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Funny Money: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:250px-Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg|link=Truth in Television|
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* The ''[[MASH|M* A* S* H]]'' episode "Change Day" involved the army issuing new scrip to the soldiers, and the Korean locals would be forbidden from exchanging the soon-to-be-worthless scrip they had been paid over the years by soldiers. Charles tried to pull a Get Rich Quick Scheme and purchased old scrip from the Koreans at 10¢ on the dollar. Hawkeye and BJ thwarted him by getting a friendly MP to close the road so that Charles was unable to pass. They then purchased $400 in old scrip from ''him'' at 10¢ on the dollar, exchanged it for new scrip, and refunded a soldier's stolen money, leaving Charles to eat a huge loss.
* One episode of ''[[Simon and Simon]]'' saw the brothers imprisoned in an imaginary Latin American dictatorship, sentenced to pay a hefty fine (something like "a hundred thousand pistartes", or whatever the fake currency was). While in jail, they meet an ex-pat American and relate to them their doubts about paying such a "large" amount. When told about the fine, the ex-pat says, "Guys... that's about fifty bucks!" The brothers Simon are soon out of jail.
* [[Invoked]] and then [[Averted]] in an episode of ''[[JAG]]''. Harm ends up in a fender bender caused by a beautiful Italian girl, who doesn't want any legal trouble and offers him several thousand Lira (in the form of a wad of cash) as compensation. Harm [[Genre Savvy|points out]] that she's offering him less than twenty dollars. It's only later that Harm learns she is [[Four
* The Canadian dollar being [[Funny Money]] was a running gag on ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway]]'', mostly because regular Colin Mochrie was Canadian.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
[[Truth in Television]]: Just look at all these examples of the consequences of [
== Africa ==
* Zimbabwe's [
== Asia ==
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* The South Korean Won is at approximately 1,000 Won = $1 US. Unfortunately, the largest size bill available to the general public is 10,000 Won, which with the varying exchange rates tends to be about an $8~$11 bill at most. Now Korean landlords, when renting to Americans, like their rent for the year up front, in cash...So every year to two years, a number of Americans are seen with large brown paper bags full of 10,000 Won bills. To give an idea, my family was living in a 4-bedroom apartment that cost 5,000,000 Won a month.
** Currently in 2010, the largest size bill available to the general public is 50,000 Won, thank you very much.
** The North Korean [
* Prior to [[World War II]], the Japanese Yen was worth around $12 in current (2009) U.S. currency, but faced a steep decline during and after. It was set at 360 to the dollar for a long time after the war, but now fluctuates with the market, usually hovering just over $0.01 since a few years ago.
** In the prewar period, there were even ''smaller'' values: the Sen (1/100 Yen, and origin of the term ''[[Hot Springs Episode|Sento]]'') and the Rin (1/10 Sen, or ''1/1000'' Yen). These fractional values became nigh on worthless after the War and were discontinued, though the Sen still pops up regularly in discussions of exchange rates and stock prices.
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** There are stamps that still exist that are for the postage of 20 '''billion''' Marks (actually 20 '''milliard''', due to differences in how the US and Europe calculate one billion, but it is still an unimaginably huge number to mail a letter...) So many of them were printed and so few were actually used that you can get mint uncancelled specimens for little more than a song, but a genuinelly cancelled and postally-used one could set you back a pretty ''pfennig''.
* During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the value of Polish zloty (currency code: PLZ) fell so badly that before the redenomination in 1995, the largest bill in circulation (introduced in 1992) was "only" [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tsrhPoQ27C0/TeEUiXWnxAI/AAAAAAAAO0E/eEHdUhofyLo/s1600/banknoty_stare_pl_2000000z%25C5%2582.jpg two million zlotys] - worth roughly 80 USD at the time. The new money (currency code: PLN) was established by dropping four zeroes from the old one's value (1 PLN = 10000 PLZ) and in 2011, the largest bill in use, 200 PLN (introduced in 1995), is worth roughly 70 USD.
* Of course, these examples pale into comparison with the post-war Hungarian pengő, which experienced the '''single worst example of hyperinflation in history'''. The 100 million B-pengő (i.e. ''100,000,000,000,000,000,000 pengő'') [
** To quote one source (''Postwar'' by Tony Judt) "by the time the pengo was replaced by the forint in August 1946 the dollar value of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation was just one-thousandth of one cent." Most triumphant example indeed.
