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According to studies, over 71% of U.S. wealth is concentrated in the hands of only 10% of the population, with the bottom 40% of the population owning less than 1%.

I’m an artist, so believe me, I’m in the lower range of American earners. Recently, I was faced with the age old question, “How the hell do I pay my fucking rent?”

I had no ideas, no plan, no job prospects. So, just like Oprah preaches with The Secret, all I needed to do was put my thoughts into the universe, envisioning myself with money, and I would get what I ask for. So that’s what I did. But JUST in case The Secret didn’t start the money rolling in, I proceeded to sack my office hoping to find some shit to eBay.

Well guess what happened, folks. Not 2 hours later, I got what I wanted – in the form of Brazilian money.

I realized in that moment that Oprah and I had so much in common. She used The Secret and got a role in The Color Purple. I used it and found old Brazilian money. We’re both so blessed – we must be twins!

Anyway, back to the money… You see, I used to collect foreign currency. My dad went on many business trips around the world when I was younger, and he would bring back coins or bills for me from every country he visited. I happily stuffed them into shoe boxes or put them in photo albums. The other day when I was searching my office, I found all the money from years ago. I had Italian liras, British pounds, Israeli shekalim, Mexican pesos… the list goes on and on. But I realized my dad struck gold without realizing it when I found over $600,000 in Brazilian money.

I don’t know if you noticed in the scanned image of the money to the right, but there’s a $500,000 bill in there, right in the middle. Then there are two other $50,000 bills. With all that money, who cares about the $200 bill?! Not me! Immediately after uploading the image of the money for this post, I smoked the $200 in celebration of the other $600,000.

Ok, that’s a lie. I’m Jewish, of course I care about the $200.

And I don’t smoke.

A quick search for Brazilian to U.S. currency conversion showed that $600,200 Brazilian reais are worth $347,883 U.S. dollars!

That’s right, bitches. I became an instant hundred-thousand-aire thanks to my dad… and my being a pack rat. I called the nearest Amex travel agency to see how soon they could exchange the money and to make sure they had enough cash on hand to cover it. There’s no way I was taking a check. You can’t spread a check all over your bed and roll around naked in it, now can you.

The first question they asked me was if the money was new Brazilian reais or the old currency.

“Old currency?” I asked. Shit, there’s an old currency? The bills did look pretty old. I looked closely and saw these weren’t even reais, these were CRUZEIROS! What they hell are those?

I told Amex I’d get back to them as I had to do a little research.

WARNING: HISTORY LESSON APPROACHING
Although Brazil is known for churning out supermodels, barely there bikinis and awesome waxing techniques, it apparently is not known for churning out strong currency. Here’s a history on Brazilian inflation and its effects on the value of their money:

• 1900 – 1930: Money was called reis meaning “kings”.
• 1930′s: Money changed name to mil reis meaning “a thousand kings”.
• 1942: Currency had devalued so much that the monetary note changed to the cruzeiros, meaning “crosses”, at a value of 1000 to 1. i.e., they dropped 3 zeroes. You’ll be hearing that a lot more.
• 1967: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro nuvo and 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1970′s: While the Brazilian economy was growing at 10% a year, inflation was running anywhere between 15% to 300%.
• Mid 1980′s: Inflation peaked at 2,000%.
• 1986: Cruzeiro becomes cruzado (crusade). 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1989: Cruzado becomes cruzado nuvo. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1990: To avoid confusion (is that possible?) the cruzado nuvo is renamed cruzeiro with no change in value.
• 1993: Cruzeiro becomes cruzeiro real. 3 more zeroes are dropped.
• 1994: Cruzeiro real becomes the real (royal), worth 2.75 old cruzeiros reais

A 1960s Cruzeiro was, in 1994, worth less than one trillionth of a US cent, after adjusting for multiple devaluations and note changes. The overall impact of hyperinflation: 1 (1994) real = 2,700,000,000,000,000,000 pre-1930 reis.

Conclusion:
$600,000 of my money comes form the 1990 batch of notes. The $200 bill comes from 1981 and therefore is worth much less. $0.000000073 USD to be exact. In all, the money I have is worth a whopping $126.840000073 U.S. dollars. That is if the banks would even buy it, which they won’t.

Fuck you very much, Brazil.

My only hope for this money is that it will be worth something as a collector’s item one day. Currently, I can sell them all for about $50 USD. Not quite what I need for rent.

As my father gave to me, so I shall pass it on to my offspring.

For rent, I’ll just have to trade in those British pounds I have. And at least my U.S. money is still worth something… for now.