History Main / RidiculousExchangeRates

** Ironically, a later supplement established an exchange rate of 3 Rubles = 1 Nuyen, meaning that the offer was, if anything, grotesquely highballed.

* In ''Literature/SnowCrash'', most world currencies are exchangeable, with the exception of Federal Reserve Notes, which are used pretty much exclusively by employees of the almost-defunct US Government and considered effectively worthless by everyone else. The remains of the US government draft a memo to prevent old billion-dollar bills from being used as toilet paper, because a single square of toilet paper is worth more more than a $1bn bill.

* Inverted in an episode of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': Frasier tips a bellhop the equivalent of $100 US because he's overestimated the exchange rate. Soon the entire staff of the hotel shows up hoping for extravagant tips.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Canad|a}}ian dollar is often ''thought'' of by Americans as "funny money", but again, this has more to do with the country's ButtMonkey neighbor status among Americans than anything else. The Canadian dollar has never fallen below about 0.61 U.S. dollars, and on a few rare occasions has been even ''stronger'' than the U.S. dollar. (Fluctuations are the result of things like global oil price changes.) For much of the late 2000s and early 2010s, the U.S. and Canadian dollars were within just a few cents of each other in value. But its pretty colours, evocative names (the "loonie" and "toonie"), and general lack of usefulness outside of Canada[[note]]During the late 2000s financial crisis, there was a proposal to make it the official currency of Iceland, but nothing came of it.[[/note]] fit it in with the general [[CanadaEh "Canada is weird"]] aesthetic in the States. The main issue with the Canadian dollar is that entities that do a lot of business in the U.S. tend to get a lot of U.S. dollars and are thus more exposed to currency risk -- Canadians [[CanadianEqualsHockeyFan mostly care]] that this discrepancy forced two UsefulNotes/{{NHL}} teams to move from Canada to the U.S. in TheNineties, and [[SeriousBusiness they still haven't forgiven the Yanks]] for that (even after they got one ''back'').[[note]]The issue with Canada's NHL teams is a different type of currency risk. The NHL requires that player contracts be expressed in US dollars, which prevents payrolls from fluctuating with exchange rates, given that 25 of the current 32 teams are based in the States. However, because Canadian teams collect their revenue in their own dollars, this places currency risks on those teams.[[/note]]

* The browser-based ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' has a [[BribingYourWayToVictory contributor reward]] called "Mr. Accessory" (nicknamed "Mr. A") that gives a + 15 to all stats for the price of $10. Those who donated $10 ''Canadian'' could receive a "Mr. [[CanadaEh Eh?]]", that initially gave a + 12 to stats, which was meant to reflect its relative monetary value. As implied, the value of the bonus is adjusted upwards as the Canadian dollar rises (and downwards as it falls) -- eventually requiring a WordOfGod acknowledgment that it would never be ''more'' powerful than a Mr. A.

* Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/TheWarriorsApprentice'': After having more or less accidentally wound up in charge of a mercenary company, protagonist Miles Vorkosigan, is rather alarmed to learn that he's being paid in a local currency called "millifenigs" that he's never even heard of. They are described as making "an eye-catching toilet paper"' and their value is tacitly confirmed when the Felician paymaster doesn't bother to get a receipt from Miles for a pallet of banknote bundles; turns out that their official exchange rate ([[DownplayedTrope which wasn't that bad before the war]]) is currently ''zero'', because the government that issues them is cut off from the wider galaxy by an interdiction fleet. 'Millifenig' becomes a swear word within a page of their introduction. After Miles ''wins'' the war he was hired to fight, millifenigs begin to be traded again, at about a tenth their prewar rate.

** UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia was hit by another round of hyperinflation, and although not quite as bad as before, prices had skyrocketed to there being four more zeroes compared to the Soviet era. The government tried a couple of stopgap measures which failed miserably (like the "Ural franc", an attempt to reintroduce local scrip), before it relented in 1998 and revalued the ruble. It's now ''relatively'' stable at 60-70 rubles per U.S. dollar, although it's sometimes seen as a "petrocurrency" and not particularly trusted in the global market. It tanked after the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and now sits are 90 rubles per $1, though thanks to sanctions on Russia a large portion of the world is forbidden to deal in rubles anyway.

** UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia was hit by another round of hyperinflation, and although not quite as bad as before, prices had skyrocketed to there being four more zeroes compared to the Soviet era. The government tried a couple of stopgap measures which failed miserably (like the "Ural franc", an attempt to reintroduce local scrip), before it relented in 1998 and revalued the ruble. It's now ''relatively'' stable at 60-70 rubles per U.S. dollar, although it's sometimes seen as a "petrocurrency" and not particularly trusted in the global market.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mexic|o}}an peso occasionally gets this treatment, partly from some historical inflationary episodes, but mostly from its status as an acceptable target for Americans. The worst was between 1982 and 1994, when the peso was essentially a "petrocurrency", and when the price of oil fell, the peso collapsed and the entire economy went with it. In 1993, the "new peso" was issued at an exchange rate of 1,000:1; the "new" was dropped in 1996. The current exchange rate is around 18 pesos to the U.S. dollar, but Americans still get confused sometimes, because both the peso and dollar use the "$" symbol,[[note]]This is based on both currencies' historic link to the Spanish "dollar" or "piece of eight" silver coin; in fact, the only currency called "peso" that does not use the $ sign is the Philippine peso.[[/note]] and you're never ''quite'' sure which one they want.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese đồng[[note]]pronounced roughly "dough-ng", but if you don't already speak Vietnamese it's basically hopeless[[/note]] is worth somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 to the U.S. dollar. It's gotten worse over time, even though the country's economy has been supposedly "ready to take off" for the last decade; when ''Series/TopGearUK'' did their Vietnam special in 2008 (and Jeremy bragged about his shoebox full of cash before realizing it would only buy him a motorcycle), it was closer to 15,000 to the dollar.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mexic|o}}an peso occasionally gets this treatment, partly from some historical inflationary episodes, but mostly from its status as an acceptable target for Americans. The worst was between 1982 and 1994, when the peso was essentially a "petrocurrency", and when the price of oil fell, the peso collapsed and the entire economy went with it. In 1993, the "new peso" was issued at an exchange rate of 1,000:1; the "new" was dropped in 1996. The current exchange rate is around 20 pesos to U.S. dollar, but Americans still get confused sometimes, because both the peso and dollar use the "$" symbol,[[note]]This is based on both currencies' historic link to the Spanish "dollar" or "piece of eight" silver coin; in fact, the only currency called "peso" that does not use the $ sign is the Philippine peso.[[/note]] and you're never ''quite'' sure which one they want.
* The UsefulNotes/{{Canad|a}}ian dollar is often ''thought'' of by Americans as "funny money", but again, this has more to do with the country's ButtMonkey neighbor status among Americans than anything else. The Canadian dollar has never fallen below about 0.61 U.S. dollars, and on a few rare occasions has been even ''stronger'' than the U.S. dollar. (Fluctuations are the result of things like global oil price changes.) For much of the late 2000s and early 2010s, the U.S. and Canadian dollars were within just a few cents of each other in value. But its pretty colours, evocative names (the "loonie" and "toonie"), and general lack of usefulness outside of Canada[[note]]During the late 2000s financial crisis, there was a proposal to make it the official currency of Iceland, but nothing came of it.[[/note]] fit it in with the general [[CanadaEh "Canada is weird"]] aesthetic in the States. The main issue with the Canadian dollar is that entities that do a lot of business in the U.S. tend to get a lot of U.S. dollars and are thus more exposed to currency risk — Canadians [[CanadianEqualsHockeyFan mostly care]] that this discrepancy forced two UsefulNotes/{{NHL}} teams to move from Canada to the U.S. in TheNineties, and [[SeriousBusiness they still haven't forgiven the Yanks]] for that (even after they got one ''back'').

* UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}} is a by-word for hyperinflation, especially among [[RedScare Communist-hating Americans]] who see it as a textbook example of what happens when you go Communist (or more accurately, when [[UsefulNotes/{{Socialism}} self-proclaimed Socialists]] try to regulate a market through wishful thinking, combined with [[CripplingOverspecialization an economy based almost entirely on oil exports]], while failing to invest in maintaining oil production facilities). It started with president UsefulNotes/HugoChavez and continued under his successor Nicolás Maduro — neither saw a need to let the global market decide their currency's value, and the bolivar was worth whatever they said it was worth. They didn't take the black market into account — ignoring the market won't make it go away, it just pushes it off the books. By 2016, inflation was around 700% — by July 2018, Maduro's opposition was claiming it was over ''80,000%'' per year, and the black market exchange rate was six million new bolivars (or six ''billion'' pre-2008 bolivars) per U.S. dollar. A further redenomination took place in 2018, with one bolivar soberano (sovereign bolivar) equaling 100,000 bolivares fuertes. The country's famously antagonistic relationship with the U.S. has led it to abandon any outside help, and the extreme corruption, currency controls, and disparity between official and unofficial exchange rates has led to government and police getting ''very'' rich at the expense of people who can't afford basic necessities. Maduro tried to solve this problem by proposing the "petro", essentially a petroleum-backed currency pegged at 60 U.S. dollars per "petro", then nominally pegging the sovereign bolivar at the rate of 1 petro to 3600 sovereign bolivars. This didn't work. In August 2021, six zeroes were dropped off.

-->'''Cosby:''' ''[on UK currency]'' Before you travel, if you travel, before you go, learn the money, please. Because they have the pound and the shilling and the tuppence and the dubs and the bob, one shilling-worth link, and one half-crown bob of it. You know, and the only thing you can do if you're as dumb as I am, when you get out of the cab, you just take a handful of change and you look at the cab, you say, "Don't hurt me." ... I go in the store and say, "How much is that?" "That's one bob, six links, four buttons, and one crack. Of it."[[note]] The album was recorded before "Decimal Day" in 1971, when the UK and Ireland both re-defined their currencies to have 100 pence in a pound.[[/note]]

* The UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}ese yen has had an interesting history. UsefulNotes/WorldWarII precipitated a huge decline in the yen to fund the war effort, and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan exacerbated the problem by printing "banana money" for use in its occupied territories, which had no serial numbers and were thus [[CounterfeitCash trivially easy to counterfeit]] — by the time the war ended, those yen were totally worthless. Also totally worthless were the ''sen'' (1/100 yen) and ''rin'' (1/1000 yen) coins. After the war, the Japan fixed the yen to the U.S. dollar at 360:1,[[note]]Fun fact: the 360 derives from the character for "yen", 円, being the same as the character for "circle", and there are 360 degrees in a circle[[/note]] but as the country recovered and industrialized, the currency strengthened dramatically, and by the time Japan was [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld ready to take over the world]] it was only about 80 yen to the U.S. dollar. Now it's somewhere between 100 and 120 yen to the dollar, and while it's not thought of as a particularly ''valuable'' currency, it's actually one of the most traded currencies in the world. (Incidentally, Japan likes to keep it relatively weaker, because its economy relies heavily on exports, and people are always going to want to buy more of your stuff if it's cheaper.)

[[caption-width-right:238:[[TruthInTelevision Zimbabwe's $100 billion banknote, shown with the number of eggs it could purchase on its release date.]]]]

* ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode "Change Day": The army issuing new scrip to the soldiers, and the Korean locals would be forbidden from exchanging the soon-to-be-worthless scrip they had been paid over the years by soldiers. Charles tried to pull a Get Rich Quick Scheme and purchased old scrip from the Koreans at 10¢ on the dollar. Hawkeye and BJ thwarted him by getting a friendly MP to close the road so that Charles was unable to pass. They then purchased $400 in old scrip from ''him'' at 10¢ on the dollar, exchanged it for new scrip, and refunded a soldier's stolen money, leaving Charles to eat a huge loss. If this seems uncharacteristically mercenary of Charles, that's because it was a leftover script where he took the place of Frank Burns.

