Self Fulfilling Prophesy: A Lesson to be Learned

Self-fulfilling Prophesy: A Lesson to be Learned Have you ever had an assumption or belief about someone come true? That is what defines a Self-fulfilling Prophesy. That is, when a person's expectations, thoughts, or beliefs manifest in such a way that in return they become true. These preconceived notions about other people influence how you act toward them and in return this will evoke a response from that person. This response then provides proof of the original expectations. Picking a college roommate can be a tricky thing to do.It eems that I have heard more horror stories about roommates than good stories. This may be attributed to the fact that people are more prone to talk about their problems and negative situations rather than their positive ones. However, my freshman roommate provided me with one heck of an experience. I met Dylan in high school. He attended an opposing school only thirty minutes away from mine. We recognized each other from the basketball court and numero us track events. We soon became friends when we were introduced at a high school party through a utual friend.As we became closer friends we both decided to attend Mississippi State University. I had lined up a roommate for freshman year with someone I grew up with, however due to a scholarship, he decided to attend a different school and left me without a roommate. When discussing this with Dylan, I was not aware that he did not have a roommate and we quickly decided to room together. Dylan and I had not known each other very long and even though he seemed to be a good friend and fit as a roommate, I still was weary of living with him.I had no specific reason to believe that we wouldn't get along but I still could not shake the feeling that things would not go swimmingly. After moving into our dorm, it did not take long for our friendship to take a drastic turn. During fall recruitment into the Greek system, Dylan and I Joined two separate fraternities. It wasn't long after Bid Day that Dylan dropped out of his fraternity. From then on it seemed as if he resented me for Joining a fraternity even though we had gone through recruitment together.He started anging out with an unruly crowd of people and it was not long after that he started neglecting his priorities. I eventually found out that the crowd he was hanging out with was known to dabble in various drugs and everything I did to help Just put us at greater odds. He began to get really sloppy by leaving his clothes and trash everywhere in our small living quarters. He seemed to have no regard for my belongings, or me for that matter. He was sleeping all day, staying out all night, and eating all my food when I was out of the room.When Christmas break came around he had a combined 67 absences in his classes and was carrying a 1. 2 GPA. I was looking for a polite way to tell him we needed to find new roommates when he called me a few days prior to Christmas. He told me that he was going to withdraw from the university and take a break from school. The experience I had first semester of my freshman year is a prime example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I had a preconceived notion that Dylan and I would not get along as roommates and that notion came to

Poems Read at Inauguration Ceremonies for US Presidents

Poems Read at Inauguration Ceremonies for US Presidents Poetry seems so natural an inclusion in public ceremony that you might be surprised to learn that it was nearly 200 years after the very first Presidential oath of office was taken by George Washington before a poet was included in the official inauguration proceedings. There are a couple of 19th-century poems historically associated with Presidential inaugurations in the archives of the Library of Congress, but neither was actually read during the swearing-in ceremony: â€Å"An Ode in Honor of the Inauguration of Buchanan Breckinridge, President and Vice President of the United States† by Col W. Emmons, printed on broadside in 1857.â€Å"An Inaugural Poem, Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee,† from The Chronicle Junior, an inauguration program that was actually printed on a press in a wagon during Lincoln’s inaugural parade in 1865. The Introduction of Poetry in the Presidential Inauguration Robert Frost was the first poet invited to be part of the official swearing-in of an American president when John F. Kennedy took office in 1961. Frost actually wrote a new poem for the occasion, a fact that seems slightly odd considering his stated aversion to writing poems on commission. It was a not-terribly-good poem called â€Å"Dedication† that he intended as a preface to the older poem Kennedy had originally requested, but on Inauguration Day, circumstances intervened – the glare of bright sunlight off new snow, his faint typescript and the wind ruffling his pages and his white hair made it impossible for Frost to read the new poem, so he gave up the attempt and went directly into reciting Kennedy’s request without the preamble. â€Å"The Gift Outright† outlines the story of American independence in its 16 lines, in a triumphant, patriotic tone that brings to mind the 19th-century doctrine of manifest destiny and domination of the continent. As usual, Frost’s poem is aimed at a target less conventional than it first appears. â€Å"The land was ours before we were the land’s,† but we became Americans not by conquering this place, but by surrendering to it. We ourselves, the people of America, are the gift of the poem’s title, and â€Å"The deed of gift was many deeds of war.† At Kennedy’s request, Frost changed one word in the last line of the poem, to strengthen the certainty of its prediction for America’s future â€Å"Such as she was, such as she would become† became â€Å"Such as she was, such as she will become.† You can watch NBC News coverage of the entire 1961 inauguration ceremony at Hulu.com  if you’re willing to sit through ads inserted at 7- to 10-minute intervals in the hour-long video – Frost’s recitation is in the middle, immediately before Kennedy’s oath of office. The next president who included a poet in the proceedings surrounding his inauguration was Jimmy Carter in 1977, but the poem didn’t make it into the actual swearing-in ceremony. James Dickey read his poem â€Å"The Strength of Fields† at the Kennedy Center gala after Carter’s inauguration. It was another 16 years before poetry entered again into the official inauguration ceremony. That was in 1993, when Maya Angelou wrote and read â€Å"On the Pulse of Morning† for Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, her reading here on YouTube. Clinton also included a poet in his 1997 inaugural ceremony – Miller Williams contributed â€Å"Of History and Hope† that year. The tradition of presidential inauguration poems seems now to have settled in with Democratic presidents. Elizabeth Alexander was commissioned as inaugural poet for Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009. She wrote â€Å"Praise Song for the Day, Praise Song for Struggle† for the occasion, and her recitation is preserved on YouTube. For Obama’s second inauguration ceremony in 2013, Richard Blanco  was asked to submit three poems to the White House, which selected â€Å"One Today† for him to read following the President’s inaugural address. Blanco’s performance at the podium is also posted on YouTube.

