On Made Up Money

Not empty for long...?

~~~DON'T WORRY - this isn't another post moaning about how broke I am~~~

Economics, along with politics, is something I've never understood, nor really tried to. I had a conversation with my dad at the beginning of the economic crisis about how I didn't understand exchange rates because they are basically human inventions, so how can we all be at their mercy? Trying to explain my point I waffled through a long monologue that went something like this;

"I just don't get it. Exhcange rates...currencies...money...they're human inventions so how do they have this power over us? If you really think about money and stuff, it doesn't really exist".
"Not in your bank account it doesn't," he replied. Good one, father. Obviously I have since looked into the above and now understand things a little better (well, I could hardly understand them less) and you know what, things are looking up...

In recent weeks I've received a number of e-mails from wealthy people from all over the world, desperately trying to find a willing recipient for the millions of extra dollars, pounds or Nigerian naira they have in their accounts.

One god-fearing lady from UAE e-mailed me to say that her beloved husband had recently died and left her a rather princely sum of money. She wanted me to have all of it (I assume she kept a little back to live on - but I won't hold that against her, her husband has just died after all). She wanted me to have this money so much, because she knew that I'd use it in a respectful way and not for anything that would make God frown upon me. Her children couldn't be trusted you see, they had lost their way. She was obviously barking up the wrong tree, in the wrong forest, on the wrong fucking continent. I am going on such a massive bender with her husband's inheritance that it will probably make the news in Dubai and break her heart.

A bank in Nigeria e-mails me quite often too. I say often - it's not really that frequent, but they e-mail me far more often than all the other banks dotted around the world with which I have absolutely no dealings. They seem to have a lot of surplus USD that they need looking after. Why I'm the obvious candidate I don't know - maybe the holy woman from Dubai told them that I can be trusted? Still, send it over. I'll look after it for you. I'm nice like that.

And just this morning a nice man from a famous charity e-mailed me to let me know I've been granted $850,000. For no reason, just because they can I guess. Perhaps they collected more money than they knew what to do with DURING THE RECESSION and thought they'd reward me for the 20p I once dropped in a collection box. Here's me thinking that all the proceeds from the charity shops and collections go to people in real need around the globe. No - it goes to people like me, in the form of grants, which I'll add to my funds received from the religious widow and the Nigerian bank and start my immense pub crawl, to which everyone is invited. It looks like I've just won a German lottery too - would you believe I don't even remember entering it! So the drinks are on me - I'm minted!

And when we've all got killer hangovers, there's a Canadian pharmacy that keeps offering great prices so we'll stock up on aspirin.

LET THE FUN BEGIN!

On the other hand, things like this are actually quite scary. Being moderately technologically savvy, I know that these emails are rubbish and wouldn't think twice about sending any details or even replying (although I did once, in a drunken state, tell one to eff off and never email me again. I'd had a bad day). There are people out there though, I imagine, who will believe them. I don't think I'm going to let my mum on the internet any more, she's always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.