As humans evolved and began trading items with each other to complement what they could obtain and produce alone, the barter system was born. This evolved into the development of other items representing wealth that could be held and traded, with gold and silver becoming a major means of such. Gold and silver remained a predominant universal material to hold and trade regarding material wealth until around the 18th century. Money continued to evolve with the printing of paper and minting of coins to represent gold and silver. In the USA, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 confiscated private gold and suspended the gold standard to allow the printing of money to fight the effects of the Great Depression. In 1971 under President Richard M Nixon, paper money became free from backing by gold (fiat money). Essentially, all paper money in the world today is this fiat money.
Is this present system of money/currency good or bad. Since economics is one discipline in which honest people can disagree, there is much discussion of the matter. Click on the links below for a wide perspective on the subject:
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