Is Capital Punishment Morally Justifiable Essay

Is Capital Punishment Morally Justifiable - Essay Example The textbook says that "Moral questions usually involve a range of different issues, which do need to be distinguished from each other in order to be effectively treated." (Gascoigne, p. 200). Thus in this section we will define the exact questions concerning capital punishment we are going to discuss, and we will define the reasons for the death penalty we consider to be worth of discussing. The dilemma whether capital punishment is legitimate is in fact the question whether the society has the right to commit the deed it punishes its members for. In this essay we are going to deal with the death penalty that is given to the criminals who took the lives of other people intentionally. We are not going to consider the political causes for the capital punishment, as we presume that murdering a person who hasn't committed similar crime himself or herself is unjustified a priori. We are going to discuss a question of whether the death penalty is an adequate punishment for murder and sexual assault, and whether the society has the right to take the life of its members intentionally. Our main question here is whether the society has the right to legalize murder in order to deter potential criminals by the consequences of their deeds, and to take a revenge for the victim's sufferings. We should decide whether the existence of the capital punishment in our society conforms to th e principles and ideals the members of this society declare they share. 2. Knowledge "We cannot develop a relevant moral norm unless we have detailed and specific knowledge of the situations in which this norm is intended to guide us." (Gascoigne, p.201). Thus in this section we have to get acquainted with the recent findings in the criminology of murder and talk about the types of murder that sometimes result in death penalty for people who commit them. There is some kind of psychological barrier in most of us engrafted by the society that doesn't allow us to take the life of other human being. The theory exists among some psychologists that when a person kills a man, this barrier is broken. In their opinion this is the main reason for which the criminals are isolated from society. Whether we agree with this theory or not, we should accept that a murderer is a person who has some alterations in his/her psychic, and he/she should be treated accordingly. An opinion exists that it is society that is guilty for the deeds of the criminals, as they are the products of its upbringing. It's true that the considerable part of people who committed violent crimes had suffered some form of abuse during their childhood years. The psychologists say that being violent becomes a normal path of action for those kids, and when they grow up, they continue to use this demeanor, as it proves its effectiveness to them. The statistics shows that most murders aren't planned and cruel ones; they rather happen in the state of affect within the family, among friends or lovers. There are also carefully planned murders committed for to allow the criminals to reach some of their goals. Some of the murders and assaults that happen are unprovoked, when the victim and the criminal don't know each other. An opinion exists that capital punishment is an effective method for crime prevention as it deters the potential criminals, but it's not supported by the statistical data. The thing is that in the countries, which abolished death penalty, the level of

Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Research Paper - Essay Example The monism argues that the body and the mind make one physical being. This is the basis of this research project. Dualists assert that human beings are a combination of two different units, the mind and the body. Dualists claim that the body and the mind are not connected and therefore, do not influence the working of each other. Dualists argue that after the death, the mind continues to existing on its own but in incorporeal form while the body putrefies or decays (Wingerter, 2011). One such dualist is Rene Descartes, who is one of the most modern philosophers. He believes that the body an the mind are two distinct elements. He formulated the Cartesian dualism theory that was named after him. The theory was put on the method and the meditation. Descartes, in the Cartesian dualism, claims that a human being is made up of two different elements: the body and the mind. This has been used as a proof why the mind has no immortality. Descartes argue that a human being is totally discrete and different to their material body. Descartes believed that the powers of human reason, a faculty of the mind, is the sole basis of knowledge. According to him, faculties of reason through intuition and deduction are natural characteristics of the human mind. Descartes also argues that the body is similar to a machine that is maneuvered by mechanical schemes, and that the mind has nothing to do with the processes underwent by the physical body. Mind and body and not connected to each other, just like the oyster has no connection with the pearl. To further this, Descartes believes that animals are just â€Å"automata† and act without the use of mind or consciousness, and are merely driven by mechanical schemes. This mechanical scheme, as discussed by Descartes, furthers the reasoning that the mind is totally independent of the body. Descartes claims that the brain controls the body mechanically by sending fluids through the neurotransmitters of the brain. This analogy reduce s the brain and the body to pure mechanical objects and puts into context that the it is possible for the mind to exist without the body, and the body to exist without the mind. He states that while the body is a non-thinking, extended thing, the mind is the complete opposite as it is a thinking, non-extended thing. Descartes has also given more evidence to prove that the body and mind are two different and disconnected elements but working in partnership. He argues that the body is by itself dividable while the mind does not have such divisible capability. â€Å"There is a great difference between the mind and the body in as much as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible† (First meditation). This was the case in the transplantation of organs. If a person was to receive a heart from another person, where the heart is considered as the key organ for a human being’s body existence, the person does not become a new different person because of this. Transplantation shows how the body can be divided into different parts due to donation of body organs. Descartes argues that a person is made of different molecular structures, a variety of fluids, numerous nerves and body networks. Conversely, if a person dies, we are unable to form a construction of their mind. We cannot detach their thoughts into one part and their personality into another part. This shows therefore, that the mind is not dividable. Critics of this view

My Obstacles and Outcomes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

My Obstacles and Outcomes - Essay Example The problem was that we needed to know what to do with children who are not bilingual and cannot understand the Korean language. I was an English teacher. My job was to lead the children through different activities and preach to them in English. This was a very frustrating experience since I had never preached before. There was also the problem of age differences. I had to handle children as young as 4-5 years of age as well as children who were in the 5th or 6th grade. I was used to smaller groups of children and these were larger. The first day was a nightmare. Firstly, I was not used to delivering a 25-minute sermon. Secondly, I could not get their attention. Thirdly, the preaching level was not up to par to their level of understanding. After brainstorming, matters improved. I came up with strategies. I created a PowerPoint presentation. I also searched for funny simple images that related to the bible story. For example, in telling the story of the blind man I found a picture o f a blind person. I used a strategy of questioning with storyboards and I also found short video clips from YouTube that related to the bible stories. Every child had a chance to answer and as a reward, I provided candy for answering the questions correctly. The final outcome was superb. The children paid attention to the bible study, during arts and crafts, and during their eating periods. The aim of the project was to have them get to know Christ. I was able to do this by creating a visual effect to catch their attention, providing different questions to match all ages, and rewarding them. In conclusion, the project was a challenge. The summer bible camp was an experience that increased my knowledge of teaching. These experiences made me think of new ideas. I am now a Sunday school teacher for 3rd and 4th graders at a new church. I am now able to handle international students more readily. I love teaching and getting to know the children. I hope to encounter other tasks to overcom e and gain knowledge from it, as a member of the Teach For America Corporation.

