NEW ZEALAND BANKNOTES AND CURRENCY: AND THE JOKE ABOUT THE MONOPOLY MONEY:

THIS DOCUMENT IS TO UNMUDDLE ANYONE WHOM REALLY BELIEVES THAT IN NEW ZEALAND WE USE MONOPOLY MONEY INSTEAD OF 'REAL MONEY': LEGAL TENDER BANKNOTES.

Many years ago, I read in a book that a taxi-driver in Australia had been offered New Zealand currency to pay for a person's ride in the taxi. IN this joke-book, the taxi driver turned down the money because it was, he said, only monopoly money, another version says "play-money". This joke was made up because at that time, the New Zealand currency was in bad shape and not worth much in Australia. 

I read the joke, but didn't laugh much.

It included as part of the joke, unspoken, the truth is that our money has various colours so our $5.00 banknote is coloured orange, our $100,00 banknotes are coloured red and other denominations are printed in other colours. This is a very good idea about coloured money, since we can find from our wallets, if we have our banknotes there, very quickly find the right banknotes going by the COLOUR of our banknotes; other nations often do not do that. 

So someone printed the joke. 

AND THIS IS NOT AT ALL FUNNY:

HOWEVER: Years later, I was organising some money from my New Zealand bank account, to send to a group in India. I wrote to the group and asked if they wanted banknotes from New Zealand, OR a  transfer of money to their bank and asked what bank they would prefer to use.

I got a reply in the mail, and was rather appalled at what it said:

"Sorry, we understand you use monopoly money in New Zealand, we cannot use that". The letter was polite, and came from a very, very genuine group of people, whom would consider a lie as a sin, so would NOT lie or joke. These people had not ever seen a New Zealand banknote, either, they were from India, and bless them for their politeness, too.

It took awhile for myself to think of what to say in reply: how to prove or disprove this? It had fooled these people in India, and they are NOT stupid, it was word of mouth that became quite a convincing thing. And others, repeating that, thought it was true and told other people, and because they didn't know it was not true, the person telling that idea, was believed, it seemed so true, because mostly, the people believed it was true, however odd it may have seemed.

Here's the answer: IF it was monopoly money, it would clearly read on the note: "monopoly". If it was real and genuine New Zealand money or banknotes, it would state "New Zealand" on the notes. And would have on one side of the banknotes, a sketch-portrait of well-known in New Zealand, people. And our banknotes also have a small transparent part, giving the nickname of: "plastic money", this done to put off the counterfeiters whom cannot mimic that.

I'm putting this here so maybe word of mouth can go around and straighten out this mess. 

There is NO monopoly money used for real financial transactions, at all, anywhere in the world, it's simply play-money with no real financial worth. 

I suppose some people in other nations would not know what we mean by "Monopoly": it's a board-game based on dice and property to rent, sell or buy. And it's just a game.

I don't mind a good, clean, harmless fun joke, that would not hurt even ONE person's feelings or emotions, none: otherwise, I won't re-tell it. I would change the subject instead of hurting others. And the animals have feelings too, so don't joke about them, either.
The monopoly money joke has gone way too far.

I hope this helps unmuddle people.

Good luck in your lives, people. Did you realise good luck can be earned for the future? The answer is: don't sin. If you do wrong things on purpose, that's only earning bad luck, or bad fortune, or spiritual debt, or bad kharma: all of those are the same thing, and ARE about our futures. 
Good luck, good fortune, Spiritual Merit or good kharma, are earned with good work, good thoughts, words and deeds. And that's the way it really is, yet, this in simple yet very summarised form. 
Good luck.