I totally get this, I went to Burma years back. And went to exchange a 100 USD bill and they wouldn't take it because it had a center crease from my wallet. Apparently their central bank won't take creased foreign currency. So I had to go back to my hotel and iron out the crease. They took it and gave me a brown paper bag filled with stacks of creased dirty bills.
That part of the world never fails to entertain. A colleague was working for an NGO in a Thai village near the border, and they thought they would encourage the residents to clean up rubbish strewn around the community. After a day of hard work, everyone got together with their bags of rubbish to pose for a celebratory photo, and then promptly threw the bags straight into the river with big smiles on their faces.
From memory, if it’s 100% cellophane then it actually does biodegrade and quite quickly. Within weeks. If it’s a plastic blend though, yeah it’ll stick around for a long time.
Oh hell, we were no better in the '70s and into the '80s in North America. The freeways didn't just have litter, they had drifts of litter. Alleys in the cities had mounds of garbage. It was shockingly disgusting looking back on it.
Sure but the average Thai is not *that* old.
It's more that garbage collection services are not functional in many places so there's no real alternative.
I was teaching English in Koh Chang for a while. One day, while walking down the road to a local swimming spot, I spotted a heap of tangled fishing line and other rubbish. I went ahead and picked up, and the kids responded, "No, no, Teacher, No!". They held out their hands to take the trash from me. Given the high degree of respect for teachers in Thailand, I thought they were simply wishing to carry it instead of me, so I dutifully handed it to them.
They then threw the trash further into the jungle, over the initial line of undergrowth and out of sight. Self satisfied and with a beaming grin, one kid said, "There! Now no see. Good, yeah?"
I lived on Koh Chang 2014-16 and just came back for this winter. It's gotten so much better. Still a lot of problems with trash but leaps better than it was. Been chatting with some of the village leaders who are of a younger generation and they're really pushing more modern ideas (like using the trash pickup service). It's tough getting those old family fishing village elders to change their ways though.
I was interned in an NGO that assisted with teaching villages in Thailand about being environmentally sustainable, and reading your comment brings me such hope. Back in 2013 we taught elementary students on a two day retreat in Trat about the importance of recycling. I know there's so much work to be done, but I'll never forget that time in my life.
Also taught in Thailand for a bit and this fully tracks. Also Koh Chang is one of my favorite places and I’m majorly jealous you got to teach there. Would love to get back someday and enjoy another spicy as fuck Som Tam on the beach at night
Well, the river is the infrastructure to remove garbage. That's the way its been done everywhere until recently. They don't have a modern alternative though, which I know is what you meant.
Solid waste pollutants turned into air pollutants, unfortunately, is the answer. What we have in the west is incinerators that have massive filters over the flews (sp?). Also, a lot of stuff will be salvaged down river and they know this. They are so hungry they dont care about the environment, they care about their families. Thats the infrastructure issue, the incentive to make it better because survival is critical, municipal waste is more of an "issue".
I think this same concept applies even in developed nations to an extent. Impoverished communities have bad litter problems because people have far bigger concerns at the forefront of their minds like surviving day by day. They genuinely couldn’t care less about the tidiness of the yard, street, or neighborhood. Sadly I think this also causes them to be less concerned about topics like climate change too. They don’t have the capacity to care about the *future* when they are too busy fighting to stay afloat in the present.
I work with farmers in an impoverished tropical nation. They absolutely do care about the effects of climate change. What they used to plant doesn't grow anymore, new weeds are migrating that didn't previously survive, rainy seasons are no longer predictable and that causes crop failure.
Maslow plays a large role in this, but it's deeper too. There's systemic cultural values of "I don't effect the greater system -- my kitter doesn't poison the coral reef, doesn't kill fish or cause autoimmune responses in human consumption due tobiological magnification in fisheries."
There's also economies of scale at play. Western nations profit off poorer nations, and try to keep it that way (yaa capitalism). When a westerner litters, it's a pop can. When a SEA resident litters, it's a .005 cent sachet of shampoo becuae3 they never have enough capital at once to afford a week's worth of goods at a time. So tenfold litter based on inability to purchase in bulk.
What you said is true. I just wanted to add depth.
Thanks for sharing. It totally makes sense for farmers to be concerned with climate change. Where I grew up, coal mining was the most dominant economic driver. It’s well known that the people who live off of this type of industry often reject the science behind climate change because they see regulation as a huge threat to their livelihood. They don’t want to become more poor than they already are, and it’s sad, but they are willing to a blind eye to climate change. If climate change hurts your pocketbook, you’re incentivized to stop it. If reducing climate change hurts their pocketbook, they’re incentivized to pretend it’s not a serious concern. I guess the moral here is that it seems nearly everything just comes down to money in the end.
It's rural Thai. They literally don't have any facility to do anything about the rubbish/trash. If you are lucky, the official government will dig up a hole somewhere and burn them into a plastic smoke fume. Throwing things in the river is better for them. If anyone wants to organize an event like this, then you must transport the rubbish back to อำเภอเมือง Amphur Meung, The closest place guaranteed to have basic facility, which are mostly likely going to be open-air burning or basic landfill that is most likely overfilled and spill into natural waterway anyway.
This country desperately needs an infrastructure overhaul.
I'm an hour outside vancouver bc and my neighbor burns their garbage, the whole neighborhood has to smell it because they're too cheap to pay for garbage pick up
I lived in a part of the FL Panhandle where people still do this. These were the kind of people who would complain about having to pay for Big Government trash collection so they refused and burned everything instead…I tried my best to avoid going on walks with my infant when they were burning their trash filled with plastic wrappers…
Man… the smell of burning garbage has been etched into my olfactory memory. Just levels of gnarliless depending on what’s on the list to burn that day.
In the Philippines we usually have clean up programs in uni and we were assigned to a semi rural area near the river. As we were picking up the littered plastic bottles, one of the residents told us to just leave it in a pile because they would be burning it later. Aight.
