The other night we were over at a friends house and a game of Monopoly ensued. Before long I had acquired my usual properties and my rents were paying off. It looked like another night of winning at Monopoly for me when the following occurred.
A player asked to be excused and went into another room to return with a small printer. His cash reserves were down and his ownership of property was leveraged. The player, using his small printer, printed himself a fistful of new dollars. He claimed he needed to print more money for himself in order to stimulate his position. I had never played Monopoly this way and knew pretty quickly that I needed a money printer in order to hold my current status and stay in the game.
It did not take long for the prices of the properties, the bids and the rents, to rise. After all, there was a lot more money in the game and unless you were willing to print new money, you would not be able to compete. Because the money could be printed at will, I knew prices would rise due to the diminished value of the newly printed bills.
To date, we are still playing the game. Every time a player gets in trouble, he or she simply prints more money, thus extending the game. We have called a timeout for discussion of this new rule that allows us to print money. We now recognize the money printing has only extended the coming pain for those who, once the printing stops, will lose every thing they own due to their poor financial decisions.
