Anti-money You go to the ATM, figure you’ll withdraw enough cash to last for a while, minimize those ATM fees. $3000 pesos ought to do it (roughly $230). The bills flip out of the machine like tongues wagging: a $1000 peso note and 4 $500 peso notes. You’ve just been given anti-money. No cab driver will accept any of those bills. No polleria (chicken shop), pasteleria (bakery), small tienda (store). No vegetable, fruit, or flower vendor on the street or in the Mercado, in fact, no one in the Mercado at all. The bills are too big, you may as well carry around lead ingots. For some reason, or no reason at all, change (“cambio”) is perpetually scarce, and retailers and taxistas jealously ration what coins and small bills they have to make sales. A guy with a $500 p note buying $20 p worth of bananas can drain their reserves. (A guy with a $1000 p note is clearly from out of town.) So, in a way 25 $20 p notes are effectively worth more than a $500 p note. And perversely, for most practical purposes a $1000 p note is worth less than 20 $50 p notes. This is the anti-logic of anti-money. You quickly learn this phrase: “Lo siento, no tengo cambio.”
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 22:07:15 +0000
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