I will discuss about the problem of over population and STDs and Essay

I will discuss about the problem of over population and STDs and propose solution such as using condoms that should help people - Essay Example With the opposing viewpoints of pro-life and pro-choice though, there is a glaring promise with appropriate education and the use of barrier contraceptives. Why educate? Illiteracy causes people to take things for granted. People do not understand how overpopulation can be perilous to human survival in terms of the competition for food and resources. With that, family planning programs fail to penetrate the society’s outlook and the excessive rise of human population results from irresponsible parenthood and unwanted pregnancies. Furthermore, without appropriate education, STD cases continue to rise significantly especially among the young adult population worldwide. Sex education varies widely across nations. Some countries start to introduce topics of conception as early as 7 years old, while few countries still debate on the extent of how much is to be taught considering its ethical aspect to their culture and religion. Contraception, for instance, faced great controversy a nd garnered criticisms as to its moral and ethical impact. Debates usually arise when the use of contraceptives is taken into consideration. One online article by Kelly Shircliff strongly points out that â€Å"contraceptives are anti- life†. ... Unlike abortion, barrier methods need not be tagged with an ethical dilemma since any union of sperm and ovum does not occur. And unlike anti- ovulant drugs, condoms do not interfere with the body’s natural processes. Furthermore, the use of condoms prevents transmission of infection by preventing actual contact with secretions in the reproductive tract of both partners. In fact, in an interview by Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict XVI said that â€Å"there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Simply speaking, the pope himself considers using condom as a protection against the â€Å"evil of HIV infection†. Undeniably, this pressing issue cannot be solved by hypocrisy. Meanwhile, according to the Center for Disease Control, reportable sexually contracted infections affect more than 15 million Americans per year and account for almost one third of the reproductive mortality in the United States. This is ultimately alarming since the country’s manpower is affected which in turn impairs development. In addition, the total cost of health care on STD cases reaches from $9.3B to $15.5B in mid 1990s (Chesson et. al. 11). Spending this huge amount of money could have been prevented had the government took effective preventive measures, that is, by promoting the use of condoms. While drafting the proposal, the government may face the criticisms of the conservative, religious and political parties of the society. Taking it in positive perspective, a feasible and acceptable policy will likely be formulated. First, condoms must be made readily available and less expensive to target consumers. The government may purchase condoms from manufacturing companies and in turn sell it

The Types Of Money Used Today Economics Essay

The Types Of Money Used Today Economics Essay The types of money used today include; Coins, Paper currency, Bank drafts, Money orders, Stocks, Bonds, Treasury bills, Credit cards, ATM cards, Options, Gift certificates, Cheques,Travelers Cheques and many more. Money is converted into two categories, commodity and fiat money. 2.2.1Commodity money What constitutes a commodity? A commodity is generally accepted, without further clarification, as anything that can be bought or sold. This prompts further questioning. What is the communitys present accepted means for buying and selling? The answer is,money. A commodity therefore is a thing to which a money price can be attached and which can therefore be bought or sold with money. If money itself is a commodity, then money is a thing that can be bought or sold with money. The above reasoning not only involves a vicious circular logic of explaining and defining something in terms of itself, but also paves the way for an ascending infinite inflationary spiral (Peter Lock 2008). According to Peter Lock (2008), the definition of a commodity needs to be modified if it is to be consistent and to avoid all circular logic. An economic commodity is any marketable goods or service which has an intrinsic value in itself and whose value can be relatively assessed using an extrinsic suitable stable non-commodity money standard and hence bought and sold. In other words, an economic commodity is any marketable good, other than money, which money itself can buy. Modern money either as bits of plastic or paper, or as numbers in ledgers and computer memories, has no intrinsic value in itself. Its only value is its otherness. It does perform a valuable service in the marketplace by measuring the value of all other goods and services and facilitating their exchange. The mindset of money as a bartering device should not be included in or confused with the mindset for its use as a commodity. Their purposes and functions are self-contradictory, being diametrically opposite. The former exists as a stable extrinsic measure of worth for a community as a whole to use. The latter as an unstable intrinsic measure of marketplace purchasing power for individuals to abuse in their exploitation of the whole global community for their own personal aggrandizement and exercise of usurped power (Peter Lock, 2008). According to Peter Lock (2008), as long as money is treated as a commodity, uncertainty and insecurity must result. It is not a question of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is simply a challenge to devise a system whereby the rich well fed haves can keep their fat share of humanitys commonwealth cake and at the same time let the poor hungry have-nots eat a just and reasonable thin slice of it as well. Money as a commodity only exists for the personal profit and increasing wealth and power of the haves: some of the rich get richer, all the poor get poorer. In an economic system where money is self-self functioning in positive feedback as a commodity, the evil treatment meted out to the have-nots who constitute the vast majority of the community becomes more and more inhumane. The term commodity money can be given to the kind of money that is at the same time a commercial commodity. Commodity money has an intrinsic value and that means it is considered to be worth something in its own right rather than simply being a token of financial value such as a banknote. The commodity itself constitutes the money, and the money is the commodity. The best known form of commodity money is gold or silver coins, though any commodity can fulfill this role. The commodity itself; since more is being produced and less being used for non-monetary purposes, the resources devoted to additional production and the benefits forgone must be counted as the price of the system. Examples of commodities that have been used as medium of exchange include gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, large stones, shells, alcohol, barley and cigarettes, just to highlight a few. These items were sometimes used in a metric of perceived value in conjunction to one another, in various commodity v aluation or Price System economies With a commodity money balances is part of the markets for goods and services. Use of commodity money is more the same with barter system. The use of shells or ivory was nearly universal before humans discovered how to work with precious metals; in China, Africa, and many other areas, use of cowrie shells was common. Historically speaking, many different metals have been used as standard money: iron in ancient Sparta, tin in ancient Syracuse and probably also in early Egypt, copper in early Palestine and in early Rome, and brass until recently in many parts of China. In modern times, however, monometallism has been based mostly on the so-called precious metals, silver and gold, with an increasing preponderance of gold since the latter part of the last century. Historically, the strongest and most stable currencies were those backed by gold and silver. It was this gold/silver backing that gave the currency its intrinsic value. In most cases, a countrys currency was actually gold or silver coins. Gold and silver have always been a universal form of money and measure of wealth providing stability in an otherwise unstable world (Tony DiCicco, 2002). A commodity money can give rise to a large amount of price instability if either there are large changes in the supply of the commodity or if there are large changes in the non-monetary use of the commodity. An example of a commodity money that gave rise to price fluctuations is the cigarette currency used in POW camps in the Second World War. The price of goods in terms of cigarettes depended on the relative availability of cigarettes and goods. If no cigarettes were received in the camp for some time, the supply of them would diminish (because prisoners would use them as commodities: they would smoke them) and their value would rise. A rise in the value of cigarettes meant that cigarettes bought more, or that prices fell. When a shipment of cigarettes would arrive, their increased availability would cause their value to drop, which meant prices would rise. Its stated that the erratic delivery of cigarettes and the resulting waves of inflation and deflation were a major problem in t he mini-economy of the POW (camphttp://ingrimayne.com/econ/Money/Commodities.html). Colonists often resorted to the use of commodity money, where a colonys principal commodity would circulate as a medium of exchange. The Massachusetts Bay Colony used corn and beaver skins as its medium of exchange. In the Southern colonies, it was tobacco and rice; and throughout most of the colonies, animal skins, corn, powder and gun shot, and livestock were often used. Since the market value of commodity money was determined by supply and demand, its value as money often decreased when there was an over supply in the marketplace. In addition, commodity money lacked uniform quality, and was prone to spoilage, difficult to transport, and costly to store (http://www.bos.frb.org/education/pubs/historyo.pdf ). pictures below shows examples of commodity money that where used: Gold Silver Shells Barley 2.2.2Fiat money The currency we all use today is legal tender for taxes and debts. It has no intrinsic value, it is not convertible and it is not tyrannically imposed on all transactions. This money fiat money was born in Massachusetts in 1690. Historians have claimed that it was a simple wartime substitution of fiat money for specie, as has happened many times since then, but this view is anachronistic. Later governments learned from Massachusetts that fiat money is a good wartime emergency, but for Massachusetts this was not an obvious idea (Dror Goldberg). Dror Goldberg mentions that Massachusetts had to issue money to pacify mutinous troops who returned defeated from war. However, formally issuing money, and backing it with land (as was then standard), would have been fatal for the long-run independence of the colony. Massachusetts had lost its charter in 1684, partly because it minted its own coins (a violation of the royal coinage prerogative). Moreover, all the colonys land was temporarily considered to be the kings land from 1687-1691. In 1690, when Massachusetts had to issue money, its agents were lobbying for a new charter in London. It could not afford to upset the king by violating his coinage prerogative again and backing money with his land. The solution was to issue IOUs, as any English subject was allowed to do, not back it with land, and not force it on trade. Like any IOU issuer the colony could offset its credits with it, namely making it legal tender for taxes. It was also made effectively legal tender for debts in an elaborate, dishonest way. The outcome was fiat money (Dror Goldberg). The Massachusetts Bay Colony issued in 1776. The evolution of commodity money into paper in America Paper money first appeared in America in in the late 17th century. In 1690, the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in an effort to increase government spending while avoiding the unpopular act of raising taxes, began printing paper money to pay for its expenses. To convince the Massachusetts