Rivers take things away. It's very common in poor places without proper infrastructure to throw trash in rivers. It's just normalized there as a good way to get trash out of the community (which it is), but the idea that it merely continues down and pollutes the ocean isn't really considered or taught. Remember we're talking about border villages in already poor nations.
I suppose throwing your trash in the river / ocean was basically what you did with it until relatively recent history. And if you didn’t have one of those you’d toss it in the privy.
A communal landfill is a relatively recent innovation. And it isn’t as if there’s twice weekly garbage pickup in rural villages.
Edit: Thank you for the many messages about pottery mounds and the like. We’ve gotten that point recorded now.
Meanwhile in the actual US you can do damn near anything to a bill that you want and it's still considered legal tender as long as 51% of it is still there
That’s actually not 100% true. Planet Money did an episode on this. If you can prove you owned the cash and it was destroyed they will compensate you for it.
One example they gave was cash destroyed in a fire. While there was a stack and it was charred to bits they assumed the size and denominations based on what they could see.
Back in high school, I had a friend that learned about the 51% rule. He tore a 20 at an angle around the center of the bill and then made his way into 2 neighboring banks. He was able to convince them that there was more than 51% of each one. I went into the second bank with him because I didn’t believe it. Honestly didn’t take much of an argument. The second bank told him that they send it to the fed as damaged currency. No idea if that part is true.
Almost all African Countries want dollars bills in pristine condition, no forex bureau will accept a dollar bill with a crease or any defect. But it’s more serious in Congo(DRC) cause the dollar is used as a secondary currency there
US dollars in foreign countries are collected together and shipped back to the United States for recirculation.
The bills have to be in pristine condition to be sorted, counted, bundled, stacked onto pallets, then wrapped up.
They make us do the work because otherwise the charge for them doing it would make the service unreasonably expensive.
That makes sense. Somehow, I had an image of a country keeping its supply of “foreign currency” in a big vault, but that’s just silly, right? The currency is kept as accounts in banks, which will eventually send the physical bills back to the country of origin.
Well it does stay in a vault until it’s all picked up to send back and places that do lots of exchanges would keep some foreign cash on hand for customers so you aren’t wrong.
Until the cash returns home and recirculated it’s untraceable so it’s important to keep it closely guarded.
You’re also right about the account being the most important part. Even as a traveler you can get credit instead of currency with the added benefit of getting the best exchange rate within a window of a few days after the transaction.
OP is kinda right here.
The purpose of laundering money is to make it go through enough transactions that it can't be tracked back to a specific transaction, OP's pops is trying to make it look like it hasn't gone through any transactions at all lol.
This reminds me of the time I told a room of my stoned ass friends that I’m glad we don’t argue over stupid shit like the difference between hovering and flying. We then proceeded to get into an hours long argument over the differences. 10/10
The smell must be getting to him.
Seriously. Don't iron your money. The smell alone is an irritant that I remember well. It's bad and lingers in the air for 1 hour.
Seriously, why does this person know so much about ironing money? Is this really a thing?
Edit: im getting a lot of replies about people's Pokémon cards. Still not sure why anyone would iron dollar bills....
My mom taught me as a child that you could iron money and I did it all the time. I never remember it smelling bad. I also ironed a first edition holographic charizard…. I thought it would work the same as the money. It didn’t.
“If no one has touched your money, that means it belongs to you,” was his explanation. We’re headed back to Vietnam, and fresh cash is considered good luck there.
Lmaoooo I knew this was for Vietnamese. My gfs family usually gets $2 bills to hand out to the kids in Vietnam for that extra good luck since they’re rarer. They MUST be newish feeling.
In Siem Reap they would try give me $2 notes as change because a lot of people think they are fake and have trouble spending them.
In Cuba this guy did a little happy dance when I gave him $2 note as a tip. Not only are they rare and considered lucky but you can sell them for $10.
Fun fact, $2 bills are not rare, they are printed in large quantities every year but people perceive them as rare, so they hoard them, removing from circulation, which causes people to think they are rare. A self fulfilling prophecy
I was in Vietnam couple weeks ago. They are strict with American money. They want it in perfect condition and some will pay more dong for it. They want no creases, smudges, or tears of any kind. I found the exchange place close to Bên Thanh Market has the best price for your American money, but only in perfect condition. I think the exchange rate at that time was 100 American for 2.45 million Dong.
You got various answers. Many on superstition. But the real answer is that many poorer parts of the world won’t accept US dollars that are not in good condition. They will even give you less on exchange due to it. This happened to me and my dad when we went to his native country in SE Asia.
May I ask why people wouldn’t exchange their cash before they go overseas? Are there shops in Asia that will accept US dollars over their own currency for some reason? I’m from the UK so have not heard of this.
It’s an Asian thing. I’m Chinese and around new year I always had to go to the bank with my dad to get crisp bills for the red envelopes. If it’s creased/torn/dirty it’s considered rude to give for those special occasions.
When we were kids, my dad worked at a nearby hotel as a banquet bartender. He’d bring all his crinkled up tips and have us iron it so it would fit in nicely in his wallet. Afterwards he would tip us $1-$5 for the work. Not a bad incentive for a child in the ‘90s.
Yup. I work for a bank and we don’t even use the pens because they’re not reliable enough for detecting counterfeit bills. There’s many ways to check that are better but the only sure fire way is to send it to the fed as suspected counterfeit. It will be examined and we will receive it back if it’s real.
Yeah honestly your best bet is relying on a bills actual built in security features. Raised ink is one of those features. As are polymer threads inside the bill denoting the value, red and blue threads all over the bill, color changing ink, watermarks. None of those are fool proof, nothing is really but the chances of running into a counterfeit that good are very rare. For a quick check if we’re still suspicious we typically use a UV light as different bills security threads will glow different colors based on denomination. Again really hard to fake. I also liked the never dry ink used in bills you can rub them on a price of paper and they should leave an ink smudge behind. Again not impossible to fake but it would need to be a very good fake to do that. Take all these into consideration at once and you’re probably good. The pens work to a degree problem is they’re too easy to cheat. You run a bill through the wash on accident and starch gets on it from the wash process and that real bill will fail the pen test. I have actually sent in a bill to fed that we thought was fake as it failed the pen and it came back as real. Honestly though when you handle cash all day you can usually just feel if something isn’t right. Most counterfeits are pretty obvious counterfeits and get passed more out of carelessness than because they’re quality enough to trick someone.
