Funny Money

>> Saturday, June 06, 2009

The other day as Paul and I were in a taxi, we saw the driver give a woman some weird-looking Monopoly money. It turns out that Nicaragua got new money overnight:Since then we've decided this money is really cool so we've been trying to collect it. Today, for instance, we just got this C$200 bill ($10 USD):It turns out that might not have been such a good idea, and we plan to spend it first thing in the morning to get it off our hands. Time Magazine talks all about it here:

Most of the criticism, however, seems to indicate an underlying lack of confidence and trust in the government. There are many who remember the first Sandinista government's inventive monetary policies and the resulting mega-inflation of the 1980s. As a result, some people are now treating the new plastic dinero as if it were a hot potato. "Many people don't want these bills because they think they are valueless and they're going to get stuck with them, so they're spending them as fast as they can," says clothing vendor Fabiola Espinoza. It has unintentionally created a bizarre stimulus effect on Nicaragua's beleaguered economy. "As soon as I get one of the plastic bills, I try to pass it on right away to someone else," says shopkeeper Gloria Romero.
Apparently the money is also illegal and worthless (read the Time article for more details), so let's hope we can pawn our bills off tomorrow morning. Yikes!

1 comments:

Unknown 9:21 PM, June 07, 2009  

"Still, Aguirre predicts, the issue of the new currency and whether it's legal or not is a case of a "tempest in a teapot" — an issue that will fade away as soon as the inevitable next crisis comes around. (Read a story about Nicaragua's vampire problem.)"

I'm only talking to you two in the daylight from now on.

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