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Investing for Life

             Start here    to learn the history and invention of money and credit cards on this excellent site from About.

Money

Discover Planet Orange open your eyes to the world of money! Brave the desert, climb mountains, and dodge alligators while you explore everything there is to know about earning, spending, saving, and investing. Currency Converter HPC Time Machine!  The history of coins in the United States from the U.S. Mint's kids' site. The Great Seal of the United States - click here  Fundamental Facts  about U.S. Money Money and Finances - FirstGov for Kids Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis The face of US currency. Anatomy of a Bill - Click on this 1996 $100 bill   to learn all of it's parts. Welcome to the World of Money! The History of Money   the central importance of money in the ordinary business of the life of different peoples throughout the ages from ancient times to the present day. Test your knowledge about the coinage of the United States of America. Good luck! Click here The Cycle and History of Money  when you are ready to test.

Now, it may surprise you to learn that no matter what the denomination; every circulating bill you could possibly have is worth about 3 cents apiece for the paper and the ink.     So why would someone give me a crunchy cookie wrapped in delicious chocolate for a piece of paper worth a measly three cents? One word: Trust. We all trust that our money is worth what it says it’s worth based on the word of our government. Yet the true value of a dollar really begins only where perception departs from reality. While we all trust that our money is worth something, we actually determine what that value is. By collectively setting and demanding the value of the goods we produce or the work we do, the value of a dollar shifts. Furthermore investors on Wall Street and around the world regularly speculate on whether these values are going up or down and then buy or sell our currency on the open market for profit. All together this means the value of that dollar in your wallet is always changing depending solely on what people think.     Money as a medium of exchange in barter and trade has always in all times found expression in some form or other from necessity thereof.   In the span of human history people have used a variety of commonly valued materials as currency, such as: rocks, salt, wood, gold, silver, platinum and copper.          In the remotest periods, before gold or silver were generally in use, it took the form of animals, oxen, sheep, lambs, shells, etc. Thus we find used cattle in Germany, leather in Rome, sugar in the West Indies, shells in Siam, lead in Burmah, platinum in Russia, tin in Great Britain, iron and nails in Scotland, brass in China, and finally copper, silver and gold the world over.     Paper money was first developed in China in the thirteenth century and was adopted in Europe after the return of Marco Polo.  Metal coins were considered too difficult to carry around place to place (especially if you were wealthy).  The King or the local government would allow the treasury to accept the deposit of gold for currency notes.  People could then trade these receipts amongst each other based on the value they had deposited. Thus, paper money was always a proxy for some other valuable good —meaning at some point anyone could turn your bills in and get some gold back.     The trust and the problem with this paper money is that throughout history governments have printed more bills than they have gold to finance wars, castles, fancy china and suits of armor. Whenever it became clear that there was more paper than gold, the value of the bills would drop. Making these problems even worse was a rampant plague of counterfeiting which occurred throughout the colonies.               The first money used in America was furnished chiefly by Great Britain and Spain, but the limited amount, scarcity, and need of it, tempted the colony of Massachusetts to create a small mint in this country in 1652.  There they struck some silver pieces which are known as Oak or Pine Tree money, and are quite rare, being the first coins of American origin.

You have just been hired in the international division of a multinational corporation that makes consumer goods to become an expert on other countries. Your first assignment is to prepare a report on a country in Asia (Note: here you can name some specific country or area of the world, if preferred). Your company is considering building a branch plant to produce a consumer good in this country. To get the facts, you hop on the Web and start with the CIA Factbook of information about all countries. After following the links to the latest Factbook, you want to collect the following information for your report:

Where is the country located and what is its physical size? Is it larger or smaller than your country?

How many people live there? Since your company's product is sold to adults, how many adults live there? 
(Note: this could be a toy or sneaker company.)

Compare its climate to the climate where you live. Is it hotter? Is it dryer? What kind of crops are grown there?

Is the government a democracy? If not, what is it? Who is the current head of the government?

What kind of an economy does it have:

1. Primarily market-based or centrally planned?
2. Is it a rich or poor country? What is the GDP per capita? Compare this to your own country.
3. What is the unemployment rate? Is unemployment a problem in this country?
4. What are the major natural resources of the country? What are the major industries? Is there a connection between its natural resources and the products it makes?
5. What is the country's money called? How much of your own country's money could you get for one of this country's unit of money?

If your company put a branch operation there, would it be satisfied with the communications system? Do most people in the country have telephones, for example?

Search the web to find out more information about the country. End your report with a recommendation to your boss about building a new plant there.