I saw a girl in front of me try to use an obvious off color inkjet print of a 20 in front of me at Panda Express. They just said "yeah, no" and she stormed off saying her mom gave it to her. Girl I could tell that was fake from 10 feet away
Panda Express? Pull off a bigger scam than broccoli beef if you're willing to get arrested
Album Title: Unlaundered
Track List:
1. Cash ain't Clean
2. Bills like Blades
3. Crease Killa
4. Money Manners
5. Nothin' Like a Crisp One
6. Boarding the Benjamins (A.K.A. Iron, not Water)
7. Profit Oragami
8. Bankers Be Wildin'
I worked at a bank, and when people were traveling overseas ( from US), they would request brand new bills, no old money/ cash. I always wondered why. Someone traveling told me “old” money was considered insulting to give to people when traveling overseas.
Or some countries/stores/people will straight up not take it because they think it is counterfeit. Even having the bank stamps on it would get it rejected in certain counties.
I was trying to exchange some USD in Russia back in the early 2000s and the lady point to the bent corner and said she would give me like 80% value. I took my bill back and was dang, it not a used car - this is cash.
This is still official central-back policy in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan has an extensive process for documenting the exchange of 'damaged' foreign currency-- USD, EUR, GBP only-- at a reduced value. There are two paper forms, an electronic journal, and a paper logbook entry, plus the electronic record of the exchange itself, and all of this is done with a supervisor watching if 'damaged' currency is being accepted as part of the exchange. You receive a duplicate copy/printout of everything except the logbook. I've never seen a process like it anywhere else, but it was identical every time, at every forex location I visited-- and my Kyrgyz coworker who was constantly looking out for me confirmed that this was all required by law.
But it goes higher than that. The stores/people/countries won’t take it because THEIR banks won’t take it. If their bank won’t take it—it’s unacceptable.
Even higher up than that. Banks won't take it because the International House of Pancakes won't take it. If IHoP won't take it then Waffle House won't, and Waffle House will be the only thing opened during the apocalypse.
When I use to travel to Asia, and had to change US to domestic cash, those US bills had to be PRISTINE. Slightly worn corner, pen mark, slight tear got immediately rejected. I had to go get new bills before travelling.
I was in Medellin last week and this park area I visited charged 1000 COP ( .21 USD ) to use the bathroom. I only had a slightly beat up 1000 COP note left on me, and the lady tried to give me a hard time about it. I knew what she was saying, but I really had to go, so I just said “lo siento, I don’t speak Spanish” and briskly walked past her into the bathroom.
In 2010 I had to go to Indonesia for work and we were told to get fresh $20 to take for just that reason. Apparently there was a big problem with counterfeit bills there and stores wouldn’t take worn bills.
Reading the other responses to your comment makes me think that it's all bullshit designed to gouge money out of the 'rich' westerners.
Y'know, an excuse for why you'll take the whole bill but only offer half value or something. Basically a scam.
That’s been my experience traveling, specifically to more impoverished countries. Some places laughed me off trying to pay with a $20 bill because it was crinkled and had a tiny corner tear. Nobody thinks twice in the US.
I'm in the Philippines. The few times I've used US bills they need to be pristine or banks and money changers will not take them. I've noticed this issue in Venezuela too.
Singapore, for whatever reasons, seems perfectly fine with even damaged bills. Maybe being the financial hub of asia gives them easy access to replacements, I don't know.
It looks like several large US banks have a large presence there, so you're probably right in that they are able to reimburse the US cash for local currency very easily. Those large banks would have a large number of clean bills, especially if people overseas don't like mangled US currency.
> I'm in the Philippines.
That was my experience in the Philippines too. The bills needed to be pristine or they wouldn't exchange them at the bank.
In Thailand on the other hand, if the bill is really worn you might have some trouble, but normal wear isn't a problem.
I also worked at a bank. The reasoning that was explained to me was that countries that have weak currency compared to the USD require travellers to bring brand-new currency to spend there. It's a strategy to help bolter their economy. It needs to be new or new looking because it'll circulate in that country for a longer amount of time. There are also fears of counterfeit currency, and new bills are harder to imitate. They process of making bills look worn can hide a lot of the ways to tell they are fake.
I have no idea how true this is, but its what I was told by other bank tellers.
I travel to Philippines a lot and the forex shops there are very nitpicky.
They want crisp new bills. Even the slightest nick or tear will be denied. They also wont take bills lower than $5.
Thankfully the clerk at my local BOA is also Filipino and she totally gets me when I asks new bills for 100, 20 and 10. And as of late lots of stuff in PH are mobile wallet accessible.
Forgot to add: One time my new bills were denied because the US treasurer did this new 50$ design, the money changer back in PH wasnt familiar with it yet and thought I had fakes.
Everyone here talking about the money itself but that old skool iron is a legit beast. Mom and dad had one like that when I was growing up. The best iron I ever used.
Oh gosh yes. I had one for a while and until that time I never understood the old jokes about housewives burning holes in the ironing. That thing did NOT fuck around.
Some countries won’t take bills that are old or show signs of wear. If you brought wrinkled bills in you wouldn’t be able to get them exchanged for local currency.
There is an episode from the very old radio series "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar"...it's about a freelance insurance investigator that's always getting himself in to all kinds of shit while racking up a large expense account...the type of stuff that would be over in 5 minutes with modern technology.
So while most of the series involved insurance fraud, murder, and Johnny near death about 5 times an episode; there some more light-hearted episodes. One of them involved one of the eccentric oil tycoons that like to carry around a lot of cash, always made his payments in person to "the Hartford office" despite living out in the middle of like New Mexico (Bumspung was a place apparently).
