Money originated around 100,000 years ago when items were used for barter and trade. The Lydians were the first to coin money using silver and gold to represent wealth. After World War II, most governments tied their currencies to the US dollar, establishing fiat monetary systems based on government backing rather than gold. Money facilitates the exchange of goods and services instead of bartering. The US Mint uses a six-step process to produce coins, starting with cutting coin blanks from metal sheets and ending with counting and bagging the finished coins.

1. Money
Money started back about 100,000 years ago, many people
of these times used items to trade as a form of money. Lydians were the first known
people to use actual coined money. Using silver and gold (gold Slab) to
show their wealth. After WWII the world’s governments started to base their money off the US dollar.
In turn, making the world’s economies based on fiat money. Which only as value because the
governments it belongs to backs it up. Money makes it easy for people to exchange items for money to
get what they want. Instead of having to find someone who wants what you have and you want what
they have. Money also makes it easy to pay someone for services. The United States makes their coins
by going through a 6 step process. This process is shown on the site www.usmint.gov. Step 1 is called
blanking where they cut the coin from a slab of copper (pennies) This is called a blank
because there is no design on these . Step 2 is called annealing, washing, and
drying where they heat the coins to soft then after they‘re sent to be washed and dried. Step 3 is called
upsetting where they raise a rim around the edge of the coin. Step 4 is called striking where the designs
are pressed into the blanks. Step 5 is called inspecting where operators spot-check newly struck coins.
Step 6 is counting and bagging, the coins run through a machine which counts them from their they are
bagged and shipped. Today’s way of printing notes has came a far way from the first hand-cranked
printers back in the 1860’s. (printer) The notes are printed on special paper
sheets and are being redesigned to handle the counterfeit problems today. Money supply is the amount
of money available in the economy at a certain time. The Federal Reserve controls the money a series
of ways. Reserve requirements for banks, buying and selling treasury bills and notes, and raising and

2. lowing interest rates. We can’t just print a lot of money and just give it to everyone because that would
cause a inflation.
An Inflation is
a rise in the prices of goods and services in the economy. This is shown to be true on the website: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. This would mean there is to much money making all the prices sky
rocket and we would be at the same situation as before but everything would seem to be more. This
would cause the value of goods to go down as well because of all of the money in the circulations. This
would also cause scarcity which is the large amount of wants and needs by the nation with only a
limited amount of resources. An example of this is crude oil.