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The Future of Our Money Essay examples

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The invention of money is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of human civilization. From the very beginning of society, people have used money to circumvent the difficulties of bartering and to foster trade and commerce. Since then, money has come a long way. No longer do we need to rely on silver coins, cocoa beans, or even anything of intrinsic value to conduct our business; today, we use paper currency, which is convenient and easy to carry around. But slowly, we are moving into the digital age of money, an age in which less of our money is actually tangible and more of it is just data on a computer server. To some, this prospect may seem daunting. However, given the major advantages of electronic money over outmoded paper …show more content…

Some would be quick to point out that, as cool as these features seem, they are nothing but gimmicks; however, these conveniences are designed to make spending easier, and ease of transferring money actually helps to promote consumer spending. For instance, in 2009, sales on “Cyber Monday”, the online analogue of Black Friday, rose 11 percent from the year before, despite the worsening economy (Coremetrics qtd. by Kharif). People are quickly moving from physical, brick and mortar establishments to the online world to make purchases, aided by the ease of purchase and a greater variety of items to pick from. Similarly, donations have also seen a surge thanks to the digitization of money. In the wake of the recent Haitian earthquakes, more and more people have made contributions via clicking a button on online services such as PayPal or through simply texting the phrase “Haiti” to 90999, which automatically adds $10 to the sender's cell phone bill. (McCoy) These methods of donation are convenient and easily accessible to everyone, enticing more and more people to make donations. Relief agencies welcome these payment methods as a major improvement over older, slower methods such as “contributing via the U.S. Postal Service […] or by calling an 800 number” (McCoy). Such institutions exemplify the necessity of our money to change

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