Magical Money

Brazilian Currency - AFP/Getty Images

NPR / OPB Planet Money has a story about How Fake Money Saved Brazil. 20 years ago Brazil was suffering from a high rate of inflation, maybe even hyper-inflation. A minister called in some eggheads and they put up a plan to replace the current currency with imaginary currency, and then they magically turned the imaginary currency into real currency. It sounds slightly ridiculous, and I think it leaves out some important bits, but evidently it worked, which is frankly amazing.

Via Astral Codex Tex