Money

Money

We cannot eat, wear it, or live in it, but people need it feed, cloth, and house themselves. People use money to pay for the things they want to buy - it is a means of exchange that works as long as the buyer and the seller both agree on the value of the paper, metal, or plastic used to pay.
Money works as a standard of value, allowing one to see how much goods are worth. It also provides a structure of wealth more convenient than other things of values, such as property.
The origins of money
The earliest records of money being used come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) some 4,500 years ago. Payments were made with weighed amounts of Silver. Since then, weighed amounts of metal have been used as money in many places worldwide.
Gold standard
Each country has its own money, or currency. So government need a standard way of judging how much a nation’s currency is worth, to work at exchange rates from one currency into another.
In the 20th century, many western governments measured the value of a currency according to the value of gold and a nation’s gold reserves.
Various systems existed, which all related the value of a banknote to a precise weight of gold. The gold standard system ended in the 1970s ; now the value of money depends on the market.