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Perhaps because I have been diligently studying for my economics classes all week, I keep finding myself daydreaming about money.  Not wealth, mind you—I’ll leave that to the politicians in Washington, who are currently arguing about the definition of “fair wealth”.

No—I’ve been thinking about actual physical money:  Greenbacks, sawbucks, moolah, cash, currency, dosh, and dough.  No, I’m not going to give you a history of money (well, not much), but I’ve just been thinking about actual cash, physical, folding money.

I’ll start with a brief correction.  A couple of weeks ago, I predicted that the new government of Afghanistan would likely trigger a wave of runaway inflation by putting the printing presses at the state treasury into hyperdrive.  It turns out that, at least for the moment, this is impossible, since the government of Afghanistan doesn’t possess the necessary machinery to print its own currency:  in the past, it contracted the job out to a company in another country, safely beyond the reach of the Taliban.

I suspect that the Afghani—the currency used in Afghanistan—was printed by the ultra-secretive American Banknote Company, which has a long history of printing currency and postage stamps for many countries.  If I’m correct, I suspect that the new Taliban government will have to find a new way to print their future money, since the American Banknote Company has long since learned the risks of dealing with revolutionary armies.  In fact, one such memorable lesson was taught just a few miles from my home

During the decade-long Mexican Revolution, every army that attempted to overthrow the government tried to finance its operations by printing its own version of the ‘official’ Mexican currency.  It didn’t take long before some “freelance” printers realized that if there were more than a dozen official versions of Mexican money floating around, no one would notice if a few counterfeit versions were added into the mix.  

One such revolutionary leader was Pancho Villa, who operated just a few miles south of my home.  Villa’s first version of currency was pretty sad looking—little more than a rubber stamp on white paper, with each ‘bill’ worth only a few pesos.  It’s kind of hard to imagine how anybody would be foolish enough to accept the bills unless Villa and his army were personally present, urging the recipient to cheerfully accept the banknotes.

Clearly, Villa needed currency with a little more class, and the American Banknote Company cheerfully accepted a contract to print up a more professional looking batch for him.  Well, it was a little more than a batch:  it took up the better part of a railroad boxcar to deliver it to the general.  When the boxcar crossed the border at El Paso into Mexico, a representative of the New York printing company presented the bill to General Villa and demanded payment.

Pancho Villa, the one-time cattle rustler turned Revolutionary leader, promptly agreed, and paid off the company with the freshly-printed bills from inside the boxcar.  Since Villa’s currency was backed up by the full faith and credit, to say nothing of the rifles, of his army, you can be sure the payment was accepted with a smile.

I cannot be sure that the American company actually got the contract to print the currency for Afghanistan since they have a number of rivals, including several European firms, but because the United States was footing the bill for propping up the government, I hope we were smart enough to give the job to an American company.  (Even as I wrote that just now, I realized how hopelessly naive it sounds.)

According to the BBC, the monetary situation in Afghanistan has become a major problem:   currency of any sort is becoming increasingly scarce, shutting down commerce.  Before the Taliban crisis, there were several different forms of currency in wide circulation, with American dollars being the most widely sought after.  The second most popular was the Afghani currency, regardless of which company was actually making them.  These banknotes were widely accepted because the Central Bank of Afghanistan would, upon request, exchange them for American banknotes.

Now, you are probably asking why the Central Bank would want to do that.  An even bigger puzzle is how the bank could afford to do that.  It’s well-known that the only thing that Afghanistan regularly exports to the United States is a substance that is not regulated, is not calculated as part of the GDP, and usually is not a legitimate part of a country’s banking system, so where the hell was Afghanistan acquiring the United States currency to exchange for the somewhat questionable newly-printed Afghanis?

As I am sure you have guessed, the government of Afghanistan simply used currency we obligingly gave them.  According to the BBC, an American military plane transported $249 million in freshly printed money to Kabul every three months.  Why $249 million?  I can’t prove it, but I suspect that any sum above $250 million triggers some statute that requires congressional notice.  $249 million dollars is not exactly folding money, as that much cash takes up far more space than you would imagine.

The United States Treasury stopped printing bills larger than one hundred dollars shortly after World War II, and began recalling them for destruction in 1969.  (Nixon thought such a move would help the ‘War on Drugs’.)  Forced to use only hundred-dollar bills, $249 million would be no small pile of money.

On television crime shows, they frequently use a briefcase that supposedly holds several million dollars in small bills.  In reality, a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills (right) would weigh about twenty pounds and would completely fill an average sized briefcase.  The same amount in fifties would weigh forty pounds, and if you were to use twenties, it would weigh roughly a hundred pounds.  Used bills weigh about 10% more than new ones, so—despite what they show on television—a thief trying to make off with several million in small, unmarked bills is going to need a forklift.

With a little math, you can get the results.  A pallet of bundled bills, stacked six feet high, would hold about $100 million and weigh about a ton.  The United States shipped two and a half pallet loads of such currency to Afghanistan every 90 days to prop up the Central Bank.  At the very least, I hope we got a free toaster for opening the account.

It probably won’t surprise the reader to learn that several hundred million dollars in currency simply vanished from the Central Bank when the Afghan government collapsed.  We know that Ashraf Ghani, the President of Afghanistan fled from his palace with so much cash that not all of it would fit inside his helicopter, forcing the fleeing president to leave stacks of bills on the airport tarmac.

As for the rest of the tons of cash left in Afghanistan, it has simply vanished.  I suspect that the forklift tracks lead straight to Switzerland.