Now listen to a part of a talk in an economics class.
Professor:
So, let’s talk about money. What is money? Well, typically people think of coins and paper “bills” as money... but that’s using a somewhat narrow definition of the term.A broad definition is this: [slowly] money is anything that people can use to make purchases with. Since many things can be used to make purchases, money can have many different forms. Certainly, coins and bills are one form of money. People exchange goods and services for coins or paper bills, and they use this money... these bills...to obtain other goods and services. For example, you might give a taxi driver five dollars to purchase a ride in his taxi. And he in turn gives the five dollars to a farmer to buy some vegetables.But, as I said, coins and bills aren’t the only form of money under this broad definition. Some societies make use of a barter system. Basically, in a barter system people exchange goods and services directly for other goods and services. The taxi driver, for example, might give a ride to a farmer in exchange for some vegetables. Since the vegetables are used to pay for a service, by our broad definition the vegetables are used in barter as a form of money.Now, as I mentioned, there’s also a second... a narrower definition of money. In the United States only coins and bills are legal tender - meaning that by law, a seller must accept them as payment. The taxi driver must accept coins or bills as payment for a taxi ride. OK? But in the U.S., the taxi driver is not required to accept vegetables in exchange for a ride. So a narrower definition of money might be whatever is legal tender in a society, whatever has to be accepted as payment.
Using points and examples from the talk, explain the two definitions of money presented by the professor.
In broad sense, money is whatever one can use to make purchase with, so money comes in different forms. For example, you may pay a five-dollar bill to a taxi driver in exchange for a ride. And the taxi driver then may use the bill to pay a farmer for some vegetables. Anyway, some societies do not use coins and bills as their money, they use something called barter system, under which goods and services are exchanged directly for other goods or services. So the farmer may give the taxi driver some vegetables in exchange for a ride, and in this case the vegetable is a form of money under the system. A narrower definition of money is whatever a government is allowed as legal tender. For example, in the U. S. , people must use coins and bills to pay for their goods and services, like the taxi driver must accept a five-dollar bill as payment rather than some vegetables. (161 words)
