Money Money Money

55 Replies

I LOVE the smell of money.

I am being 100% serious here. Have you ever held a brand new bill in your hand? Rubbing it between your thumb and forefinger and feeling the intricate texture on it? Taking in a deep breath of the intoxicating smell that is so much better than the new car smell?

My love for the feel and smell of brand new bills stemmed from all the wonderful memories during Chinese New Year and the money we were given inside those good-luck red envelops. It is important to use only GOOD CLEAN CRISP, preferably brand spanking new, bills in the red envelops. Every year right before Chinese New Year, the government would print out new notes in anticipation of people waiting in line at banks to exchange their old notes for NEW and CRISP bills. As I am typing this, I can remember seeing my dad coming home with a big fat envelop filled with the CRISP NEW bills he just exchanged from the bank,  and I can also vividly recall the feeling of rubbing a $NTD 1000 bill between my fingers and my heart starts a-fluttering. The smell of new money wafts in from nowhere. Kinetic memories FTW.

The first time I tried to celebrate Chinese New Year with my children here I walked in and asked to withdraw $100 in $1’s. The bank teller was not amused but she obliged. I stared at the pile of old and dirty dollar bills in dismay.

“Don’t you have NEW dollar bills?”

“Hm. No.”

“But it’s Chinese New Year!”

I was baffled by how she was baffled by all this.

Because of my childhood, I could understand when Mr. Monk first started receiving allowances, he asked for actual, physical money and not some “virtual money” registered in our family Quicken account the way his older brother does. Every Saturday, he goes to the family change jar and takes out 8 quarters ($1 for each grade you are in). He counts them. He rearranges them. He puts them in his wallet, takes them out again and then puts them all back in. He would beg me to walk to Walgreens across the street with him so he could buy something with his own, actual, money in all its physical glory.

The idea that money in the modern world, for the most part, is virtual not only sounds  ridiculous to him but seems to insult his intelligence.

“So you mean your money is just numbers inside your bank’s computer?!”

Nowadays, like many people, I do not carry a lot of cash nor do I pay with cash unless absolutely necessary. I use my credit card for everything and for any amount. Yes, I stopped feeling guilty a long time ago for using my VISA to pay for a small soda. Hey, I figure, at least I am not using my AmEx which would cost the retailer at least 2% more in processing fee. So I am actually being nice. But I miss being awed by the sight, smell and feel of crisp new bills which, in my experience, are extremely hard to come by in the U.S.

.

.

Despite my nostalgia for the smell of crisp new bills and my persistent discomfort with the idea of virtual money (Think: Stocks. Think: Bernie Madoff. Think: Facebook valued at $50 Billion), I listened to a story on NPR, twice, of how a “magical” idea of virtual currency by four economists fixed the inflation problem in Brazil and saved the country. I was flabbergasted and can’t stop thinking about it since.

Long story short: Brazil suffered inflation since the 1950s when the government decided to print more money in order to fund the building of a new capital. They had not been able to get out of the vicious cycle and things got so bad in the 1980s that the inflation rate was 80% per month. Can you imagine that? Per month!

In 1992, the new minister of finance as well as the president asked for help from a group of four economists and what’s more, they promised the economists that the government would go along with whatever crazy idea they came up with and the economists would have total reign. The plan was not only to slow down the printing of money but more importantly, to change people’s behaviors and mentality. For the plan to work, the Brazilians needed to have faith in the stable value of the currency, after suffering years of crazy inflation rates. “People have to be tricked into thinking money will hold its value.”

What followed was nothing short of brilliant and fantastical, and the plan, however insane it may sound at first, actually made sense in theory and worked in real life.

The four economists wanted to create a new currency that was stable, dependable and trustworthy.  The only catch: This currency would not be real.  No coins, no bills.  It was fake. [It was] called it a Unit of Real Value — URV… It was virtual; it didn’t exist in fact.

People would still have and use the existing currency, the cruzeiro.  But everything would be listed in URVs, the fake currency.   Their wages would be listed in URVs.  Taxes were in URVs.  All prices were listed in URVs.  And URVs were kept stable. What changed was how many cruzeiros each URV was worth…  after a few months, [people] began to see that prices in URVs were stable. Once that happened, [the four economists] could declare that the virtual currency would become the country’s actual currency. It would be called the real. — NPR Abridged Transcript or Full-length Podcast

Imagine that: economists as national heroes. Virtual money that saved an entire country from inflating itself out of oblivion.