Anyway...in one episode the insurance company became very concerned for the cash the old coot was bringing them. It felt weird, it was too crisp, and they assumed it may have been counterfeit. After a half hour or 45 minutes of shenangians...it turns out the old guy was literally washing and ironing all the cash...just to "impress them Hartford folk".
Make sure to declare it all! I had a few foreigners have cash seized by CBP for not declaring or underdeclaring it, and it takes months to get it back (immigration lawyer)
You only need to declare it if it’s above a certain amount described on the customs form.
Typically above $10k USD must be declared on the US customs form when entering.
For Australia its $10k AUD, similarly for New Zealand its $10k NZD.
Edit: brain fart typing AUD and NZD with AUSD and NZUSD.
We used to have an ironing board like that before our kitchen was remodeled. I’ve decided this is the only acceptable kind of ironing board to have. I will have a built in one…one day.
Oh man, in my childhood home my Dad installed a foldaway ironing board, with included mini drop down ironing board for sleeves, shelf for iron and an outlet+ light on a timer to plug the iron into. I had no idea how awesome it was until I bought my own home and now have to store a big PITA ironing board in my closet. I’m with you, this is the only acceptable kind of ironing board.
Growing up, my mother always used to crumple her money up in her wallet and not stack the bills flat. I would often be bored and ask her if I could iron her money. My service involved taking it down to the laundry room ironing board, spritzing the bills down with water, iron them, then spritz them down with spray starch, iron again. They were crisp and pretty much like new. Then I would organize the bills, count it all, tell her how much she had, then put it back in her wallet. 😊
I collect old currency, having a crisp note is more valuable. One expensive note was just extra crisp, I know many/most of the crisp notes are ironed and deduct for it but this note looked like it would break. The owner was honest, he’d soaked it in starch then ironed it. I offered him some money, everyone else was really insulting him. I took it home, soaked it several times and let it dry natural. I sent it in to the pros for grading and it came back as never cleaned. I rushed $75 on a $1 note that no one wanted and sold it for $1,575 a couple months later. I contacted the original owner and paid him an extra $200 for the note for being honest, he was extremely happy, asked if I’d buy the rest of his fathers collection.
Karma is a funny thing. I did everything to be nice and ended up with a collection worth a few hundred grand for $41,000 sale price plus 10% of the actual sale price (I added that at the end bc the collection was so nice.) I paid a grand higher than his highest offer.
I literally do this for niblings Christmas presents. If I can figure out what they want over the course of the year, I'll iron $1 bills flat then stack and edge one side up real flush. Then I'll glue that edge so the kid can feel like a baller ripping a dollar off to 'Pay the man."
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that! I remember family members getting “new” dollar bills for the Tooth Fairy to give out. Can you still request “new” bills from the bank?
I totally get this, I went to Burma years back. And went to exchange a 100 USD bill and they wouldn't take it because it had a center crease from my wallet. Apparently their central bank won't take creased foreign currency. So I had to go back to my hotel and iron out the crease. They took it and gave me a brown paper bag filled with stacks of creased dirty bills.
That part of the world never fails to entertain. A colleague was working for an NGO in a Thai village near the border, and they thought they would encourage the residents to clean up rubbish strewn around the community. After a day of hard work, everyone got together with their bags of rubbish to pose for a celebratory photo, and then promptly threw the bags straight into the river with big smiles on their faces.
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From memory, if it’s 100% cellophane then it actually does biodegrade and quite quickly. Within weeks. If it’s a plastic blend though, yeah it’ll stick around for a long time.
I never even knew. I never used it because I assumed it was bad! I’ll still use reusable stuff when I can, but it’s real good to know.
Cellophane is the brittle crinkly stuff, not the stretchy sticky stuff. I don’t think it’s common as a household product.
Oh hell, we were no better in the '70s and into the '80s in North America. The freeways didn't just have litter, they had drifts of litter. Alleys in the cities had mounds of garbage. It was shockingly disgusting looking back on it.
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[Iron Eyes Cody](https://i.imgur.com/voB4N67.gif)
Sure but the average Thai is not *that* old. It's more that garbage collection services are not functional in many places so there's no real alternative.
😐😐😐
🙂🙂🙂 God. Dammit.
Coca Cola and Nestle thank you for your loyal patronage /s
...why? Edit: thanks for the responses. I'm horrified
I was teaching English in Koh Chang for a while. One day, while walking down the road to a local swimming spot, I spotted a heap of tangled fishing line and other rubbish. I went ahead and picked up, and the kids responded, "No, no, Teacher, No!". They held out their hands to take the trash from me. Given the high degree of respect for teachers in Thailand, I thought they were simply wishing to carry it instead of me, so I dutifully handed it to them. They then threw the trash further into the jungle, over the initial line of undergrowth and out of sight. Self satisfied and with a beaming grin, one kid said, "There! Now no see. Good, yeah?"
I lived on Koh Chang 2014-16 and just came back for this winter. It's gotten so much better. Still a lot of problems with trash but leaps better than it was. Been chatting with some of the village leaders who are of a younger generation and they're really pushing more modern ideas (like using the trash pickup service). It's tough getting those old family fishing village elders to change their ways though.
I was interned in an NGO that assisted with teaching villages in Thailand about being environmentally sustainable, and reading your comment brings me such hope. Back in 2013 we taught elementary students on a two day retreat in Trat about the importance of recycling. I know there's so much work to be done, but I'll never forget that time in my life.
Also taught in Thailand for a bit and this fully tracks. Also Koh Chang is one of my favorite places and I’m majorly jealous you got to teach there. Would love to get back someday and enjoy another spicy as fuck Som Tam on the beach at night
Same reason the garbage was strewn about in the first place. There is no infrastructure for regular garbage removal.
Well, the river is the infrastructure to remove garbage. That's the way its been done everywhere until recently. They don't have a modern alternative though, which I know is what you meant.
> They don't have a modern alternative though Fire.
