Cheddar, Dosh, Moola…
First of all, let’s imagine a world without money, like centuries ago where even the biggest empire in pre-Colombian America, the Inca Empire, had no real concept of money. They only depended on rare metals for value. According to the Ascent of Money Documentary, the Inca referred to gold as the sweat of the sun, silver was tears of the moon, and the use of sweat to be the value of labor wasn’t left behind in all this.
Sometime in 1532, the Spanish discovered the Cerro Rico a.k.a ‘Rich Mountain’ in the currently called Bolivia after conquering the Inca. This is where they used to mine lots of tons of rare metal called silver which to the Spanish, it was just more than just a shiny metal. It was a portable power and a store of value. Spain mined a lot of this but they all ended up keeping these coins to themselves. The one mistake they made was not knowing that money is only worth what other people would give in exchange for it. The Revolution of money took place and here we are today.
Money isn’t all about paper, silver, clay or even a screen provided the recipient believes in it. It’s about trust I must say. Without the invention of credit, lending someone money and having trust he/she can pay back in the near future. Without that, the growth of the economy could never have taken place. Venice, Italy is believed to be the backbone and root for money lending in the growing economy back in the days, as depicted in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.
There once was the invention of the Hindu-Arabic numerals, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 by Fibonacci The 1st, from his journey visiting Algeria. By then Europe was using the Roman numerals, I, II, III, IV, V, and so on intended to help in calculations but it didn’t offer the ease that was expected. It’s pretty clear that this arithmetic can get rather long and hard to follow and I’m not even going to try to get into multiplication and division. Not to mention Roman numerals had no concept for zero, and could not be used to calculate fractions.
This invention made things simpler and I guess that’s why we are still using them to write numeric expressions and do calculations. Imagine using the Roman numerals to do a division, or convert a currency. I guess it could have been hectic. But the Arabic numerals made it look like a child’s play.
Banking later became too interesting allowing borrowing, this led to the creation of new businesses and inventions in the finance market. As history records, many of America’s successes failed in their early endeavors. Credit and debts are the mere building blocks for economic development. Banks came in to serve as the intermediates to channel money from the idle to the industrious through the borrowing of money.
To many, knowing much about money seems to be so boring, rating from a personal experience rather than counting your own. Terminologies have been created a day in day out to the name money. Check out more of the slang synonyms you can relate with at Dailywritingtips.com.
