Side effects of money story, and a story of other gifts

I am writing another blog, a year-long exercise translating Bernard Lietaer's " The Future of Money". The original version in English sells for $150 a copy, so this translation is a gift I am making for my friends, since I can't afford to buy them copies of the book at that price! At the moment I am translating chapter three, in which he asserts that there have been many different money systems in history, all of them having one or another "side effect" on the life of the communities that use them. (He adds that there exist a multitude of money systems  even now, although  they are  eclipsed by out national systems of interest bearing fiat currency based on bank debt, and very few people are aware of their possibilities )
Yesterday I had an experience demonstrating what he means by a side effect of the system. I met my neighbor on the road, and she told me the story of the house next door, which has just sold for a remarkably low price...a brick house on 3 acres 10 minutes drive from the state capitol for $150,000 ....The lady who lived there moved to a retirement village, and gifted it to her children, who, it turns out, were desperately in need of cash. Their cousin gave them this price. As my neighbor put it, "When people know you are desperate, they take advantage". But in fact, while it is not everywhere the case that when people know you are desperate, they take advantage, and while you can certainly make the case that this is reprehensible behavior, it also falls out of a financial system designed to create competition and scarcity, as our financial system does.
The work of Charles Eisenstein , which I have been reading for this blog, speaks of the end of an era, of a particular set of stories that we are separate and alone-that we need to compete with each other. Out of such a story unkindness falls more easily. I am so grateful for a family that took care of each other, and modelled that for me. Whatever stories we live are gifts, like the fable of the fairies who each had a gift for the newborn baby.  Most of the fairies' gifts were of cheer and happiness, but one fairy was not invited, and resentfully, she gave the baby a gift of bad fortune.