My last post pierced the thin veneer of pretending I don’t notice America’s national debt. I shouldn’t have looked behind the curtain, but a few years ago I was even worse at pretending. Take a ride in the wayback machine with me to around 2007…
The economy had a hiccup. First Bush and then Obama tried to “fix” it using a politician’s superpower; pissing away money. It became a contest to see which party was better at fucking up.
At first Bush took a strong lead. He gave it the Harvard/Yale try with unpopular bank bailouts. I have to hand it to him, nothing says “piss off the people” like burying bankers with unearned money. Bush probably thought he had it in the bag.
Later Obama proved he had the chops to become world champion money burner of the century. While Bush routed money to his pals, Obama routed it everywhere. He managed to really ramp up taxpayer dissatisfaction with “shovel ready” bad ideas like destroying Volvos. A comeback story leading to a landslide of suck.
It just goes to show that with enough isolation a person can believe destroying cars poor people drive creates money. Once you can do that the sky is the limit.
Watching DC burn money like a monkey with a blowtorch boggled my mind. My dog suggested I get a hobby so I started making charts. Check it out (link goes to a post from 2011):
Many decades of intelligence and then America goes APESHIT.
The point is, I’d lost a subtle connection. I’d lost the innate (and irrational) belief that one particular printed slip of paper is magically worth more than some other slip of paper… such as toilet paper. If you still believe, cling tight to it. Much like belief in Santa, once you lose it, life gets scarier.
Aside from rants and charts, the other thing I did was buy Zimbabwe dollars. This was right after Zimbabwe had really screwed the pooch. I spent a pittance on e-bay and got some $100,000,000,000.00 Zimbabwe notes. I had great fun with them.
They made good bookmarks. They looked pretty. I gave them as gifts.
They’re interesting and also an economic lesson for the math averse. When people started telling me how spending lots and lots of imaginary unicorn money would make the economy awesome because spread the wealth socialist happy time… I’d nod and give ’em a $100,000,000,000.00 note. Maybe I’d say something snide like “this will help pay for the free Obamaphones” or “I really care about your hippie cause, here’s my donation” or even “math is hard, here’s free money”. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen someone lecturing you about free magic stuff grasping a $100,000,000,000.00 bill that’s totally real and totally useless. The light bulb goes off with the realization “this idea has been tried before“.
I had a lot of fun with those fancy printed pieces of nothing.
Once, I made a trade at a pawn shop. “I like that object. Will you take $100,000,000,000.00 for it?” They got a novelty and I got my object. I’ll write about it sometime.
Eventually I “spent” all my useless money. I’m just plain out of valueless $100,000,000,000.00 bills. Bummer.
I was going to buy more but now they’re all “uncirculated” and sold for collectors. (Still cheap but not “give ’em away” cheap.) Ironically I coulda’ bought a suitcase full of useless paper at fifty cents a pop and sell them right now (a few years later) for a small profit. Does anything more perfectly represent our strange era than regretting giving away a $100,000,000,000,000.00 bill which cost me $0.50 because now it’s probably worth $2? Just roll it around in your head; the world is nuts!
If only there was some other place that’s demonstrating the magic of socialist economics.
Oh yeah, Venezuela. Last I knew a single American greenback was worth well over 1,000 bolivar fuerte.
So I’m thinking I want wads of useless money because they amuse me. I’m not a collector, I’m just weird. There’s got to be someone in Venezuela who’s staring at a wad of useless money on the kitchen table that would love to have a few greenbacks instead. We could strike a deal.
Incidentally it doesn’t have to be physical greenbacks; I can transfer a bitcoin or a phone card or ship a package of Mountain House or whatever is appropriate. If you’re such a person, or know of someone who’s sitting on a wad of junk fiat paper, drop me an e-mail (for privacy) or post something in the comments.
Incidentally I’m proposing a legitimate small purchase of physical paper or coins. I don’t want your Nigerian inheritance and I don’t want anyone in Venezuela (or me) getting in trouble. The late stages of a socialist economic collapse can get ugly so please take care. This is just for fun and maybe it’ll modestly help someone who’s in the shit in a tough place.
Funny, somebody someday will be doing the same thing.
“Hey, AC, got any Franklins? I want a dozen to use for making your point, here’s our (at the moment…) sound currency that I can buy things with.”
I sure wish I could guess what “sound currency” they’ll be using!
“I want a truckload of groceries and a tank of gasoline. Here’s a handful of .22 shells, a can of Sprite, an Alf pog, two spark plugs, and a queen of spades.”
What’s money when paper ‘aint? Man oh man… it’s the big question isn’t it?
Money is a shared fantasy. A convenient strage unit for human life. Even money ‘backed’ by some commodity is a floating cork in a stormy sea. The Spanish brought so much gold and silver back from the new world that they created inflation in the value of gold.
Talk about a first world problem. “I’ve got so much gold I’ve created inflation in gold.” Sure beats Dutch Tulips or crashed paper.
Even so I’ve yet to find an actual person in Venezuela who can stuff actual paper in an actual envelope.
Well someone in Venezuela would be up for sending cash for something but how are they going to pay for the stamp? I doubt a self addressed, stamped envelope will work – it would get stolen!
Nothing’s impossible. It’s just logistics and someone who’s on the ground would have ideas we may lack from this vantage.
Maybe DHL operates there? Maybe I can pay postage with paypal? Maybe someone can drop an envelope in the mail at a secure box? Maybe COD still exists? Who knows?
