Always hated the look of most of the world's currency because it looks too colorful as if it's out of a Monopoly game.
Maybe it's just because I got used to the green look of US currency, but it just looks ridiculous to me to see money in other colors.
Well, the US has finally abandoned their green-and-white color scheme, and this is what the new $100 will look like:
Supposedly this is being done to make it more difficult to counterfeit.
We really need them to bring back $500 and $1000 bills, but that's not going to happen because of post-9/11 terrorism fears. Now the government wants more than ever to easily catch large amount of cash being physically moved, and larger bills make such money movement more difficult.
All middle and high limit poker players (at least ones who play live) know how brutal it is to carry around a ton of hundred dollar bills in order to be properly rolled in your games.
The worst was when they closed my Wynn box because I wasn't using it enough, and abruptly forced me to come down and empty it. I had $137,000 in there, and it was the middle of summer. I was terrified walking out in the parking lot with that kind of $. Yes, I could have gotten a security guard to walk me out, but that doesn't absolve the casino of responsibility and what if the dude tipped off his friends to rob me? Keep in mind that the Wynn had no clue how much I had in the box.
So I went down there with a jacket, stuffed the $137k in there and in my pants, looked around carefully (but not so much that I'd be noticed), sweated big time as I walked through the parking lot (probably should have valeted but didn't), and got into my car safely. If I got mugged then, the mugger would have hit a shocking prize.
Oddly enough, they had $1000 bills in the '70s, even though money was worth a lot more back then.
$100 in 1971 is worth more than $500 today. $100 in 1985 is worth about $200 today.