What's the idea behind currencies like the yen?

BetterThanThou

It's something I never understood, 100 yen isn't even worth 1 euro.
Is it for simplicity's sake or something? So rather than having euros/cents/ect, they just have yen? Or is there another reason? Because I could see that currency system getting quite confusing. And I'd personally think it would be a lot of hassle having to write "1,000,000 yen" rather than "7000 euro"

keith16

Yeah, why isn't everything like where I live?

BetterThanThou

keith16 wrote: »

Yeah, why isn't everything like where I live?

I don't disagree with it, I love Japanese culture. I just want to know if there's any reasoning behind it, or if it just ended up like that.

Mena

Karl Pilkington, is that you?

Knob Longman

The Japs need to learn all about currency from the Irish..:pac:

Frank Lee Midere

It's a semi reasonable question, perhaps better rephrased as

Why do some countries need such large denominations.

The answer is. They had inflation and never issued new currency units.

Frank Lee Midere

Knob Longman wrote: »

The Japs need to learn all about currency from the Irish..:pac:

Yes. Because we don't have one.

osarusan

There used to be the even-smaller sen and rin.

And good luck with the man, which is a unit of 10,000.

So when you say 35000 in Japanese, you actually say 3man, 5sen.

Mad stuff altogether.

EDIT: there was an idea floating around briefly a couple of years ago to reduce it just to 1,2,3, etc, instead of 100, 200, 300, etc. Supposed to stimulate spending or something, but never got anywhere.

dxhound2005

BetterThanThou wrote: »

It's something I never understood, 100 yen isn't even worth 1 euro.
Is it for simplicity's sake or something? So rather than having euros/cents/ect, they just have yen? Or is there another reason? Because I could see that currency system getting quite confusing. And I'd personally think it would be a lot of hassle having to write "1,000,000 yen" rather than "7000 euro"

In my lifetime in this country there was a coin called the farthing. There were 960 farthings in a pound.

Knob Longman

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Yes. Because we don't have one.

We single handily almost ruined the currency we do use, And had to be bailed out by Germany over it..:P

Sunglasses Ron

BetterThanThou wrote: »

I love Japanese culture. .

I've never understood this Western fascination. I can't think of anywhere in the world I would be less inclined to visit. I think Japan and I think WWII, Aum Shinrinkyo, s'hit anime, a taste for awful European artistes/ bands too terrible to make it back home, weird porn, and men reading rape comics on trains.


Being quite honest I would love to visit North Korea. It wouldn't exactly be a booze and birds holiday but I really would love to see the timewarp it is in before Kim Il Whcihevernow is overthrown within the next decade and they have three McDonald's per mile in Pyongyang,

bockeys jollocks

Forget the Yen, the Italian Lire was a nightmare 1,000 punts would give you 2.4 million Lire

Amirani

Sunglasses Ron wrote: »

I've never understood this Western fascination. I can't think of anywhere in the world I would be less inclined to visit. I think Japan and I think WWII, Aum Shinrinkyo, s'hit anime, a taste for awful European artistes/ bands too terrible to make it back home, weird porn, and men reading rape comics on trains.

You should probably think harder so. If that doesn't work, maybe try visiting to form a more accurate opinion on the country?

Sunglasses Ron

Sunglasses Ron wrote: »

I've never understood this Western fascination. I can't think of anywhere in the world I would be less inclined to visit. I think Japan and I think WWII, Aum Shinrinkyo, s'hit anime, a taste for awful European artistes/ bands too terrible to make it back home, weird porn, and men reading rape comics on trains.


Being quite honest I would love to visit North Korea. It wouldn't exactly be a booze and birds holiday but I really would love to see the timewarp it is in before Kim Il Whcihevernow is overthrown within the next decade and they have three McDonald's per mile in Pyongyang,

Doesn't want to visit Japan cos WWII and other bad things.

Wants to visit North Korea.

Rightio.

Smiles35

Knob Longman wrote: »

We single handily almost ruined the currency we do use, And had to be bailed out by Germany over it..:P

You tell em Da!

osarusan

Sunglasses Ron wrote: »

I've never understood this Western fascination. I can't think of anywhere in the world I would be less inclined to visit. I think Japan and I think WWII, Aum Shinrinkyo, s'hit anime, a taste for awful European artistes/ bands too terrible to make it back home, weird porn, and men reading rape comics on trains.

Japan's loss, I'm sure.

MS.ing

BetterThanThou wrote: »

I don't disagree with it, I love Japanese culture. I just want to know if there's any reasoning behind it, or if it just ended up like that.

ended up like that through something called inflation. did you know before the euro a cup of coffee use to cost a couple hundred lire, which was the currency in italy before they too changed to the euro. tizz all mad ted, their currency not worth ****all yet now each country has the same value of currency. 1 euro. period.