Also who’s going to steal a stamp? Folks are starving and there’s a currency collapse but that doesn’t make a stamp or an envelope of worthless currency an attractive target of theft. If you were in the same situation would you scrape off a $0.50 stamp on the way to looting a WalMart? I presume there’s something they could use (Amazon gift certificate? delivered food? local pizza delivery coupons? cell phone minutes?) and if they’ve got something they can’t use (useless paper) they’ll try to figure it out.
Even in WWII or the final stages of Soviet collapse the mail worked… sometimes.
That said, I don’t speak Spanish and my tiny audience is mostly Americans. I may never make contact this way.
When the crash comes here, I will be accepting comic books and books as currency.
I hear people are using cell phone minutes. I’d rather have a comic book.
AC I already have somewhere around 20,000 comics, and I’d rather trade for them over other things that can be more useful. Most preppers buy so much bullets, beans, and gear it surprises me to see how little concerned they are for entertainment. I’m heavily stocked in entertainment that doesn’t need electricity (card games, board games, RPG, books, and comics), so that when the. collapse comes I’ll have something to do in the down time and not go crazy. Plus I think people will value a good book or game as much as they value eating, and well more than they value gold for awhile. When I can finally shed the suburbs for the country and a bigger place, I’m going to add billiards, bubble hockey, shuffle table, foos ball, and darts to my stock along with a still so I can have a career in the apocalypse.
Nobody values anything more than eating. But as soon as people are fed your ideas have merit. Once you’ve got the billiards table you’re almost ready to open a bar after the apocalypse. (A saloon?) You’ll be a pillar of society!
P.S. This Christmas Curmudgeon Compound had a power outage, it was a perfect opportunity for a board game and we all enjoyed it.
AC, what board game did you play? I’m aiming for a post apocalypse saloon and brewery. I’d let my clientele buy drink to bring home, while providing a place to be entertained and share news and trade (also drink). Maybe develop a casino eventually if all goes well. I’d definitely aim to be a pillar of society, it adds a layer of protection.
The kids are in charge of board games, though I tend to be willing to foot the bill for them. (Modern board games, like everything, are more expensive than the ratty old junk we had as kids.)
My favorites are Ticket to Ride Europe, Catan, and Pandemic. I think Pandemic is most innovative, a “cooperative game” is clever. The kids like Legendary but I think it’s outlandishly over complicated. Same with Five Tribes which is like three really interesting games mashed into one; a bit over complex.
We played a bunch of board games over the holidays. I try to make as much time as I can for them. I figure any time a kid is playing a board game with his or her parents, it’s a win for civilization.
Kids playing board games with the peeps is definitely a win. Ticket to Ride is a great game, my gaming group plays it often. Gloom and Munchkin are pretty fun as a group. However, Betrayal at House on the Hill is our favorite most played game, and I’d recommend it over any other game for now.
We like Munchkin too. It has a great nerdy/satirical vibe. The kids have a zillion expansion packs.
If you do score some, I’d like to get in on it because I am a collector. Please let me know!
I’ll look into it. Maybe if someone has fiat paper to sell I’ll arrange to get enough for you too.
Thanks!
Hyperinflation is not fun. In Brazil in the 1980s people used to rush and buy ANYTHING with their wages, blow the lot on stuff, and sell it off during the month or exchange it for something they needed. It was the only way to try and maintain the value.
It was also incredibly inefficient as the first hours of the day were spent on this instead of more productive activities.
Am I foolish? I bought enough Iraqi Dinar to actually paper one wall in the office. The cost was about what you would pay for a sheet of class ‘A’ marine plywood. I believe I’ll amble down to the First Fed. branch on Monday and see what a shoe box load of “VenezCash” is going to cost me! May just do the spot in the garage next to the CatBox.
Does your bank sell the small denominations? I’ve never tried buying paper at a bank that’s worth a dime or a quarter or whatnot.
I wonder if your nearest CITY airport might be able to help you with your worthless foreign money. Most larger airports have a money exchange. Naturally they would mainly have pounds, francs etc but its possible some well connected person from Venezuela or similar may have traveled to the US. Or?? The money exchange might be able to at least tell you how to get some worthless money ( as opposed to US fiat money).
our local “PNC” serves up what ever ya have the FRNs for. Detroit express has a currency exchange in the baggage pick up area in the ‘International terminal’.
How many bolivar’s does it take to buy a roll of toilet paper?
Don’t know if I should ask for value or volume.
Your graph is a bit off…. Folks like to talk of “budget surpluses” that it shows during the Good Times of the Clinton years. Yet why did the national debt continue to climb (~240 billion a year) as much as it did during the Reagan Years (average ~260 billion of year)? (source: Treasury Direct)
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
It’s because of an accounting trick that puts SS as income, not a future liability. Voila! Instant fiscal responsibility Arthur Andersen Style!
“I’d lost the innate (and irrational) belief that one particular printed slip of paper is magically worth more than some other slip of paper… such as toilet paper. ”
I read an article earlier that TP was no longer available in the magnificent communist state of Venezuela due to price controls where the government put the price well below the cost to manufacture.
Perhaps a trade of some Angel Soft would prove you point with some irony thrown in for fun
Mike
I also recall an article where the government was complaining about the dreaded sin of “hoarding” toilet paper. Socialism always ends the same.