Bay colonists to accept the paper as payment, the government promised to redeem the paper in gold and silver coin collected in taxes at a later date. It also promised to never print paper money again. While both promises were quickly broken by the government, is is interesting to see that, again, what caused people to begin accepting paper money as payment for goods and services, is the understanding that the money could ultimately be redeemed for tangible wealth in the form of the commodity money in use at the time (Chris Lind). The pictures below is an example of fiat money: Federal Reserve Note 1941 Federal Reserve Note 1950 The evolution of commodity money into paper in China Paper money first arose in China around 800 AD during the Tang Dynasty. Prior to the existence of paper money, a merchant selling his goods in the city of Szechuan, risked loss by theft as he transported his commodity money and unsold goods back to his home city. As a way of earning revenue, the Chinese government, in posession of fortified strongholds in each city to store tax revenues, offered the following service. For a fee, a merchant could deposit their gold and silver coin with the government in city A. In exchange the merchant received a paper receipt for the gold deposited. When the merchant arrived back home at city B, he could go to the treasury of that city to redeem his paper reciept for the commodity money in use. Over time, as people learned that the commodity represented by the paper would actually be there, merchants began buying and selling with the paper receipts themselves (Chris Lind). Kuan note is the oldest known banknote in the world (Mike Hewitt) However, its use was very short-lived, by 1455, after over 600 years, the Chinese abandoned paper money due to numerous problems of over issuance and hyperinflation. The term fiat money can be given to money that comprises things with a special legal qualification and the money used today is fiat money.Fiat means let it be done or by order of authority. Fiat money basically means that the currency has no intrinsic value (nor can it be redeemed for precious metals or something of intrinsic value) and the money is based solely on faith. Rather, the currency is only backed by the goodwill of the government that issues it. Normally the government is the one that declares legal tender. With fiat money its not real but it represents goods and services that it can buy thus it can be defined as the baskets of goods and services that it represents. For fiat money to be valued, the money supply must be limited and it must be impossible to counterfeit (PÄ ±nar Yesin 2010). Fiat money is created by a narrow cadre of globalist bankers that seek a new World order. Fiat money is created out of thin air. The fiat system is based on debt. We owe and they are owed. With the power they accrue, a plan has been launched to reorganize all aspects of human life. That plan is called Agenda 21 or Sustainable Development. It is a U.N. program, agreed to by 178 nations, that is designed to create a world order where human beings are regarded as biological resources. The evolving system does not recognize unalienable rights (Michael Shaw, 2009). Since fiat money has no direct legal connection to a commodity money there is no real economic cost to its production, the supply of a fiat money can never be self-limiting; and the value of a fiat money is always largely a matter of public confidence in the economic or political stability of the issuer. Historically every major fiat money have self-destructed in what is popularly called hyperinflation caused by either unlimited increases in the supply of that fiat money by the issuer or accelerating loss of public confidence in the continued value of the money or the economic or political fortunes of its issuer or both. Steve Elwart says that today, fiat money will always bring on inflation for two reasons: 1) Politicians like to induce inflation because it gives the people the illusion of prosperity and 2) its declared value is much higher than the cost of producing it. Whether it is a $1 or $100 bill in fiat money, it costs only 4 cents to produce. In todays electronic age, the pr oduction cost for new money is zero since money creation is just a keystroke and an entry in cyber-space. On the other hand, in history, if you had a $20 gold piece, the cost of that gold piece, less the cost to produce it, was about $20 (Steve Elwart). The Barter system was prevalent before the origin of fiat currency. In this system, commodities were exchanged for commodities. For example, if one person need rice and the other one need coconut, the person who has cultivates rice has to search and find out the person having coconut. Only then the exchange will take place. This itself was the serious disadvantage of barter system. For some times the different commodities acted as money and they were named as commodity money. After years of a coin system the paper fiat currency came in to existence. In the coinage, a gold smith acted sometimes as a banker. A government body started to control the printing of all types of moneys. Banks started to deal with money. They accepted savings and gave loans in the form of money. Apart from these transactions, banks started to generate bank money ( Robert Mendez). Modern society again replaced old money with other new forms of money like, demand drafts, credit cards, etc. Now we dont need to keep a liquid form of money with us. All our transactions can be made by using credit cards. We can do all our shopping with these cards. Even if money is used in different forms, the importance of money is still not deteriorated. According to Steve Elwart in his research entitled Commodity Money and Fiat Money: A Bushel of Wheat for a Penny, says that a government puts fiat money into circulation first by connecting it to a gold or silver standard, but then cuts the link and says that gold and paper are no longer convertible, making the piece of paper legal tender for all debts public and private. It is obvious that debtors would be very happy if the pa-per money lost its value because they could pay their debts with inflated currency. In a letter to Edward Carrington in 1788, Thomas