Member-only story
The $100 Bill
As the saying goes, money was made round to keep rolling.
My son told me this story a while back, and I have been trying to wrap my head around it ever since. It is a story of debts and debts being paid. It makes sense, and it makes no sense. The story goes like this…
A businessman walked into a hotel and inquired about renting a room. He laid a $100 bill on the counter and told the manager to keep the $100 as a deposit while he went upstairs to look at the rooms to see if they were satisfactory.
While the businessman was upstairs, the hotel manager, sure that he would take the room, quickly ran over to the bakery with the $100 bill. The hotel manager owed the bakery $100 and used the $100 bill to pay his debt.
The baker then took the $100 bill over to the butcher, to whom he owed $100, and paid his bill.
The butcher took the $100 bill over to the hardware store and paid his bill, which was also $100.
The owner of the hardware store took the $100 bill to (guess where) back to the hotel where he owed $100 and paid the hotel manager.
At that moment, the businessman came down the stairs of the hotel and told the manager he was not interested in renting a room, took his $100 bill, and walked out.
No one did any work. No one earned a dime. The $100 bill was simply borrowed money. And yet $400 worth of debt was paid off simply by passing the $100 bill around. The businessman whose $100 bill was passed around did not lose anything because of the transactions. No one was hurt, and everyone except the businessman gained, and he lost nothing.
And here I sit, scratching my head.