BetterThanThou

Sunglasses Ron wrote: »

I've never understood this Western fascination. I can't think of anywhere in the world I would be less inclined to visit. I think Japan and I think WWII, Aum Shinrinkyo, s'hit anime, a taste for awful European artistes/ bands too terrible to make it back home, weird porn, and men reading rape comics on trains.


Being quite honest I would love to visit North Korea. It wouldn't exactly be a booze and birds holiday but I really would love to see the timewarp it is in before Kim Il Whcihevernow is overthrown within the next decade and they have three McDonald's per mile in Pyongyang,

You're listing all the bad aspects of Japanese culture, there's many good aspects too, and the country is beautiful.

MS.ing

BetterThanThou wrote: »

You're listing all the bad aspects of Japanese culture, there's many good aspects too, and the country is beautiful.

but more than all that they have japanese women

dodderangler

Pretty sure the idea is to trade the money into stores for things like clothes and food and such.
Like most currencies

keith16

dxhound2005 wrote: »

In my lifetime in this country there was a coin called the farthing. There were 960 farthings in a pound.

"Gimme 960 farthings for a pound" you'd say. The important thing was you'd have an onion on your belt. Which was the style at the time.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Turkish Lira was ridiculous, 100's of thousands was worth next to nothing, Thailand is similar. I remember reading it was because their currencies had been devalued several times in the past but they never got rid of their smaller notes/currency and so the price of items grew even though their relative value remained the same.

Links234

BetterThanThou wrote: »

And I'd personally think it would be a lot of hassle having to write "1,000,000 yen" rather than "7000 euro"

But they wouldn't write 1,000,000 yen, they'd write 百万円 :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

dxhound2005 wrote: »

In my lifetime in this country there was a coin called the farthing. There were 960 farthings in a pound.

1,008 in a Guinea

knipex

I remember about 13 years ago arriving in Hanoi, changing 100 USD in the airport and getting multiple bricks of 1000 Dong notes in return.. I was trying to find pockets to stuff them into...

Sh1tbag OToole

Is there any real life country where the currency is worth about the same as a bitcoin? where 1 unit of currency is a week's work?

Handed over a wad of 10,000₩ notes for a hard drive in Korea there a while back

Frank Lee Midere

The great thing about Italy and the Lira of course, is that it had the greatest number of millionaires per capita in the world.

dxhound2005

The new place for millionaires is Zimbabwe.

https://www.google.ie/search?q=zimbabwe+currency&lr=&as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&imgil=BBm4m8Uki_bzUM%253A%253Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcRp26IahyYiydKHvxKcNpWHi9RdufqP9VEaiPC_wPbw2wDah50uvw%253B580%253B352%253B_aXvJ3Rc31G4jM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.rugusavay.com%25252Fzimbabwe-currency%25252F&source=iu&usg=__jPrUBYdni2ZszLaMtRuMJq9Aggk%3D&sa=X&ei=NRk3U8C4BIrA7Aayp4DICQ&ved=0CE8Q9QEwBg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=BBm4m8Uki_bzUM%253A%3B_aXvJ3Rc31G4jM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.rugusavay.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2013%252F04%252Fzimbabwe-currency-1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.rugusavay.com%252Fzimbabwe-currency%252F%3B580%3B352

entropi

"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."

Lenin Skynard

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Is there any real life country where the currency is worth about the same as a bitcoin? where 1 unit of currency is a week's work?

Handed over a wad of 10,000₩ notes for a hard drive in Korea there a while back

Seems like the Kuwaiti Dinar is the highest value single currency unit at $3.65 per Dinar. Not that impressive at all really.

Sealow

BetterThanThou wrote: »

I don't disagree with it, I love Japanese culture. I just want to know if there's any reasoning behind it, or if it just ended up like that.

market forces mean people are only willing to exchange 100 or so yen per euro.

dxhound2005

entropi wrote: »

"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."

Stories that don't go anywhere aka shaggy dog stories. Which is the style these days.

Zaph

BetterThanThou wrote: »

It's something I never understood, 100 yen isn't even worth 1 euro.
Is it for simplicity's sake or something? So rather than having euros/cents/ect, they just have yen? Or is there another reason? Because I could see that currency system getting quite confusing. And I'd personally think it would be a lot of hassle having to write "1,000,000 yen" rather than "7000 euro"

But the Yen was around a long time before the Euro, so the real question is why isn't the Euro like the Yen? Then we could have 100 Euro equal to 100 yen and you wouldn't be confused any more.

Links234

BetterThanThou wrote: »

You're listing all the bad aspects of Japanese culture, there's many good aspects too, and the country is beautiful.

Also, pretty sure that Anime isn't a bad aspect of Japan either

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncKI6KPZVCc

Aidric

Fúck me..lol

Stavros Murphy

I only trust gold. Pi55es off people behind me in queues no-end, took me ten minutes there today shaving off 0.8 gram from my ingot to pay for a Twix and some smokes.

