(Hi, sorry for the slightly long post. It’s my last, so I hope you’ll understand 😉 )
Hi fellow money spenders. The semester is coming to a close. We’ve undergone tons of requirements, exams, sleepless nights, eyebags, heartache, late morning gisings, hunger, heat, a lot of heat, ups and downs (literally up and down the stairs), cramming of requirements, walking, scrolling down fb, being tired, loving our beds and never wanting to leave them, running, the new ChE building and its oh so white-ness, 135 and 124 and 140 (for them 4th years), PD AND THESIS (HUHU, for them 5th years), 198 blogposts :>, delivery at ChE building, late night permits, plenty of permits and paperwork to be submitted, life, and love and randomness.
(Kinda had a hard time thinking about what I’d possibly write about in this post. Kind of felt a bit pressured since this will be my last official blogpost for 198. But who knows, maybe we’ll continue to use this blog as a form of outlet for environment related feels and rants and insights. Or just feels. We’ll see. Sorry for the deviation from the topic. I’m getting there, I promise!)
Hi again. So, my point. In all those I mentioned, and even those I didn’t, money is present. Money is everywhere!!! Check your pockets, your bags, your table, the floor (if you’re lucky enough). Money is our phone, laptop, bag, watch, clothes. Money $$$$$ $_$ ka-ching, ka-ching.
We’d be nothing without money. We need money to live. Life kind of stops when we’re bankrupt. We seem to not be able to do things properly. We can’t buy food and drinks, can’t communicate (load/internet), can’t move from place to place (pamasahe/gasoline). We can’t study (tuition fees and books, although there are exceptions). We can’t pay for our lab fees, we can’t do our thesis (where most of the 5th year money goes to), we can’t buy books, we can’t eat out, we won’t have clothes. Imagine going to school with no money at all. You’d be restless.
Anyway, my point again. Well, money pretty much makes the world go round. However bad that sounds, it’s true. I mean, I guess it isn’t the only thing that makes the world go round. There are other things like love and angular momentum.
(See link to song:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-I2qF-aMUo)
But if you really think about it, money was just made up. It can be anything. Like I mentioned, money can be a ring, a rock, a mushroom, a piece of lego, or even Perry’s Chemical Engineer’s Handbook. It’s arbitrary.
According to Investopedia.com (a website which explains money related things in layman’s terms), money derives its value by being a medium of exchange (we’re lucky not to have “coins” as heavy as Perry’s), a unit of measurement and a storehouse for wealth. It allows human beings to indirectly exchange goods and services, through the value or price given to them.
Money has been part of the world for at least 3000 years. Before its invention, a system of bartering existed. This involved a direct trade of goods and services – I’ll give you spaghetti if you give me kiwi. But this cannot happen instantly since the trade has to be fair for both parties, someone will have to want to give away what he has for what you have. And it will take time to find the right match for the trade. One of the great things about money is how it was able to increase the speed of trade by providing a common medium of payment.
The currency of trade then started to develop over the centuries including animal skin, salt, and weapons. This spread throughout the world and in some places, are still being used today. Weapons such as daggers and sharp arrows were used as money but this had a hazard for the people since it may injure them, thus the circular coin was developed to address this problem. Over time, paper money was also introduced. And after many centuries, our form of trade that started from a simple exchange of anything a person can offer, has evolved into the system of exchange it is today.
It is often said that money is the root of all evil. Money is a very complicated thing. Because of how much “power” we’ve given to it, sometimes it inevitably takes control of our lives.
I was able to somehow experience the sadness of how much money matters, during a certain event in my life. I had to evaluate the feasibility of a certain project in terms of chemical engineering principles. After passing the technical evaluation, an economic analysis was performed for the proposed projects. However, they did not pass. The calculated NPV and IRR were negative. It was sad because I spent so much time finding out if they were technically possible, and yes they are; only to find out that the projects would fail the economic analysis. This goes to show that although something is technically possible and would allow for better operation of the plant, money is still always taken into account.
The same goes for our plant design. What is considered to be a feasible plant to build is a plant that would be profitable. What’s the point of building a plant if it cannot generate profit?
It is also noted how detailed the costing calculations are for the equipment, utilities, maintenance, rent, insurance, administrative costs, research and development, and other plant costs that are too many to mention. The total capital investment is calculated from all these. Then an economic analysis is performed to determine the NPV, IRR, payback period. As of now, the calculations can be done, however tedious they may be.
But what if money was never invented in the first place? How would this economic analysis be done? Or would there even be such a thing? How would we even begin to do our cost analysis in the first place? It is now difficult to imagine a world without money. Despite the stress it brings to us today, it is still a more organized way of dealing with exchange of goods and I think that our economic analysis for plant design would be much more difficult especially if we have to pay for our equipment using cow skin or bows and arrows.
P.S. Yeyyy! Go us, goodluck on our remaining requirements!!!
References:
[1] Beattie, A. The History of Money: From Barter to Banknotes. Retrieved 16 May 2015 from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/roots_of_money.as
Engineering Perspectives 