.

.

Speaking of those who are in the business of money printing aka the Federal Reserve in the U.S., of course you know who Alexander Hamilton is. The dude on the $10 dollar bill. Yes! He who had the good fortune of being the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. But I did NOT know that he was born and grew up in the West Indies, an illegitimate child whose father abandoned them early on and whose mother died of a fever when he was 13.

Who’d have thought that Alexander Hamilton would make a great subject for Hip Hop and Rap and jam poetry? The Tony Award winner, Lin-Manuel Miranda did. Watch him do his Alexander Hamilton Mixtape at the White House. Really, history has never been so hip. Andrea, this one is especially for you, you High School teacher and Economics Geek you. 🙂

.

55 thoughts on “Money Money Money”

  4. Falling

    Like Mr. Monk, I am baffled by virtual money. My grasp of economics is terribly poor, and whenever I hear stories about the economy, a part of me always quietly thinks, “Why don’t they just make some more money? They’ve got the printers…”

    That Brazil story is ca-razy. Gotta go listen to the whole story.
    Falling recently posted…FreakosystemMy Profile

    Reply ↓
  8. pattypunker

    um this country could use some economists that could think outside of the box and yes, then they’d be national heroes.

    ps: i don’t trust businesses that only accept cash. i always feel like they’re avoiding taxes and worse, they’re totally inconvenient to me!
    pattypunker recently posted…pussy galoreMy Profile

    Reply ↓
  9. The Sweetest

    Every year, for Christmas my aunt give me a “money pad”. Literally, a pad of money. Instead of paper, it is twenty-five brand new $1 bills. And whenever you need one, you just tear it off. It’s so fun! You would love it. That whole Brazilian thing sounds like a crisis in the making.
    The Sweetest recently posted…Faded LinesMy Profile

    Reply ↓
  10. Vinny C

    I developed the same appreciation for new bills during my stint in banking (though they could be a sonuvabitch to count quickly). I also developed a preference for doing everything electronically. Paying bills online, using debit & credit cards. Ive become a virtual (pun intended) slave to the convenience of it all.
    Vinny C recently posted…Finally! I Have ArrivedMy Profile

    Reply ↓
  12. Venom

    As a Canadian, I can just IMAGINE Dennis O’Leary creaming his jeans over this concept. He and the Dragons could no doubt improve our country’s bottom line, but he would NOT be gentle about it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Absence Alternatives Post author

      I had to google who O’Leary and the Dragons are. *hangs head*

      I think the idea of URV worked because they were given total reign and the government stood by the idea. I am pretty sure they were maligned and people had doubts when they replaced the old currency with URV by trucking the new bills into banks all over the country on one day!

      Reply ↓
  13. Tiffany

    cash? what’s that?

    you’re throwing me back to last semester with brazil. i had to do a presentation on the inflation problem in brazil in the 90’s and determine how they should fix it. i didn’t even have my mba yet and already people are expecting me to solve nationwide financial problems. geez.

    Reply ↓
    1. Absence Alternatives Post author

      But 2 old crappy bills in hand are better than one crisp new bill in the bush right? 😉

      p.s. sorry that I didn’t let your comments out of Spam Jail till now. I hope your comments were not assaulted by “Singapore Escort” and “Ugg Boots” while there.

      Reply ↓
  22. Andrea

    And by “heros,” of course I meant “heroes.” (This teacher usually relies on spell check.)

    The video reminds me though — I had some students (who are performers in dance and choir) recently ask if they could write an economics song for extra credit. I can’t wait. I hope it turns into Glee right in my classroom.
    Andrea recently posted…The GameMy Profile

    Reply ↓
  23. Andrea

    Hey! Awesome! I was getting excited as I read along, thinking “Oh, this will be PERFECT when we talk about currency and inflation, and again when we talk about monetary policy!” YAY!! Your post just turned into a lesson plan for me. And it’s pretty rare that economists are made out to be heros. 😉 Thanks so much!

    And I, too, NEVER have cash. Not even $1. Ridiculous.
    Andrea recently posted…The GameMy Profile

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.