to .90 Euro, 1 USD to .70 British pound, 1 USD to 1.33 Canadian dollar, 1 USD to 113.77 Japanese Yen, and 1 USD to 6.5 Chinese

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