Posts Tagged ‘history of money’
Points to Ponder 6/8/09
["Points to Ponder" is heard every Monday at 6:45pm EST at www.therealpublicradio.net.]
Hi everyone and welcome to Points to Ponder on TheRealPublicRadio.net. We hope we are sparking thoughts that ignite you into actions. I’m Dianne Ell, your hostess tonight.
The next 15 minutes is sponsored by the Citizens Reform Center also known as CRC.
If you would like more information about our mission of helping people please visit our website www.citizensreformcenter.com.
The last time we talked we went over the concept of what money is by using Glyn Davies’ A History of Money. We talked about how all sorts of things have been used as money at different times in different places. they included tangible items such as gold, silver, beads, eggs, ivory, jade, rice, salt, wampum, and astonishingly in complete contrast to these tangible forms there is a form of money with virtually no tangible properties whatsoever - electronic money.. which has gained rapidly in popularity and is the main form used today.
We found it is almost impossible to define money in terms of its physical form or properties, therefore any definition we gave to money had to rest on its function. Just what did money do? We found we had to look at the abstract and the concrete functions which are: Unit of account, Common measure of value, Standard for deferred payments, Medium of exchange, Means of payment and it’s ability to be stored and still hold value.