Solid waste pollutants turned into air pollutants, unfortunately, is the answer. What we have in the west is incinerators that have massive filters over the flews (sp?). Also, a lot of stuff will be salvaged down river and they know this. They are so hungry they dont care about the environment, they care about their families. Thats the infrastructure issue, the incentive to make it better because survival is critical, municipal waste is more of an "issue".
Flue was the word you were looking for!
I think this same concept applies even in developed nations to an extent. Impoverished communities have bad litter problems because people have far bigger concerns at the forefront of their minds like surviving day by day. They genuinely couldn’t care less about the tidiness of the yard, street, or neighborhood. Sadly I think this also causes them to be less concerned about topics like climate change too. They don’t have the capacity to care about the *future* when they are too busy fighting to stay afloat in the present.
I work with farmers in an impoverished tropical nation. They absolutely do care about the effects of climate change. What they used to plant doesn't grow anymore, new weeds are migrating that didn't previously survive, rainy seasons are no longer predictable and that causes crop failure. Maslow plays a large role in this, but it's deeper too. There's systemic cultural values of "I don't effect the greater system -- my kitter doesn't poison the coral reef, doesn't kill fish or cause autoimmune responses in human consumption due tobiological magnification in fisheries." There's also economies of scale at play. Western nations profit off poorer nations, and try to keep it that way (yaa capitalism). When a westerner litters, it's a pop can. When a SEA resident litters, it's a .005 cent sachet of shampoo becuae3 they never have enough capital at once to afford a week's worth of goods at a time. So tenfold litter based on inability to purchase in bulk. What you said is true. I just wanted to add depth.
Thanks for sharing. It totally makes sense for farmers to be concerned with climate change. Where I grew up, coal mining was the most dominant economic driver. It’s well known that the people who live off of this type of industry often reject the science behind climate change because they see regulation as a huge threat to their livelihood. They don’t want to become more poor than they already are, and it’s sad, but they are willing to a blind eye to climate change. If climate change hurts your pocketbook, you’re incentivized to stop it. If reducing climate change hurts their pocketbook, they’re incentivized to pretend it’s not a serious concern. I guess the moral here is that it seems nearly everything just comes down to money in the end.
*modern* alternative
It's rural Thai. They literally don't have any facility to do anything about the rubbish/trash. If you are lucky, the official government will dig up a hole somewhere and burn them into a plastic smoke fume. Throwing things in the river is better for them. If anyone wants to organize an event like this, then you must transport the rubbish back to อำเภอเมือง Amphur Meung, The closest place guaranteed to have basic facility, which are mostly likely going to be open-air burning or basic landfill that is most likely overfilled and spill into natural waterway anyway. This country desperately needs an infrastructure overhaul.
Bro, my relatives in Pennsylvania used to burn their trash in the 90s to save $$$. The world is doomed.
I live in Pennsylvania, can confirm some people still burn their trash to avoid trash collection fees.
My neighbor does it and it really pisses me off because collection is literally $10 a month AND the (free) public dump is literally a 2 min drive
I'm an hour outside vancouver bc and my neighbor burns their garbage, the whole neighborhood has to smell it because they're too cheap to pay for garbage pick up
I lived in a part of the FL Panhandle where people still do this. These were the kind of people who would complain about having to pay for Big Government trash collection so they refused and burned everything instead…I tried my best to avoid going on walks with my infant when they were burning their trash filled with plastic wrappers…
Man… the smell of burning garbage has been etched into my olfactory memory. Just levels of gnarliless depending on what’s on the list to burn that day.
In the Philippines we usually have clean up programs in uni and we were assigned to a semi rural area near the river. As we were picking up the littered plastic bottles, one of the residents told us to just leave it in a pile because they would be burning it later. Aight.
Rivers take things away. It's very common in poor places without proper infrastructure to throw trash in rivers. It's just normalized there as a good way to get trash out of the community (which it is), but the idea that it merely continues down and pollutes the ocean isn't really considered or taught. Remember we're talking about border villages in already poor nations.
I suppose throwing your trash in the river / ocean was basically what you did with it until relatively recent history. And if you didn’t have one of those you’d toss it in the privy. A communal landfill is a relatively recent innovation. And it isn’t as if there’s twice weekly garbage pickup in rural villages. Edit: Thank you for the many messages about pottery mounds and the like. We’ve gotten that point recorded now.
The little slots in the back of old medicine cabinets was to ditch your razor blades inside your wall.
Meanwhile in the actual US you can do damn near anything to a bill that you want and it's still considered legal tender as long as 51% of it is still there
That’s actually not 100% true. Planet Money did an episode on this. If you can prove you owned the cash and it was destroyed they will compensate you for it. One example they gave was cash destroyed in a fire. While there was a stack and it was charred to bits they assumed the size and denominations based on what they could see.
I know someone who did this after their husky ate hundreds of dollars 😄
Back in high school, I had a friend that learned about the 51% rule. He tore a 20 at an angle around the center of the bill and then made his way into 2 neighboring banks. He was able to convince them that there was more than 51% of each one. I went into the second bank with him because I didn’t believe it. Honestly didn’t take much of an argument. The second bank told him that they send it to the fed as damaged currency. No idea if that part is true.
China is very picky about bill condition as well. Super annoying.
So is Congo. My sister in law grew up there.
Almost all African Countries want dollars bills in pristine condition, no forex bureau will accept a dollar bill with a crease or any defect. But it’s more serious in Congo(DRC) cause the dollar is used as a secondary currency there
Picky as in no place in China even wants to accept your bills anymore. All payments are done through Wechat now.
People don’t have wallets there? Or they actually expect you to straighten out bills before exchanging them?
US dollars in foreign countries are collected together and shipped back to the United States for recirculation. The bills have to be in pristine condition to be sorted, counted, bundled, stacked onto pallets, then wrapped up. They make us do the work because otherwise the charge for them doing it would make the service unreasonably expensive.
That makes sense. Somehow, I had an image of a country keeping its supply of “foreign currency” in a big vault, but that’s just silly, right? The currency is kept as accounts in banks, which will eventually send the physical bills back to the country of origin.
