What is the origin of money? Here is a little history lesson. Way back when money did not exist, people used to barter for things, like trading paper for a bag of apples. But there was a problem with this. If you had a frisbee, and you wanted a hat, you could trade that frisbee for a hat, but the trick was to find a guy who had a hat, and also wanted a frisbee. Also, if there was a barber, and wanted a meal, would he trade a free trip to the barber for a meal? What if the waiter was bald? Also, if all you had was a castle, and you wanted a loaf of bread, would you cut your castle into little sections and trade that for a loaf of bread? What would someone do with a chunk of a castle? So there were a ton of problems with bartering. Well, people began using things of value to replace for bartering, like gold. Then a man could trade his frisbee with someone for gold, then he could use that gold to buy a hat. People started to use gold as a form of exchange, and it was widely accepted. Years later, people were still using gold as a form of exchange, but gold was too heavy to carry around places, so the government started using paper money. People could trade in gold for the same value of paper, then they carried around paper money that represents gold. Then, if people wanted to buy something, they could trade in paper money for the same value of gold to buy things. But people began to realize that if paper money was worth the same as gold, then they could just trade paper money instead of trading it for gold then trading it. This is how paper money came into use. This worked well, because the government could not print more money without mining more gold, and it worked great. But then the government became greedy, and started to print more money without mining more gold, causing inflation (the prices of products rise without people’s pay checks rise, so things got more expensive, but people did not get any richer, to put it into simple terms). People spent their lives collecting paper money, only to lose it all to inflation. Be careful with your money.

What problems do price controls cause? According to the Dictionary, price control is “a government regulation establishing a maximum price to be charged for specified goods and services, especially during periods of war or inflation.” Price control causes many problems. Tons of economists think so. According to Hoover Institution, “The negative effects of price controls are many. By creating shortages, they often cause people to wait in line, they often cause the quality of products whose prices are controlled to fall, and they can lead to favoritism by suppliers. All those effects remain until the price controls are ended.” Every time price control was used anywhere, it ended very poorly.