Activity Each of you has an item on your card that you must trade or barter for. Your goal is to trade your item for something better. After we finish, we’ll discuss how trading went and fill out some Point of View worksheets.

Bartering In a barter economy, a person having something to trade must find another trader who not only has something the original trader wants but who also wants what the original trader has to trade. This is called a double coincidence of wants and is the great difficulty with barter. This is the reason that over time people have turned to using money more often in trade instead of barter.

As a medium of exchange, money is recognized by all parties as a means of payment. As a unit of account, money provides a commonly accepted unit for measuring the value of every good and service. And as a store of value, money retains purchasing power over time (except during periods of inflation).

The history of money in 5 min.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLVoV6gK8mE