Get infinite money by printing currencies of other nations.
Posted by FlamingBolide@reddit | CrazyIdeas | View on Reddit | 57 comments
So I was thinking about how money is so sophisticatedly made that only other nations could counterfeit them, and how nations can basically print infinite money, with the only thing stopping them being inflation. So what if we combine the 2 ideas and start printing currency from other countries and let them deal with the inflation instead. Infinite money glitch.
Red__M_M@reddit
North Korea has entered the chat.
Chris_Thrush@reddit
In the early 90's we discovered Sadam Hussein had been printing our currency with the same machines and process we used. In fact we sold him the machines to do it while backing him against Iran during the Iran/Iraq war. He was using repaired plates bought on the private market. The series 70-80 bills he was producing were indistinguishable from the real article. Our only recourse was to ugrade our bills and anti counterfeit measures and take the 70-80 series bills out of circulation. That little operation devaluated our encomony by several billion dollars. It is also very likely that our intelligence services knew it and didn't disclose inorder to preserve the Iraqi intelligence we were getting on Iran
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ambiguous-light@reddit
Printing other countries currency was generally seen as an act of aggression. Today it would probably cause a war
FlamingBolide@reddit (OP)
Would it though? Nuclear superpowers are too afraid of each other to declare war, and if they don't have nuclear weapons you can sort of just bully them.
gc3@reddit
North Korea was heavy into counterfeiting American currency and the US kept adding in more security features to stop it.
Hot_Entertainment_27@reddit
The US tries everything... except retireing old series of bills?
DaSuspicsiciousFish@reddit
And invalidate the money in use? You either steal money from people or banks, or have to produce a stupidly large amount of money every couple years
shitmyfeetstinks@reddit
Just add a grace periode where you can exchange them, but have to register with a valid id and bank account. We do that here and I have used it, works fine. You just mail it in to the national bank that does the printing and they wire the value to your account.
DaSuspicsiciousFish@reddit
I understand, but based off a tiny bit of googling there are 41.5 BILLION individual bills in circulation (since google says 14 billion 1$ bills are in circulation and they make up 31% of the bills) so that would be 100 days of printing just to replace those bills, so while it’s possible I feel like it’s too large of a amount to do regularly
xrelaht@reddit
What is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing doing with its facilities other than printing bills for those 100 days?
DaSuspicsiciousFish@reddit
Currently 95% of the output is being used to replace bills that are to worn out to be used, so they either have to cut that back a lot (so grosser bills need to continue being used) or build new facilities and store a ton of bills at once, which could then be stolen and ruin the point of new bills
xrelaht@reddit
Except for $100s, US bills last 5-8 years. That means ~16% of them are being replaced every year. That’s 7 billion bills over roughly 250 working days, or 2.8 billion in the 100 day period you’re saying it would take to replace all 41.5 billion. That means there’s enough excess capacity to do this in 108 days with no slowdown of normal operations.
Bcasturo@reddit
This kinda naturally happens though if you bring an old or damaged bill into a bank they will send it back to the federal reserve for destruction
rndrn@reddit
Well, first thing is that paper money is a small part of money supply nowadays. For example, US M2 money supply is 10 times larger than the amount of dollars in circulation.
Second, it's not that easy to import counterfeit money to a country at a scale that is larger than what the country itself prints. There are custom checks at the border.
Third, there are escalation steps before nuclear war. Notably economical ones. You could maybe restrict trade with the country that counterfeits your money and with the countries that accept it, or sanction individual people responsible for it, or plenty other soft retaliation measures.
bell37@reddit
Bc world economy depends on trust between different countries. You pull the rug and they’ll start making decisions that will slowly chip away at your home country’s bottom line.
Also a lot of countries are creditors to US debt. If you tank their economy you are also indirectly tanking your own (because who tf is going to continue buying US bonds)?
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heagnix@reddit
Yes, it absolutely would. Like a military attack, it’s a threat to their sovereignty and they have no choice but to respond in some fashion.
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No-Sail-6510@reddit
The US could do it if they wanted to but also they can “counterfeit” their own money in any quantity they want which is exactly what they do.
Financial_Tour5945@reddit
It certainly could.
Crashing a countries economy with hyperinflation is a death sentence. The point of nukes has often been touted as mutually assured destruction.
It's actually one of the few things that could actually cause a country to drop nukes - it could literally be the only option for them faced with the end of a functioning country.
Outside-Shop-3311@reddit
Do you really want to risk it all on “let’s hope they’re not upset enough”?
And when they counterfeit your currency back?
warpedspockclone@reddit
Better that be the cause than a dirty diaper
omnibossk@reddit
I don’t think North Korea cares. They keep the press going
H4llifax@reddit
This reminds me of a real story about a portuguese counterfeiter who single-handedly brought down the economy with his schemes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis
<- very much worth reading
tkpwaeub@reddit
The GENIUS Act lays out conditions under which stablecoins can be backed by foreign currencies. That's damn close.
Charkid17@reddit
Mass quality counterfeiting has historically been a valid wartime tactic.
zealoSC@reddit
Isn't it considered a war crime these days?
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Darth_Bunghole@reddit
"valid" lol
Brimstone88@reddit
Some sources on that? Sounds interesting.
cyrilio@reddit
yup, Germany did it during WWII and North Korea more recently.
Financial_Tour5945@reddit
Predating modern paper/credit currency even. Debasement of foreign coin has been going on for Millenia.
spoonybard326@reddit
North Korea already came up with this idea.
Mysterious-Tie7039@reddit
Germany had it before them. They tried it with the GBP during WW2.
Zhenaz@reddit
Japan also printed 4 billion Chinese money during WW2, only to find out that these money would make no difference as Chiang printed 198 billion of them.
xrelaht@reddit
France did it to the Brits in the 17th century.
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Ala_Lia@reddit
Isn’t this what the Peaky Blinders movie is about?
SunfireAlpha01@reddit
This is actually a thing, and it’s considered a kind of warfare.
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Unusual-Elk-1926@reddit
Way better than a glamour shot series
mack_dd@reddit
Modern problems require modern solutions
Downtown_Boot_3486@reddit
Either they'll start mass printing your money in retaliation or they'll start a war over it, either way you don't get anything out of it.
lanathebitch@reddit
Typically this is how spies are paid or at least that's how it worked in the past.
it's probably still true but Getting Any Nation to admit to it is unlikely
NoodleyP@reddit
Ok some other countries’ currencies are less secure, counterfeiting them and bringing them to a forex is easier than USD for sure
Nannyphone7@reddit
Printing your enemy's currency to crash their economy is a trick that is as old as printed money.
jthomas287@reddit
We could balance the budget.
CriticalMaybe2624@reddit
Dope, let's do it
Professional_Sail910@reddit
This made no sense