<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="color: #FFBF00">Ernest Glen Stevens</span></span></div><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #FFBF00">Professor Stevens</span></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o793/Galvin_Fugazi/0b949cc1-f3e3-4b2b-9453-c391a496997f_zps8c4edb79.jpg">[ img ]</a></div><br/><br/>Ernest rubbed his beard, trying to figure out the best way to explain things to the man in front of him. This was so difficult. He knew that his answers would likely just lead to more questions, and the answers to that would lead into even more. It would be a never ending conversation at that point, but still he tried.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBF00">"So, people have goods and services. So food, for example, is a good that other people need. Someone might have food and another person doesn't, but wants some. They will go to the person who has the food and say, 'Hey, what would you like in exchange for food,' and then that person would name what they want and the two would exchange whatever they agreed upon. We called it bartering, people exchanging things they view as equal value or equally desired by the other. Well, eventually as time went on, that wasn't so convenient as more population went up, products and services increased, things like that. It became difficult for people to find someone who wanted to give them what they desired for what they were willing to offer. Differing opinions on what was worth trading and such...So money came about. Money, itself, has no value unless we give it value. People would place value on their items and say, 'this item is worth this amount of money to me,' which was helpful, because then instead of directly trading an item you had, you could just give that person money. This allowed that person to go find what they wanted and put that money towards whatever it was. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm making a mess of things. Basically, money allowed people to indirectly trade items. You can earn money through working. You spend time doing something, somebody gives you money, allowing you to go trade it for things you want or need. We call that buying. People are considered rich when they have a lot of money, because they can do more things as they are able to buy more valued items and services. As for taxes--money you earn has a portion taken out to give to the government so they can support the things that require the country to run smoothly. For example, education--everyone is allowed an education, essentially for free. People are allowed to go to schools, where people learn things, and everyone learns about history, math, science--things like that. Well, you have to pay the teachers to teach, pay for books to give the students, pay for buildings for students to be in where they may learn...It all becomes very expensive, so the government takes a small amount from everyone who works so they may fund these schools. They also use tax money to pay for a lot of other things that everyone uses as well. It's really rather nifty, but some people dislike it because they believe the money they earn should be all theirs and not going to the government. It's hotly debated and has been for years. But, regardless, it allows for people to send their children to school without having to pay a lot of money. If they had to pay, it would be unlikely that they would send their children to school and it would hurt our society as less people are able to work the complicated jobs in my world that need tending to...." </span>Ernest trailed off, he had gone on another ramble and he felt rather silly for it.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FFBF00">"Ah....I hope that explains it some..."</span>he said, scratching the back of his head nervously.