ABSTRACT
Money is so simple that most users take it for granted. Actually, it is one of the great innovations in history.1 Being so simple, useful, and common, money facilitates the exchange of goods and services. In the USA, numerous currencies circulated during the late 1700s and throughout most of the 1800s. It took nearly 140 years after becoming one nation for the USA to have a successful central bank in 1914.2
A hard currency is hard because of the solid trust that people have in the currency and not
because of its gold backing. Businesspeople must have faith that the country issuing the currency will fulfill its obligations. For money to function as a store of value, there must exist something of value to store. Even though Russia has gold and oil, people still have doubts about the ruble as a store of value.
