One MILLION Dollars!

Gas prices. Food costs. Unemployment rates. Consumer confidence, and confidence in the direction that the USA is headed. There are a few people out there who feel that we are headed toward a deep recession. President Bush is pushing for offshore drilling and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and it's all happening just a few months after tax rebates and other economic stimulus measures.

I'm not trying to start a political discussion here. I bring this up because one of my coworkers (poor, uneducated girl) said "why doesn't the government just print some more money and hand it out?" Surprisingly enough, the sentence wasn't littered with the words "um, like.....".

Coincidentally, I was reading a couple articles earlier in the week about other countries' bouts with hyperinflation. Argentina, specifically, dealt with it in the 70's and 80's rendering their dollar completely worthless. The entire currency system had to be changed to keep up with it, and this was the result:

The hyperinflation issues have now been fixed so today, 1 million pesos would be worth about $330,000 US. However if our government started just printing tons of cash for shits and giggles I'm sure the following joke would drive you nuts after a while: