Kyle Paris

SPEECOM MANUSCRIPT (3rd draft)

Topic: Evolution of money: Past, Present, and Future

Good morning everyone! Money makes the world go round. We all want to earn
it. We all want to spend it. We all just want to have fun with it! But do we even know it?
Why we use it? How it even works? Since we all wanna earn it, Im gonna start off with
a quote by Benjamin Franklin: An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. And
that is what we are bound to do today: acquire knowledge with the help of numismatics.
Numismatics is the study or act of collecting coins, paper money, and medals while
numismatists are people who do it. This is a discipline which also involves the broader
study of money including its history. From this I present to you my topic The evolution
of money: Past, Present, and Future.
Thousands of years ago, if you wanted to trade anything you had for something
you wanted, you have to find the people in your community who had what you wanted
and wanted what you had. This is called barter. There were no limitations or constraints
with what you barter with. As communities grew in size, in numbers, and in population;
bartering got easier. You could trade with people even if they did not need what you had
to trade with, all you had to do was to convince them that many other people would
eventually need what you had as long as it could be stored without losing its value and
could be easily transported. Any commodity that was high in demand like seashells,
herbs, and salt were used to barter with. Eventually, gold became the commodity of
choice for bartering. Security became an issue for gold as it was easy to steal. Clever
people (bankers) were able to offer security in the form of vaults while they would print
receipts for the gold guaranteeing it could be redeemed on demand at any time by
anyone. People began using this receipts for trading instead of using actual gold. The
receipts eventually became known as money. This method, became so popular around
the world and helped in the development of our civilization. Many inefficiencies arose
through time such as the exploitation of bankers by simply printing receipts for gold that
they do not even own or do not even exist. Eventually the gold standard was created,
wherein the government would print money instead of the bankers. In this system, the
government would only be allowed to print a number of money in accordance with the
amount of gold, silver, and copper they have in their reserves. This also had efficiencies
and eventually after the war the government found the system to be a burden as they
had to spend so much on rehabilitation. This leads us to the present monetary system.
Our present money is called fiat money. Fiat money is currency which derives its
value from government regulation or law rather than gold. They give value to this money
by law that they must be accepted as form of payments and by making it a requirement
that taxes must be paid with these currencies. There are no limits to printing this kind of
money and it has led to the rapid increase of money supply in our world. However,
inflation becomes a real issue since there is increase in the money supply which would
result to drastic increase in prices of commodities. Eventually the value of the money
goes down and people would tend to borrow money for the things they cannot buy with
their own money. This system contributed to the global financial crisis we had just
experienced a few years back as bankers and other superior had exploited their power.

And now as we look into the future, we could be living in a cashless society with
the idea of cryptocurrency. Many people are claiming that cryptocurrency could be the
answer to the efficiencies and defects imposed by the previous money systems. Bitcoin
is a payment system invented by Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoins are digital coins you can
send through the internet, however they can only be produced in limited quantity like
gold. This system was made to avoid middlemen such as banks and the government
itself in transactions. This led to quicker and cheaper transactions which was one of the
reasons it got popular. This form of currency is widely accepted nowadays, in fact, many
non-internet businesses are already offering this mode of payment for customers.
However, this idea is still debatable at the moment and analysts would claim that there
is still a lot of room for improvements on this system.
Money has evolved over time, from barter to fiat to bitcoins, and its efficiencies
would always point to the exploitation of the people who are in control. And that is the
thing about money, it is not the root of all evil, it is greed which makes us evil. As I end
my speech I would like to remind everyone that there are just things that money can
never buy.

Kyle Paris

SPEECOM MANUSCRIPT OUTLINE

Topic: Evolution of money: Past, Present, and Future

I.
II.

III.

Introduction
a. Quote
b. Topic Statement
Body
a. Past
i. Barter
ii. Gold
iii. Representative money
iv. Gold Standard
b. Present
i. Fiat money
ii. Inflation
iii. Financial Crisis
c. Future
i. Cryptocurrency
ii. Bitcoins
Conclusion
a. Restatement
b. Answer the questions in introduction
c. Quote