Track 8

Unit 10

Economics

The evolution of money

Page 93

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1. Large cities began to form in Europe as people abandoned farmwork and began other kinds of work. They voluntarily moved to urban areas.

2. Money was originally a concrete object, like gold, but has become increasingly abstract. Now some forms of money are a digital computer code.

3. Many of the impressive developments we see in modern civilization are due to the creation of money. One example is multinational corporations.

4. There are currently many types of currency in the world; yen, pesos, dollars and euros are just a few.

5. When money was invented, it provided enormous advantages over previous ways of conducting trade. The differences were huge.

6. The wealth of rich children is usually tied to heredity. Their money often comes from their parents.

7. When people believe the hard work will be rewarded, individual initiative increases dramatically.

8. The value of money is not subjective; the value of one dollar in New York is the same as the value of one dollar in California.

9. Financial transactions involving trillions of dollars take place daily. In the stock market, for example, people exchange shares in hundreds of countries.

10. Money has undergone tremendous change over the past several thousand years. It now looks very different from the way it once did.