The Diabolical Monocle

Japan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPqol5Qvq_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpqxSBclqWs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g

Stavros Murphy

A glate brunch of rads.

Links234

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

Japan.

You know, Japan is just a normal place with normal people. We have this WAY too overly exoticized view of the place, and it really isn't this insane, bizarre netherworld where everything's crazy, people just get this idea that Japan is wierd and anything that comes along that confirms that view, people say "omg, seen the new Takashi Miike movie?! Japan be crazy!" It's just cherry-picking 'crazy' aspects of Japanese pop-culture.

Sometimes people say to me "wow, you must've had some culture shock over there" when I say I've been to Japan, but you know what? I didn't. The closest thing to culture shock I had was that the public transport was great. I'd say a load of people who think it's such a strange place would be in for an awful land if they actually went there.

It's actually gotten to the point where I just don't believe whatever crazy story I hear. I mean, you heard about the whole eyeball-licking craze in Japan? Loads of news sources were going on about it and how it was spreading diseases and how teenagers were going blind because of it, apparently there was outrage at the band Born because there was an eyeball-licking scene in their Spiral Lie video, this was huge news, and it was picked up by everyone from the Daily Mail to the Huffington Post, everyone was talking about this... But you know who didn't hear about it? The Japanese. Because guess what? Never happened! There was no eye licking craze, kids weren't going blind, it got reported because it's Japan so of course crazy **** like this is going on over there, right?

The only bit of truth in the whole thing was there was an eyeball-licking scene in the Born video, but that's it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw4AHVNHahI

But you know, you probably didn't want a serious reply about Japan not actually being as nuts as people think. You're welcome

zetalambda

If you think the yen conversion is mad, have a look at the Zimbabwe Dollar conversion, €100 = 49,772 Zimbabwean Dollars!

Capt'n Midnight

Stavros Murphy wrote: »

I only trust gold. Pi55es off people behind me in queues no-end, took me ten minutes there today shaving off 0.8 gram from my ingot to pay for a Twix and some smokes.

ease up on the smokes or you'll get lung cancer

either that or you'll figure out why it's handy to have tokens that everyone agrees the relative value of

0.0321507466 oz/ g x .8g x 940.56 €/oz = €24.19

Donkey Oaty

zetalambda wrote: »

If you think the yen conversion is mad, have a look at the Zimbabwe Dollar conversion, €100 = 49,772 Zimbabwean Dollars!

It used to be much madder than that. At one point in 2008 an egg cost fifty billion Zimbabwean dollars, which was around 20c in Euros.

Son Of A Vidic

bockeys jollocks wrote: »

Forget the Yen, the Italian Lire was a nightmare 1,000 punts would give you 2.4 million Lire

I remember going on holidays to Italy with my parents and Dad gave me some pocket money. Thought I'd never have to work a day in my life.....:(

Flincher

There are about 30,000 Vietnamese Dong to a Euro. I spent six hundred grand on a watch.

MS.ing

Flincher wrote: »

There are about 30,000 Vietnamese Dong to a Euro. I spent six hundred grand on a watch.

dong! best currency name evar!

Stavros Murphy

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

ease up on the smokes or you'll get lung cancer

either that or you'll figure out why it's handy to have tokens that everyone agrees the relative value of

0.0321507466 oz/ g x .8g x 940.56 €/oz = €24.19

You try calculating the price of a Twix and 40 Major in grammes of gold after a few beers using only your fingers. I'm chuffed I got that close. And wholesale it's making a bit less - gold, that is.

El Horseboxo

zetalambda wrote: »

If you think the yen conversion is mad, have a look at the Zimbabwe Dollar conversion, €100 = 49,772 Zimbabwean Dollars!

100 euro is almost 3 million dong.

dirtyden

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

1,008 in a Guinea

Where did the Guinea come from? I have wondered what it was worth when it was mentioned (generally mentioned with respect to the value of horses).

Stavros Murphy

dirtyden wrote: »

Where did the Guinea come from? I have wondered what it was worth when it was mentioned (generally mentioned with respect to the value of horses).

It has somthing to do with commission rates for people selling horses, and is/was mainly a UK thing - it allows for 5% on top of the price in pounds, i.e 100,000 guineas, you get your price in pounds and they keep the 5% extra the buyer pays. So £1.05 - 1 guinea. Afaik.

dirtyden

dirtyden wrote: »

Where did the Guinea come from? I have wondered what it was worth when it was mentioned (generally mentioned with respect to the value of horses).

From wikipedia

The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1814.[1] It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one pound sterling,[1] equal to twenty shillings; but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase, at times to as high as thirty shillings; from 1717 until 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings. Following that, Great Britain adopted the gold standard and guinea became a colloquial or specialised term.

kowloon

knipex wrote: »

I remember about 13 years ago arriving in Hanoi, changing 100 USD in the airport and getting multiple bricks of 1000 Dong notes in return.. I was trying to find pockets to stuff them into...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9eAzb-Yuzw