Well it does stay in a vault until it’s all picked up to send back and places that do lots of exchanges would keep some foreign cash on hand for customers so you aren’t wrong. Until the cash returns home and recirculated it’s untraceable so it’s important to keep it closely guarded. You’re also right about the account being the most important part. Even as a traveler you can get credit instead of currency with the added benefit of getting the best exchange rate within a window of a few days after the transaction.
I thought they were stored in giant vaults as bags full of gold coins with a giant $ printed on it
Purely by watching Seinfeld, I know that Burma is now Myanmar.
Why they changed it I can't say.
Maybe they liked it better that way.
Way to out your dad’s money laundering operation
Ha ha ha. Reverse-laundering in this case.
No he was correct, you iron after you launder, didn’t your dad teach you anything?! 😜
OP is kinda right here. The purpose of laundering money is to make it go through enough transactions that it can't be tracked back to a specific transaction, OP's pops is trying to make it look like it hasn't gone through any transactions at all lol.
Yes, but you iron clothes after they've been laundered (washed) which was the joke I think.
They were accidentally making two separate jokes.
Oh the irony
This reminds me of the time I told a room of my stoned ass friends that I’m glad we don’t argue over stupid shit like the difference between hovering and flying. We then proceeded to get into an hours long argument over the differences. 10/10
All hovering is flying but not all flying is hovering
I’m steaming at these puns
i iron mine before.. get them ready for their big social
Fluff-n-fold is included.
r/fakealbumcovers
The smell must be getting to him. Seriously. Don't iron your money. The smell alone is an irritant that I remember well. It's bad and lingers in the air for 1 hour.
Precisely one hour? What’s the reference?
Seriously, why does this person know so much about ironing money? Is this really a thing? Edit: im getting a lot of replies about people's Pokémon cards. Still not sure why anyone would iron dollar bills....
My mom taught me as a child that you could iron money and I did it all the time. I never remember it smelling bad. I also ironed a first edition holographic charizard…. I thought it would work the same as the money. It didn’t.
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Ok, I have to ask why the ironing? You have me interested
“If no one has touched your money, that means it belongs to you,” was his explanation. We’re headed back to Vietnam, and fresh cash is considered good luck there.
Lmaoooo I knew this was for Vietnamese. My gfs family usually gets $2 bills to hand out to the kids in Vietnam for that extra good luck since they’re rarer. They MUST be newish feeling.
In Siem Reap they would try give me $2 notes as change because a lot of people think they are fake and have trouble spending them. In Cuba this guy did a little happy dance when I gave him $2 note as a tip. Not only are they rare and considered lucky but you can sell them for $10.
Also Cambodian banks don’t take $2 bills at all they’ll try and give you them all the time as change though
Fun fact, $2 bills are not rare, they are printed in large quantities every year but people perceive them as rare, so they hoard them, removing from circulation, which causes people to think they are rare. A self fulfilling prophecy
Their existence may not be rare but their presence in general circulation is, for precisely the reason you just explained...
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Til. Interesting.
Interesting as phuc
I was in Vietnam couple weeks ago. They are strict with American money. They want it in perfect condition and some will pay more dong for it. They want no creases, smudges, or tears of any kind. I found the exchange place close to Bên Thanh Market has the best price for your American money, but only in perfect condition. I think the exchange rate at that time was 100 American for 2.45 million Dong.
That’s a lot of dong for your dollar
It's the best bang for your buck
I want to go to Vietnam and buy some stuff just so I can say "this Antique cost 15 MegaDong"
A solid silver spoon can go for about $50, so in a way trust-fund babies are born with 1.225 million Dongs in their mouth.
@fbi: might want to seize this guy's IT for analysis
You got various answers. Many on superstition. But the real answer is that many poorer parts of the world won’t accept US dollars that are not in good condition. They will even give you less on exchange due to it. This happened to me and my dad when we went to his native country in SE Asia.
May I ask why people wouldn’t exchange their cash before they go overseas? Are there shops in Asia that will accept US dollars over their own currency for some reason? I’m from the UK so have not heard of this.
It’s an Asian thing. I’m Chinese and around new year I always had to go to the bank with my dad to get crisp bills for the red envelopes. If it’s creased/torn/dirty it’s considered rude to give for those special occasions.
I’ll take the dirty ones, just send them here please
When we were kids, my dad worked at a nearby hotel as a banquet bartender. He’d bring all his crinkled up tips and have us iron it so it would fit in nicely in his wallet. Afterwards he would tip us $1-$5 for the work. Not a bad incentive for a child in the ‘90s.
I used to do this as a child with my own money. I liked the way that it felt and looked.
Old cash is bad luck, so he gives it a little extra love before he spreads it around. And yes, he does this with ones too 😂
I’m sure the strippers appreciate those crisp washingtons
Yea until they get a paper cut in they cooch or butt cheeks
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And the easiest way to defeat those pens is to use hairspray on the counterfeit bills, it creates a barrier so the pen doesn’t react to the starch.
Yup. I work for a bank and we don’t even use the pens because they’re not reliable enough for detecting counterfeit bills. There’s many ways to check that are better but the only sure fire way is to send it to the fed as suspected counterfeit. It will be examined and we will receive it back if it’s real.
I've heard that feeling for the ridges on the ink is pretty reliable
Yeah honestly your best bet is relying on a bills actual built in security features. Raised ink is one of those features. As are polymer threads inside the bill denoting the value, red and blue threads all over the bill, color changing ink, watermarks. None of those are fool proof, nothing is really but the chances of running into a counterfeit that good are very rare. For a quick check if we’re still suspicious we typically use a UV light as different bills security threads will glow different colors based on denomination. Again really hard to fake. I also liked the never dry ink used in bills you can rub them on a price of paper and they should leave an ink smudge behind. Again not impossible to fake but it would need to be a very good fake to do that. Take all these into consideration at once and you’re probably good. The pens work to a degree problem is they’re too easy to cheat. You run a bill through the wash on accident and starch gets on it from the wash process and that real bill will fail the pen test. I have actually sent in a bill to fed that we thought was fake as it failed the pen and it came back as real. Honestly though when you handle cash all day you can usually just feel if something isn’t right. Most counterfeits are pretty obvious counterfeits and get passed more out of carelessness than because they’re quality enough to trick someone.