Jefferson wrote, Paper is poverty à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself. Jefferson died bankrupt because of the early United States money (monetary) pol-icy based on paper. It is not that fiat currency is a new invention. Fiat currency actually made its appearance over 1,000 years ago. China was the first country to issue true paper money around the 10th century A.D. Although the notes were valued at a certain ex-change rate for gold, silver, or silk, conversion was never allowed in practice. The bills were supposed to be redeemed after three years in circulation, but as more bills were printed with the older notes being refused redemption, inflation became evident. Government measures to prop up the currency were unsuccessful and it fell out of favor (Steve Elwart) . Steve continues to say that at this point, people start to feel the pinch of their money buying less. They demand that their government do some-thing. Since studies have shown that voters only have a memory of one year when it comes to politics, politicians will make sure that the economy is good in an election year.6 They will artificially stimulate the economy to give voters the illusion that times are good again and reelect the incumbents. This lasts only so long and inflation, with its problems kick in again. This cycle of increasing the currency supply and price inflation ultimately ends with the collapse of the currency, sometimes preceded by hyperinflation. (Hyperinflation and its cultural effects will be covered in Part 3 of this series.) Surprisingly, the country has not learned its lesson and the devalued fiat currency is replaced with yet another fiat currency. Greece is a perfect example of this cycle (Steve Elwart). Steve Elwart says the Greek drachma was minted in gold and silver in ancient Greece and made its reappearance as a fiat currency in 1841. Since then, the value of the drachma decreased. During the German-Italian occupation of the country from 1941-1944, hyperinflation ravaged the country, ending with the issuance of 100,000,000,000 (100 billion)-drachma notes in 1944. After Greece was liberated from Germany, old drachmae were ex-changed for new ones at the rate of 50,000,000,000 to 1. Only paper money was issued, again a fiat currency. Greece then went on a program of deficit spending for social programs and inflation started once again. In 1953, in an effort to halt inflation, Greece joined the Bretton Woods system and the drachma was revalued at a rate of 1000 old drachma to one new drachma. In 1973 the Bretton Woods System was abolished; over the next 25 years the official exchange rate gradually declined, from 30 drachmas to one U.S. dollar to a ratio of 400:1. On January 1, 2002, the Greek drachma was officially replaced as the circulating currency by the Euro (again a fiat currency). Today, Greece is once again is in trouble. After years of continued deficit spending and the governments easy monetary policy, Greeces financial situation was badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. Very quickly, the governments creative accounting practices were exposed. The national debt, put at à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬300 billion ($413.6 billion), is bigger than the countrys entire economy, with some estimates placing it at 120 percent of gross domestic product in 2010. The countrys deficit-how much more it spends than it takes in-is 12.7 percent (Steve Elwart). This time though, Greece just cant inflate their way out of the problem. Now that they are on the Euro (in the Euro-zone), they have little control over their monetary policy. All their loans are in Euros and they must pay back the loans in Euros. One way to balance the national books is to implement harsh and unpopular spending cuts. Another way is to default on their debt. This would seriously damage the Euro as other countries look at default as a way out of their financial problems. (In fact, financial experts are predicting the demise of the Euro in as early as five years.8) A third way out is to separate itself from the Euro, go back on the drachma (fiat currency again) and then set an exchange rate of the drachma to the Euro at an artificially high number. The cycle of fiat money would then begin again. As long as a country is on a fiat currency, inflation is sure to follow. Using a fiat currency could well reduce a civilization to work an entire day for a bushel of wheat,(Ste ve Elwart). Failures of Government fiat money History has taught that lodging monopoly power over the nations stock of currency in a purely discretionary central bank, unconstrained by a monetary constitution, is highly dangerous. The money-process is likely to become politicized, with monetary policy becoming subservient to fiscal policy and with monetary authorities exhibiting a bias toward inflation. James A. Dorn mentions that a study of about 30 currencies shows that there has not been a single case of a currency freely manipulated by its government or central bank since 1700 which enjoyed price stability for at least 30 years running. Although the Fed has achieved intermittent price stability since its inception in 1913, its long-run performance has been unsatisfactory, especially when compared to commodity-based standards such as the classical gold standard. The issuance of fiat money by governments is, in truth, a white collar crime; and, as happens when white collar crimes are discovered, a highly visible paper trail le ads directly back to the wrongdoers-in this case, the central banks (Darryl Robert Schoon). In fiat based economies, time is the enemy and 95 years have passed since fiat money was introduced into the US. In America and elsewhere time is passing and the clock is ticking and recently its been sounding more and more like a time bomb (Darryl Robert Schoon) . Comparison between types of money Fiat money is the term for a medium of exchange which is neither a commercial commodity, a consumer, or a producer good, nor title to any such commodity: that is irredeemable paper money. In contrast, commodity money refers to a medium of exchange which is either a commercial commodity or a title thereto. There is no doubt that fiat money is possible. Its theoretical