IPFS News Link • Economy - Economics USA
The Trap of Debt Economics
• wakeup-world.comIf you had corn and wanted wheat, and I had wheat and wanted corn, we would decide how much of one commodity was equivalent to the other and make an exchange on this basis. However, bartering is an awkward process because of the unwieldy items and commodities involved. Obviously, exchanges of goods would be facilitated if people used something less cumbersome as a medium of exchange such as gold or silver. If I grow wheat, by exchanging my wheat for gold it will allow me to obtain other things more conveniently when I want them. Thus metals like gold and silver became our first widely used mediums of exchange.
Once people started using gold and silver to trade goods, the need to transform these metals into standardized recognizable amounts became evident. This led to the development of rudimentary coins; whereby an authority would weigh out various quantities of these precious metals and stamp them as to purity and weight.