Ex. 1. Read and translate the following text. Tell what the functions of money are

MONEY

Money has various uses in the modern world: it is a measure of the value of goods and services, a means of exchanging such goods and services, and a way to store up buying (purchasing) power so that one can use it later.

As a measure of value it's of the very greatest use. If I work in an office, how can my employer know what to pay me for my services if there is no generally recognized measure of value? He may decide to pay me a certain number of loaves of bread each week, but then I shall have to exchange some of these loaves for other things that I need: and how am I to know how many loaves of bread I should give for a pair of shoes or for the rent of my house? Money gives us a very-useful means of measuring such relative values.

Money is also of great use as a means of exchanging goods and services. If, for example, I'm a shoe-maker, it will not be at all convenient to me always to exchange the shoes I make for other goods or services. A doctor may want to buy a pair of shoes from me, but I may not need medical care. Without money a tax-collector would come back to his office with an extraordinary collection of objects.

Considered as a means of storing up purchasing power, money has good and bad points. It can more easily be kept a long time than such things as food, which rots, or buildings, which slowly fall to pieces, or machines, which rust. It takes up very little space, and if you put it in a bank, it is as safe as anything in the world can be.

But modern money has serious disadvantages as means of storing up buying power. In the old days, when money was in the form of gold and silver coins, the metal in each was really worth the amount stamped on the coin. But the paper in modern paper money and even the metal in most modern coins are worth very much less than the amount written on them. As a result, the buying power of modern money can change very greatly in a short time.