Are things really so grim up north? In an effort to shrink their own budget deficit, Canada has decided to go the Franklin Mint route and sell quarters (you know, those coins that are only worth 25 cents no matter how much you gussy them up?) for $29.99.
I suppose the one thing that DOES bode well for this “investment” is that it has a defined floor — since these quarters ARE technically legal tender within Canada (unlike the crap the Franklin Mint peddles), they’ll always be worth at least “25 cents” (What? Inflation? What’s that?). Still, that’s a potential (hell, probable) depreciation in value of almost 900%.
You may be asking, “What the hell makes these quarters ‘worth’ $30.00?” Well, they have glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs on them. Of course! That’s the most natural thing in the WORLD to put on money!
So the Canadian government went back to prehistory for economic inspiration, and set the Delorean’s time circuits to 1985 on the way back for good measure. Is the obverse side of the coin heat-sensitive like a Hyper-Color shirt? I sure hope so.
This shit is straight out of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations; you know, right after the chapter where Smith says it’s a good investment in your future economy to teach young investors that spending thirty bucks on an item that will only ever be worth 25 cents is sound fiscal policy. Huzzah! I just discovered the cause of the financial collapse! You may pay me in glow-in-the-dark dinosaur coins for my services.
That there is An Yanshi, a Chinese calligraphy teacher who claims he listened to the music of the spheres and that it told him that green tea leaves grown in panda poop have twice the cancer-prevention power of regular green tea leaves.
“But Matt, surely this guy can’t be serious?!”
First: don’t call me Shirley. Second, he very serious. So serious he’s actually secured a license from the Chinese government.
But real talk: we’ve been using animal pooh as a fertilizer for tens of thousands of years, both wittingly and unwittingly. The use of panda pooh in lieu of good ol’ democracy-loving bovine/equine/swine-ine waste to grow vegetables isn’t what’s shocking. It’s the price tag this dude thinks such tea is worth: $343 per 50 grams. That’s a lot of green for not a lot of green (tea)! And this insane pricing might seem more fair if there was actual, y’know, scientific evidence backing up An’s claim. But there’s not.
So, y’know, same old story: starving-Chinese-calligraphy-teacher-comes-up-with-hare-brained-get-rich-quick-scheme-to-dupe-consumption-obsessed-Westerners-out-of-their-money (which is really China’s anyway now because of how Crippling Debt Rules Everything Around Me—C.D.R.E.A.M.) (Via ForkParty.com)
It’s no small secret that the punditocracy feels pretty dismissive about the whole Occupy Wall Street movement. Even those on the left-ish side of things always sound like they’re sort of grasping at straws in an effort to articulately defend the movement. Unfortunately, a lot of that is because those that are actually doing the occupying have difficulty doing that as well.
In a twist of irony that any young hipster can appreciate, credit bank behemoth American Express is promoting Small Business Saturday, the Saturday that falls between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, that’s November 26th. It’s a pretty cool initiative to urge consumers to spend at their favorite local, independently-owned shops as an alternative to the big box stores this holiday season. Check it out:
File under “things you didn’t want to know about sausage-making”: apparently, even though penguins mate with the same partner for life, they aren’t above steppin’ out to shake their money-makers and earn a little cash on the side.
According to the BBC, pent-up single male Adelie penguins will eagerly part with some of their most-prized stones (what passes for a dowery in Antarctica these days; I hear we’re headed toward a similar economy ourselves) for seven minutes in heaven with just about any lady-bird that waddles up—even if she’s not, in fact, “single”.
These gold-digging pragmatic ladies have been documented by scientists trading sexual favors to these sad-sack young men for stones that they then take back to the homestead for hubby to use in nest-building. Talk about a frigid b*tch!
I can see it all unfolding now, Mad Men-style: “Hey honey! How was your day? Oh wow! I had no idea being a member of the secretarial pool paid so well! Keep up the hard work, and we’ll catch up to the Joneses in no time!”
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