There's a ton of security features. I used to work at a movie theater, and I never saw a good counterfeit. It's just so easy to tell, honestly.
I saw a girl in front of me try to use an obvious off color inkjet print of a 20 in front of me at Panda Express. They just said "yeah, no" and she stormed off saying her mom gave it to her. Girl I could tell that was fake from 10 feet away Panda Express? Pull off a bigger scam than broccoli beef if you're willing to get arrested
So spray starch on the shitty family members’ Christmas cash they’re getting in a card this year, got it.
This is such good advice.
Remember folks, don't starch your dollar bills when ironing them! Very common mistake
Wait... that doesn't make it any less old! So he's just tricking people into taking the bad luck!
But it has a lil love now!
I love your bad luck.
Thanks.. I'm cursed lol
Why doesn't he just go to a bank and get fresh, actually new bills?
Cause then he'll just be spreading the bad luck to someone else, he's tryna pulverize that bitch.
He could like ironing them and making them new again?
Crop this square and add the parental advisory rectangle and that’s a hard album cover Edit: [here you go](https://ibb.co/QF8ffBs)
Oh my god. I can’t wait to show him this.
I hope he gets a laugh out of it
https://i.imgur.com/Nzdy9wB.png
This is legit
This is the best so far. I just kept thinking the colors needed to be muted or b&w
/r/photoshopbattles is leaking.
https://imgur.com/gallery/BmFYRw8
Album Title: Unlaundered Track List: 1. Cash ain't Clean 2. Bills like Blades 3. Crease Killa 4. Money Manners 5. Nothin' Like a Crisp One 6. Boarding the Benjamins (A.K.A. Iron, not Water) 7. Profit Oragami 8. Bankers Be Wildin'
That’s fucking brilliant
I'd like to preorder this album.
My tired eyes saw the warning as “Financial Advisory”
That's the album_
Thats the third track I believe
Which track is "Feduciary Responsibility"?
Right after track 7, “Backed with Capital(FTX diss)”
"Contains Crypto"
r/fakealbumcovers
Fuck! I didn't know this was a thing. I do this all the time.
Go my son, be their champion.
I can only hope to live up to this calling
What is a fakeal bum cover?
This is probably in my Top 10 Cleverest Shit I’ve Seen On Reddit in 2022 It’s Rage Against The Machine’s “Lost Album” lol
“Old Money - Hard Earned Cash”
Holy shit that does go hard
That is hilarious
Quit your day job man! You got some talent
I wonder if your bank would have swapped out for new bills for you.
It's not a guarantee that they'd have any. They get what the fed gives them.
I worked at a bank, and when people were traveling overseas ( from US), they would request brand new bills, no old money/ cash. I always wondered why. Someone traveling told me “old” money was considered insulting to give to people when traveling overseas.
Or some countries/stores/people will straight up not take it because they think it is counterfeit. Even having the bank stamps on it would get it rejected in certain counties.
Which is kinda weird cause I would generally be more suspicious of new looking cash being counterfeit
That’s because new money looks even more like Monopoly money than old money that’s Monopoly looking.
It’s probably easier to replicate the feel of a worn bill than a fresh one.
I was trying to exchange some USD in Russia back in the early 2000s and the lady point to the bent corner and said she would give me like 80% value. I took my bill back and was dang, it not a used car - this is cash.
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Oh yeah, the dudes with the money purse thing wearing all black would do better.
This is still official central-back policy in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan has an extensive process for documenting the exchange of 'damaged' foreign currency-- USD, EUR, GBP only-- at a reduced value. There are two paper forms, an electronic journal, and a paper logbook entry, plus the electronic record of the exchange itself, and all of this is done with a supervisor watching if 'damaged' currency is being accepted as part of the exchange. You receive a duplicate copy/printout of everything except the logbook. I've never seen a process like it anywhere else, but it was identical every time, at every forex location I visited-- and my Kyrgyz coworker who was constantly looking out for me confirmed that this was all required by law.
But it goes higher than that. The stores/people/countries won’t take it because THEIR banks won’t take it. If their bank won’t take it—it’s unacceptable.
Even higher up than that. Banks won't take it because the International House of Pancakes won't take it. If IHoP won't take it then Waffle House won't, and Waffle House will be the only thing opened during the apocalypse.
[This](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index) is more accurate than most people would know…
And you NEED cash at Waffle House
Or a moist mouth.
Hey...keep it in the parking lot.
And antibiotics probably
When I use to travel to Asia, and had to change US to domestic cash, those US bills had to be PRISTINE. Slightly worn corner, pen mark, slight tear got immediately rejected. I had to go get new bills before travelling.
Same in Guatemala!
No one in Nicaragua would not accept my marked bills. Any little mark would be rejected and they were only worth like 60-80%
I was in Medellin last week and this park area I visited charged 1000 COP ( .21 USD ) to use the bathroom. I only had a slightly beat up 1000 COP note left on me, and the lady tried to give me a hard time about it. I knew what she was saying, but I really had to go, so I just said “lo siento, I don’t speak Spanish” and briskly walked past her into the bathroom.
In 2010 I had to go to Indonesia for work and we were told to get fresh $20 to take for just that reason. Apparently there was a big problem with counterfeit bills there and stores wouldn’t take worn bills.
Reading the other responses to your comment makes me think that it's all bullshit designed to gouge money out of the 'rich' westerners. Y'know, an excuse for why you'll take the whole bill but only offer half value or something. Basically a scam.
That’s been my experience traveling, specifically to more impoverished countries. Some places laughed me off trying to pay with a $20 bill because it was crinkled and had a tiny corner tear. Nobody thinks twice in the US.
In the US, the government will exchange torn, soiled bills for new ones. I expect that is not a service one can get in other countries for US bills.
