Slashdot Mirror
Hungary's Needy Given Money to Burn
Knowing that ideas are a dime a dozen and eager to think outside the box, Hungary's central bank is burning old currency to help the needy. The bank has found that the 40-50 tons of currency that needs to be burned every year is a blessing in disguise for people caught between a rock and a hard place due to the extreme cold sweeping across Europe.
Watched the video. Not sure how much energy it takes to process the currency into briquets, but it is certainly one of the most innovative "Recycling" programs I've seen, and from the looks of it, one that actually benefits all parties involved (Central Bank gets to destroy old currency, Poor get free fuel).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
If it just got T-Boned, it might make a delicious meal
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Providing wood or coal would be an extra cost to the government. If they already have the paper and are already destroying it why not compress it into a useful brick for burning. I'd imagine it wouldn't burn that fast if compressed enough.
I can't help but think of how depressed I would be with the irony if I were in this situation. I'm so poor and don't have money, but the government was kind enough to bring some to me and let me watch it burn.
"Our examination showed that the heating properties of these shredded currency briquettes are similar to brown coal so they are pretty useful for heating and resolve the problem to find fuel."
Absolutely. this image immediately came to mind.
FWIW, this is apparently about destroying old worn out bills, a routine practice, as opposed to inflation gone wild
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Not really a great analogy.
Firstly, any government can build a mandate partially on dubious slogans. There's already plenty of people in the US who want compensation against the ills brought onto them by conspiring bankers, so a party that adopted that mandate would probably be radical, but at least get some votes.
Secondly, just because the fellas are burning money doesn't mean they are burning money like Germany. Any central bank destroys money each year when the money is too old to use. Bills deteriorate, become obsolete due to no security features etc. Hungary's inflation has been around 3-4% for several years so no need to fear hyperinflation just yet.
Sure if you ignore that they are the exact opposite situations.
One is burning currency because the government is printing so much that it's worthless.
the other is burning currency because the government doesn't want to increase the supply of currency (and hence make it worthless) as it produces new notes.
a blessing in disguise for people caught between a rock and a hard place
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You shouldn't have skipped the part at 0:26 then.
The part where in the background a woman gives a young man, who clearly displays a lack of concentration and of motoric skills, a basketball to hold up in the air while leading him in a walk on a raised platform of some kind.
I'm guessing the platform is a bench and they are doing a balance exercise.
That might have clued you in that the room is a small gym.
Then again, since your prejudice prevented you from realizing that on your own, seeing there is a girl led through the same exercise in the very frame you chose to present - there is this part a couple of seconds earlier.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Provide a man with fire and he keeps warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm the rest of his life. Something.. something.. something.. soviet Russia.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Oh please. As a 1st gen immigrant from Romania, an eastern european soviet block country crushed by first the Nazis and then the Soviets, capitalism as done in the US is a godsend compared to the bullshit of Marxism. What you have in Russia and Romania is the result of years of devastating communism, where there is no incentive to work, everyone steals from their employer (the state). The same people are in power now as before, they're just "capitalists" by name. I have family that went back after the revolution and tried to help the country, start businesses, teach etc. They got stolen blind because of the same attitudes that had been forged into the soul of the people by communism.
Never mind that I had relatives in prison tortured because my family wouldn't join the communist party. My mother told me about when she was being appointed to her first job, how she wanted to request to be in a different location so she went to the hearing and a married couple went first. They were stationed (the govt picks where you work in that system of govt by the way) over a hundred kilometers apart. They had no car. They had a child. They requested to be posted closer together. The govt presiding officer told the woman - eh you can find another man in your new village. After a few similar cases my mom just left without a hearing.
Go back to your dear Russia and take your communism bullshit with you. Never again you fucks and take your fucking KGB putin and his fucks with you. Thank God for the US. The main regret of the Romanian people and the cause of so much horror there was that the US didn't take over and instead gave Romania to you Russian bastards.
TFA says that the money briquettes have a comparable energy to "brown coal" (aka Lignite), or about 2/3rds the energy of "normal" anthracite coal.
Heating a house in the US Northeast with anthracite takes between three and six tons per year.
So a mere 40-50 tons? Even keeping the house so cold you can see your breath, the amount of these briquettes they need to get rid of will, quite seriously, only heat 10-15 homes.
I truly applaud the vast improvement over burning their retired currency as mere waste, but this has zero impact on keeping a nation's poor from freezing to death in the winter.
Agree. Similar things happened with the Birds ;), but it was worse in Romania.
However I can't accept the fact that a lot of the Eastern block countries are finding it so hard to create a democratic government. I think a lot of the older population still yearn for the security of the old system - so my aunt tells me.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
As a descendant of a Hungarian family your comment makes me want to puke. Your beloved USSR is THE cause that Eastern countries today have the enormous debt they are struggling to somehow repay. For decades the country was kept up (bordering misery) on sovereign debt.
Of course capitalism isn't going to solve everything overnight, and is still quite shitty for many people who have kept the communist attitude of "daddy state will provide".
And I won't even get started on the rampant lack of any basic liberty or human rights which was the norm at the time. My family was stripped of the lands and other possessions which they had earned through hard work because they were tagged as "dirty capitalists".
True, capitalism sucks, but it's still the less bad system anyone has discovered.