When I was in middle school I measured my wealth by the number of McChickens I could purchase. The transaction was simple: $1 per one sandwich (sales tax was not considered in the exchange rate). Each dollar became two pieces of white bread plastered with mayonnaise and completed one chicken patty from the bones of animals who went, from egg to mechanized execution, through a hell that would shatter the mind of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
While the McChicken is not the most ethical form of currency on the market, it maintains innate value -- junk food -- making it more stable than the dollar, euro, yen, or even the notoriously strong CFA. Common currency often takes the form of coins, paper bills, or electronic bank records, but if people lose faith in their currency en masse or if the global economy collapses it becomes worthless. By contrast, the McChicken will always be valuable as an easy way to get carbohydrates, fat, protein, and wilting lettuce.
Doubters believe the McChicken will rapidly lose value after minting but citizens of the new McDonalds empire need not worry, each sandwich is so full of preservatives that archaeologists will be digging up edible McChickens years after over invested banks implode and coins dissolve back into the soil.
The main drawback of the McChicken lies in its size: no consumer in their right mind would carry around 250 sandwiches so they could buy a Wii, or 30,000 so they could make a down payment on a new house. But a system that uses the McChicken would surely adopt more expensive foods to fill the position of larger "bills."
Only time will tell if my half-brained middle school idea will pan out into a local, national, or global currency, but the distribution centers and minting factories are already in place around the world. I leave the rest to the desperate victims of a slumped economy.
Why have you not updated this blog for over a year?
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