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  3. Currency seems like a very simple idea. It’s only money, after all, and that’s just what we use to buy the things we want and ne

Currency seems like a very simple idea. It’s only money, after all, and that’s just what we use to buy the things we want and ne

admin2012-09-19  3
问题     Currency seems like a very simple idea. It’s only money, after all, and that’s just what we use to buy the things we want and need. We get paid by our employers, and we use that money to pay tile bills, buy our food, and purchase goods and services. We might put some in a savings account at the bank or invest it in stocks or real estate, but for the most part, currency seems like a fairly straightforward concept.
    In fact, the development of currency has shaped human civilization. Currency has’ stopped wars, and it has started many more.  Cities and nations as we know them would not exist without it.  It is difficult to overstate the importance of currency in modem life.
Currency as Substitute
    Currency, or money, can be defined as a unit of purchasing power. It is a medium of exchange, a substitute for goods or services. It doesn’t have to be the coins or bills with which you’re probably most familiar. In fact, through the ages, everything from large stone wheels, knives, slabs of salt, and even human beings have been used as money. Anything that people agree represents value is currency.
    For example, if you have one barrel of wheat, and you want a cow, without currency you have to find someone who not only has a cow, but also wants a barrel of wheat and will agree to the trade.
    Now, if you live in a place where round, stamped coins are widely considered to have a certain value and can be exchanged for other things, then you just have to find someone who needs wheat. That person will take the wheat in exchange for an agreed-upon amount of coins which you can later use to buy a cow from someone else.
Currency as Wealth
    Besides serving as a substitute in trades, money’s other important use is as a store of wealth. In a straight barter system, the commodities being traded are generally perishable. You can gather tons and tons of wheat by making shrewd trade deals, but if you try to save the wheat, it will eventually go bad. Money allows people to accumulate wealth.
    This had an enormous impact on civilization, because it meant that power wouldn’t always be passed through families. People who had been excluded from any possibility of holding political power could amass wealth through trade or by providing a service. That wealth could then be used to purchase political or even military power. So money made civilization more democratic by taking some power out of the hands of noble families that had monopolized it for hundreds of years.
Forms of Currency: Commodity
    The forms and functions of currency have changed over the last 3,000 years or so, generally falling into four categories:
    Commodity currency
    Coins
    Paper money
    Electronic currency
Commodity Currency
    The development of commodity-based currency systems represents more of a blurring between barter systems and later currency systems than a revolutionary change. In a commodity system, the money used is not only a "place-holder" for purchasing power, but it is something that has an inherent value by itself.
    A good example of a commodity system is the one used by the Aztecs. They placed great value on cacao beans, which could be used to make chocolate. The beans were small and easy to carry, so they were often used to balance out or make change in barter agreements.
Forms of Currency: Coins
    The first coins were minted in Lydia, an ancient empire in the area of modem Turkey. The Lydian king Croesus started making small metal ingots stamped with an imperial emblem around 640 B. C.
    This Lydian custom spread to the Greeks and eventually to the Romans. Coins were usually made of silver or gold, and their value was enforced by the authority of the government that issued them. If the Athenian officials declared that all coins minted in Athens, with the official stamp of Athens, were 97 percent silver, then those coins would be traded at that value.
    In China, coins developed at about the same time that they did in the West. In the fifth century B. C. , the Chinese began using a form of commodity currency in the shape of knives or other tools. The metal blades had a round hole at one end, so the money could be strung onto a rod or rope. Eventually, the tools became more stylized. Over the years, they became smaller and smaller, until only the round end with a hole in it was left. These round, pierced Chinese coins remained virtually unchanged until the 1800s.
Forms of Currency: Paper
    Paper money was developed first by the Chinese, who used stag skins, bark, or parchment marked with the imperial seal as "bills of payment." The penalty for counterfeiting was death.
    Paper money had trouble gaining acceptance in Europe. Leather money was used around 1100, but only as a temporary substitute when silver supplies ran low. A Swedish bank issued paper money in 1661, but they eventually flooded the market with it, and it lost its value.
    The use of paper money really caught on in Europe in the 1700s, when the official bank of the French government began issuing paper money. The idea came from goldsmiths, who often gave people bills of receipt for their gold. The bills could be exchanged for the gold at a later date. That’s an important fact in the development of paper money, because it means that the money represented a real amount of gold or silver that actually existed somewhere. A piece of money was actually a promise from the institution that issued it( either a government or a bank)that the institution would give the holder of the hill a certain amount of gold or silver from its stockpile whenever he wanted it. Under this kind of system, the money is said to be "backed by gold." With a few temporary exceptions, during wars or other emergencies, all currency in the world was backed by a real supply of precious metal until 1971.
Forms of Currency: Electronic
    Since money is really just a representation of value, it didn’t take long for people to realize they could just send information about money by telegraph or other electronic means, and it was just as "real" as sending the money itself. After World War Ⅱ, banks would record information about the day’s transactions onto large magnetic reels, which were taken to the regional Federal Reserve Bank. This system eliminated the need for the large denominations that were printed prior to the war to facilitate these large-scale transfers. Today, the $ 500, $1,000, $ 5,000, and $10,000 bills printed during this period are very rare, though some are still in circulation.
    Later, wire connections were established between the banks, so the transfer information could be sent directly.
    By the early 1990s, all transfers between banks and the Federal Reserve were clone electronically.
The Chinese began using commodity currency in the shape of knives or other tools in_______.
选项
答案the fifth century B．C
解析 题干中“The Chinese began using commodity currency”是要在文中查找的信息，据此定位于第5副标题第3段第2句，即可知答案。
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