(True story.)
When I was a young boy, my mother used to hand me some money and send me to the store to buy bread and milk. Sometimes I bought extra milk because I liked milk rice pudding very much, especially with cocoa and honey. (My mother's and grandmother's simplest and best recipe.)
I must have been doing my job very well, because over time the banknotes she gave me had larger and larger denominations. Tens, hundreds, thousands, millions... I was getting richer by the day.
Many can't even dream of such wealth!
But don't think I got more money for the same job - my skills and responsibilities increased as well. Milk became scarce and hard to get (many times milk powder was the second best choice). To get bread I had to go to 5-6 stores on average, only at specific times when bread arrived, and wait in longer and longer lines.
It was exhausting work.
The largest bill my mother gave me to buy bread with was a five-hundred billion bill. That's 500 000 000 000 - the digit 5 followed by eleven zeroes.
Having two of these made me a trillionaire - I could buy bread and milk with it if I was lucky and diligent.
This tale took place in an almost European country famous for its export of war criminals - and the name of the phenomenon is 'hyperinflation'.
The moral of the story? Richness lies in quality rather than quantity.
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