*** The modern forint is not in a good position either, with exchange rate being roughly $1 == 200 Ft, although this is going to change as Hungary is considering adopting the euro sometime around <s>2012</s> <current year>+5 years.
* The early-90s Yugoslav dinar ([http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:500000000000_dinars.jpg image]) holds the record for the most zeroes printed on a banknote.
** That is until Zimbabwe created a 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill in mid-January 2009.
*** And a [
*** After going through a long period of hyperinflation (at one point the inflation rate was over 230 ''million'' percent, and the money supply was growing by 658 ''billion'' percent) and three revaluations, the Zimbabwean dollar was suspended in January 2009, and finally abandoned in April 2009. Before the third revaluation, the exchange rate was 300 trillion Zimbabwean dollars to 1 US dollar. ATMs were unable to cope with the amounts of money people needed to withdraw, producing overflow errors. One 2005 Zimbabwe dollar was worth 10 ''septillion'' (10^25) 2009 Zimbabwe dollars.
* The French franc was replaced in 1960 by the new franc (nicknamed 'heavy franc') at a hundred to one. See the ''[[Casino Royale (Literature)|Casino Royale]]'' novel for an example of what it was like before. Old people in France used to think in "old francs" until the euro was introduced.
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** A weak Canadian dollar was part of the reason for the [[NHL]]'s push for expansion into the United States about twenty years ago. Since the Canadian dollar's rise, the NHL is talking about opening a franchise in, possibly, Quebec City (which hasn't had its own team since the Nordiques moved to Colorado in 1995). Even more strident has been the gossip about the Phoenix [[The Scottish Trope|team]] returning to Winnipeg; as of May 24, 2010, the Free Press has carried a front-page article or headline about the Jets' possible return in every single issue published since November 2009.
*** And as of May 31, 2011, Winnipeg has an NHL hockey team once again--previously the Atlanta Thrashers, now the ''new'' Winnipeg Jets. Atlanta is the only U.S. city to lose an NHL team to Canada, and this team is the second they've lost. (The previous one was the Atlanta Flames, which moved to Calgary.) No word yet on the...[[The Scottish Trope|team]] in Phoenix.
** A lot of provinces have printed their own money. Some did so because they were independent colonies (or even separate countries) at the time, but in other cases the influence of an ultra-rightist political movement called Social Credit was at fault. A Social Credit government in Alberta even tried to nationalize the banks operating in the province (yes, conservative nationalizers!) and when that didn't work they issued [
** Look in any Canadian's wallet, and you're probably going to find some Canadian Tire Money. While these notes are officially not money, but "cash bonus coupons" redeemable for merchandise at any Canadian Tire store, many other businesses in Canada will also accept them as cash.
*** One enterprising criminal was caught smuggling counterfeit Canadian Tire money into the country
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* One US dollar is worth around 500 Chilean pesos. Why they haven't dropped three zeroes like Mexico did, no one knows...
** It's not necessary, the economy is running fine and a massive money reprint would bring more inconveniences to the public, the 5 pesos coin behaves exactly the same as a cent (including being the chump change that no one enjoys having in their pockets) and the 1 peso coin is quite rare (and worthless).
** [
*** On a tangentially related note, Chile [http://lowercasel.blogspot.com/2010/02/chile.html misspelled its own name on its 50-peso coin]. Said coins are really sought after, since: 1.- Fake rumors began running that the government was issuing a 25000 pesos (around 50 USD) reward for each one, and 2.- Chilean numismatists are actually offering that much for them online.
** If you actually want to hear about actual Chilean Funny Money, try with the Chilean Escudo, their currency during the 60's and 70's. It was issued in 1960 and replaced in 1975 by the New Peso, Today's Currency: While around 100 New Chilean Pesos were worth 1 Dollar, 1 Peso was worth about ''1000 Escudos''!
* Brazil faced hyperinflation several times over the 20th century, always ending up introducing a new currency only to see it lose value again. This ended in 1994 with the ''[
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]
[[Category:Funny Money]]
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