Business: Financial: Banking
Devil Dollars   (+5, -2)  [vote for, against]
give the devil his due with voodoo notes aka leave the money and run

On all Bank of England appear these words: "I promise to pay the bearer on demand......"

"The words "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five [ten/twenty/fifty] pounds" date from long ago when our notes represented deposits of gold. At that time, a member of the public could exchange one of our banknotes for gold to the same value. For example, a £5 note could be exchanged for five gold coins, called sovereigns. But the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, so the meaning of the promise to pay has changed. Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value." (bank of England website)

I am proposing a small sub text to now be added to all US dollar notes, which would allow them to be traded at a higher face value, if the protective ink was scratched off by the first person to take possession of the note following its dispensing from an ATM, or any similar source. This would make the note worth more for the first transaction for which it was used.

This sub text would read: "As the bearer of this note, I promise to give the Devil his due, in exchange for the extra value indicated"

To redeem the increased value, a visit to a Voodoo Bank is required, where the extra options are signed over, in exchange for the promised supplementary value.

The whole process would save the Federal Bank the trouble of printing extra notes, yet have the same net effect, and the Devil would get his due, so everyone's happy.
-- xenzag, Dec 17 2011

This assumes that bankers are in league with the Devil, and that Satan himself is a banker. Oh, wait…

<Albert Einstein>

"God does not play dice with the Universe, but Satan counts the chips at the end…"

</Albert Einstein>
-- 8th of 7, Dec 17 2011



random, halfbakery