possibility was recognized long ago, and since 1971, when the last remnants of a former international gold (commodity) standard were abolished, all monies, everywhere, have in fact been nothing but irredeemable pieces of paper (Hans-Hermann Hoppe). As asserted by Cary A. Deck, Kevin A. McCabe and David P. Porter ( ),fiat money is a convention that allows individuals to complete trades without relying on the coincidence of wants or diverting valuable commodities to serve as money. In order for individuals to accept intrinsically worthless fiat money in exchange for valuable goods, the agents must believe that the money can be used to complete subsequent purchases of other goods or services. Advantages of Commodity money According to the information about commodities monies on the internet, the reduced value of the money will encourage people to use the item more in its commodity use. For example, if gold serves as money, and its value drops, people will increase their use of gold for jewelry, tableware, and artistic purposes. Their actions will reflect the law of demand: whenever a commodity becomes cheaper, people use more of it. Thus if there is a sudden influx of gold into a country that uses it as money, part of the influx will be diverted to its commodity use, and the effects on the amount of money, and hence on the price level, will be lessened. On the other hand, a sudden decline will also be cushioned, because as the commodity grows more valuable, people will transfer it from its commodity use into a monetary use. If the amount of gold declines and it rises in value, there is an incentive to melt down jewelry, tableware, and artistic objects and use the gold as money. Hence a doubling of gol d may not double the amount of money, and cutting the amount of gold by one half may not cut money by one half (http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Money/Commodities.html ). Another reason for price stability with a commodity money exists when that commodity is used by many other nations. When the price level in any one nation changes, the commodity will flow across borders to where it is most valuable( Robert Schenk, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1977 ). Disadvantages of Commodity Money When valuable resources are used as money, those resources cannot be used for consumption. Copper used to make pennies cannot be used to make electrical wire. The supply of money is determined by supply of the commodity. The money supply could fluctuate substantially. The discovery of new gold would mean that the supply of money would increase and the price level would rise. There is a lack of stability when a currency depends on being able to find and produce a particular naturally occurring but naturally rare substance. When gold is being used as commodity money it can be a disadvantage since the government cant meaningfully increase the supply of gold over a short period of time, for example the Fed can be able to increase the supply of fiat money in 10 weeks by more than 100%, with gold this cannot be accomplished. . Advantages of Fiat money Is an efficient form of money; since it can be produced costlessly, there is a gain from using it instead of something else that is both costly to produce and has alternative uses (Neil Wallace).Uses relatively little of societys resources. Fiat money has an advantage over commodity money in the senses that the same laws that come up with laws that created the money can also make a decision to replace the money if it ever gets damaged or destruction occurs. Fiat money has more stability as compared that of gold-backed currency in the sense that commodity based currencies are inherently pro-cyclic, increasing volatility in terms of the regular business cycle and come and go recessions. This stability allows investors, capitalists and creditors to make rational, firm decisions based on sound expectations that have little room for uncertainty; and thus make more risky and subjective investments. Studies also shows that during the Great depression, countries that used fiat currency syste m fared more stable and much better off than those dependent on commodity-based currency. As mentioned by Chris Lind, fiat money is generally seen as a convenience or a protectionist system; It is much easier to carry around a piece of paper than 50 pounds of gold or some other commodity. Trustworthiness; the community trusts that the paper receipt or certificate actually represents the tangible good printed on the paper. Fiat money can and still created in arbitrary amounts, and is made more available on a favorable basis to the government and commercial banks. With fiat money the Fed can be able to increase the supply by more than 100% within 10 weeks, the advantage of being able to do that is that the government can manipulate the system to mitigate panics and disasters. Take for example the last fall would have being a bigger mess if gold was the monetary numeraire Disadvantages of Fiat Money The longer a fiat money system exists, the greater the odds of economic collapse. Over time fiat credit money destroys economies because time exacerbates the systemic flaws of credit-based, sic capital, markets (Darryl Robert Schoon). Fiat money is not self limiting, which can make nations which rely on this type of currency extremely vulnerable to hyperinflation. Government controls money supply and it may cause inflation by printing too much money the following example shows how fiat money can really cause inflation the example is taken from a journal by Andrew Digeson White (1933), early in the year 1789 the French nation found itself in deep financial embarrassment: there was a heavy debt and a serious deficit. The vast reforms of that period, though a lasting blessing politically, were a temporary evil financially. There was a general want of confidence in business circles; capital had shown its proverbial timidity by retiring out of sight as far as possible; throughout the land was stagnation. Fiat money becomes worthless when its no longer used that is when the government declares. Fiat money distorts the time value of money and in so doing destroys both money and the economies that use it (Darryl Robert Schoon).