Word: plastic money
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...bills, printed on a peculiar plastic-like material in an unfamiliar size and adorned with never-before-seen designs, are meant to replace the old, ratty paper bills that cause germaphobes to collapse in conniptions every time they are handed change. The problem is the new bills were slipped into the economy without any public awareness campaign and minimal forewarning. A week after the plastic money was let loose on the economy, the Central Bank still hadn't updated its website to indicate that the new bills even existed. (See the top 10 public panics...
...result, most people didn't know what to think when they were suddenly handed a new plastic 10 or 20 cordoba bill, the lowest denominations of Nicaraguan tender and therefore the most commonly used. "This looks like European money," says one taxi driver, in a voice hinting pride, as he twisted and creased the bill in cruel defiance of its seemingly indestructible space-age properties. Others have described it as "play money" or complain that its gloss makes it "slip through my hands...
...meantime, vendors such as Gloria Romero, whose small corner store sells a variety of oddities, says she'll hold on to her old money and keep the plastic bills moving so she doesn't get stuck holding them when the music stops. "I prefer to save these," she says, holding up two grungy paper notes, and wrinkling her nose in disgust...
...weeks, the sum is agreed - usually more than $2 million for a container ship or oil tanker. Then the cash is air-dropped by private security companies that specialize in delivering ransoms to Somali pirates; insurance brokers say that's only about three companies. "The money is concealed in large floating plastic containers, and flown by air and dropped," says Mike Regester, an insurance broker for the London company Cooper Gay, which covers oil and shipping companies for kidnap and ransom. "Then the pirates go out and pick it up," he says...
Once upon a time, a young physics concentrator with a penchant for cakes and a talented artist with a smile as big as his tower of hair flew to Paris on a mission to unveil inhalable chocolate to the world. By day they scoured the finest boutiques in Paris for...