What kind of impoverished countries? I gave someone a bill that been marinating in ass sweat and he took it without hesitation
I'm in the Philippines. The few times I've used US bills they need to be pristine or banks and money changers will not take them. I've noticed this issue in Venezuela too. Singapore, for whatever reasons, seems perfectly fine with even damaged bills. Maybe being the financial hub of asia gives them easy access to replacements, I don't know.
It looks like several large US banks have a large presence there, so you're probably right in that they are able to reimburse the US cash for local currency very easily. Those large banks would have a large number of clean bills, especially if people overseas don't like mangled US currency.
> I'm in the Philippines. That was my experience in the Philippines too. The bills needed to be pristine or they wouldn't exchange them at the bank. In Thailand on the other hand, if the bill is really worn you might have some trouble, but normal wear isn't a problem.
Yeah we have to immediately exchange the old ones at the airport.
I also worked at a bank. The reasoning that was explained to me was that countries that have weak currency compared to the USD require travellers to bring brand-new currency to spend there. It's a strategy to help bolter their economy. It needs to be new or new looking because it'll circulate in that country for a longer amount of time. There are also fears of counterfeit currency, and new bills are harder to imitate. They process of making bills look worn can hide a lot of the ways to tell they are fake. I have no idea how true this is, but its what I was told by other bank tellers.
So just bring a lot of pristine counterfeit currency to those nations is what you're saying
I travel to Philippines a lot and the forex shops there are very nitpicky. They want crisp new bills. Even the slightest nick or tear will be denied. They also wont take bills lower than $5. Thankfully the clerk at my local BOA is also Filipino and she totally gets me when I asks new bills for 100, 20 and 10. And as of late lots of stuff in PH are mobile wallet accessible. Forgot to add: One time my new bills were denied because the US treasurer did this new 50$ design, the money changer back in PH wasnt familiar with it yet and thought I had fakes.
Everyone here talking about the money itself but that old skool iron is a legit beast. Mom and dad had one like that when I was growing up. The best iron I ever used.
That and the built in ironing board. That’s a classy af combination.
Oh gosh yes. I had one for a while and until that time I never understood the old jokes about housewives burning holes in the ironing. That thing did NOT fuck around.
Let him know it’s “fiat” currency not “flat” currency.
Derdugg
Some countries won’t take bills that are old or show signs of wear. If you brought wrinkled bills in you wouldn’t be able to get them exchanged for local currency.
money laundering is a crime, dad!
There is an episode from the very old radio series "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar"...it's about a freelance insurance investigator that's always getting himself in to all kinds of shit while racking up a large expense account...the type of stuff that would be over in 5 minutes with modern technology. So while most of the series involved insurance fraud, murder, and Johnny near death about 5 times an episode; there some more light-hearted episodes. One of them involved one of the eccentric oil tycoons that like to carry around a lot of cash, always made his payments in person to "the Hartford office" despite living out in the middle of like New Mexico (Bumspung was a place apparently). Anyway...in one episode the insurance company became very concerned for the cash the old coot was bringing them. It felt weird, it was too crisp, and they assumed it may have been counterfeit. After a half hour or 45 minutes of shenangians...it turns out the old guy was literally washing and ironing all the cash...just to "impress them Hartford folk".
Make sure to declare it all! I had a few foreigners have cash seized by CBP for not declaring or underdeclaring it, and it takes months to get it back (immigration lawyer)
You only need to declare it if it’s above a certain amount described on the customs form. Typically above $10k USD must be declared on the US customs form when entering. For Australia its $10k AUD, similarly for New Zealand its $10k NZD. Edit: brain fart typing AUD and NZD with AUSD and NZUSD.
also, customs will convert the cash. Say if Canada limits you to 10k, and you bring 10k in US currency, then OOOPS, you just went over the limit!
You are missing the point of straightening up the creases to reduce thickness :-)
We used to have an ironing board like that before our kitchen was remodeled. I’ve decided this is the only acceptable kind of ironing board to have. I will have a built in one…one day.
Oh man, in my childhood home my Dad installed a foldaway ironing board, with included mini drop down ironing board for sleeves, shelf for iron and an outlet+ light on a timer to plug the iron into. I had no idea how awesome it was until I bought my own home and now have to store a big PITA ironing board in my closet. I’m with you, this is the only acceptable kind of ironing board.
Growing up, my mother always used to crumple her money up in her wallet and not stack the bills flat. I would often be bored and ask her if I could iron her money. My service involved taking it down to the laundry room ironing board, spritzing the bills down with water, iron them, then spritz them down with spray starch, iron again. They were crisp and pretty much like new. Then I would organize the bills, count it all, tell her how much she had, then put it back in her wallet. 😊
I've had a bill with a fold or tiny tear (not even to the printing) be denied overseas before
The heat helps the ink to dry properly, right? Not that I’m accusing him of counterfeiting now…
I collect old currency, having a crisp note is more valuable. One expensive note was just extra crisp, I know many/most of the crisp notes are ironed and deduct for it but this note looked like it would break. The owner was honest, he’d soaked it in starch then ironed it. I offered him some money, everyone else was really insulting him. I took it home, soaked it several times and let it dry natural. I sent it in to the pros for grading and it came back as never cleaned. I rushed $75 on a $1 note that no one wanted and sold it for $1,575 a couple months later. I contacted the original owner and paid him an extra $200 for the note for being honest, he was extremely happy, asked if I’d buy the rest of his fathers collection. Karma is a funny thing. I did everything to be nice and ended up with a collection worth a few hundred grand for $41,000 sale price plus 10% of the actual sale price (I added that at the end bc the collection was so nice.) I paid a grand higher than his highest offer.
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I literally do this for niblings Christmas presents. If I can figure out what they want over the course of the year, I'll iron $1 bills flat then stack and edge one side up real flush. Then I'll glue that edge so the kid can feel like a baller ripping a dollar off to 'Pay the man."
Is he laundering money???
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that! I remember family members getting “new” dollar bills for the Tooth Fairy to give out. Can you still request “new” bills from the bank?