-->'''Cosby:''' ''[on UK currency]'' Before you travel, if you travel, before you go, learn the money, please. Because they have the pound and the shilling and the tuppence and the dubs and the bob, one shilling-worth link, and one half-crown bob of it. You know, and the only thing you can do if you're as dumb as I am, when you get out of the cab, you just take a handful of change and you look at the cab, you say, "Don't hurt me." ... I go in the store and say, "How much is that?" "That's one bob, six links, four buttons, and one crack. Of it."[[note]] The album including this routine was released before "Decimal Day" in 1971, when the UK and Ireland both re-defined their currencies to have 100 pence in a pound.[[/note]]

-->'''Cosby:''' ''[on English currency]'' Before you travel, if you travel, before you go, learn the money, please. Because they have the pound and the shilling and the tuppence and the dubs and the bob, one shilling-worth link, and one half-crown bob of it. You know, and the only thing you can do if you're as dumb as I am, when you get out of the cab, you just take a handful of change and you look at the cab, you say, "Don't hurt me." ... I go in the store and say, "How much is that?" "That's one bob, six links, four buttons, and one crack. Of it."

** In the season 2 episode "Three Men and a Comic Book", Bart tries to raise one hundred dollars to buy a rare vintage comic book. He opts for taking an old foreign coin collection of his to a bank to exchange it for American currency. He was disappointed to find out that the whole collection was only worth three cents.

** Another bit in ''Literature/LifeTheUniverseAndEverything'' has the survivors of a colony ship crash (who were deemed a [[IdiotBall completely useless]] chunk of another planet's population) have a fiscal policy update at their staff meeting. They note that since they have chosen the leaf as their form of currency, everyone is extremely rich. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a bit of inflation, with current exchange rates being three deciduous forests per ship's peanut. The proposed solution is a massive deforestation campaign to increase the value of currently held leaves.

[[caption-width-right:238:[[TruthInTelevision Zimbabwe's $100 billion banknote with the amount of goods it could purchase on its release date.]]]]

* The UsefulNotes/{{Mexic|o}}an peso occasionally gets this treatment, partly from some historical inflationary episodes, but mostly from its status as an AcceptableTarget for Americans. The worst was between 1982 and 1994, when the peso was essentially a "petrocurrency", and when the price of oil fell, the peso collapsed and the entire economy went with it. In 1993, the "new peso" was issued at an exchange rate of 1,000:1; the "new" was dropped in 1996. The current exchange rate is around 20 pesos to U.S. dollar, but Americans still get confused sometimes, because both the peso and dollar use the "$" symbol,[[note]]This is based on both currencies' historic link to the Spanish "dollar" or "piece of eight" silver coin; in fact, the only currency called "peso" that does not use the $ sign is the Philippine peso.[[/note]] and you're never ''quite'' sure which one they want.

* In one strip of ''ComicStrip/PiranhaClub'' (back when it was ''Ernie'') sleazy con man Sid Fernwilter tries to pay with various rather obviously phony credit cards; the proprietor of the store refuses. He wants to write a check; the proprietor, who knows Sid's reputation, refuses. Finally Sid asks if the proprietor would except "cold hard cash" and confirms that this is "actual money". The proprietor accepts... and is paid in 30000 "Irkutskian Slobotniks".

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'': Interbellum hyperinflation complicates an episode of “Who Wants to Be a German Millionaire?”, as the purchasing power of the Mark keeps dropping between rounds until it is not enough to buy the wheelbarrow the contestant needs to carry the money home. It start at 64 million German Marks, then 128 million, then 128 ''billion'', then 128 '''trillion''', all which can afford just a wheelbarrow, then ''that' not being enough to afford the wheelbarrow just a few seconds later.

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'': Interbellum hyperinflation complicates an episode of “Who Wants to Be a German Millionaire?”, as the purchasing power of the Mark keeps dropping between rounds until it is not enough to buy the wheelbarrow the contestant needs to carry the money home. It start at 64 million German Marks, then 128 million, then 128 ''billion'', all which can afford just a wheelbarrow.

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'': Interbellum hyperinflation complicates an episode of “Who Wants to Be a German Millionaire?”, as the purchasing power of the mark keeps dropping between rounds until it is not enough to buy the wheelbarrow the contestant needs to carry the money home.

* In ''Videogame/GoingUnder'', the Styxcoin dungeon's unique mechanic involves the titular Styxcoin, a nigh-worthless cryptocurrency that is the only form of money dropped in that dungeon and can be exchanged for roughly 0.00025% of the normal in-game currency. In other words, it takes ''400,000 Styxcoin'' to equal one dollar.