When I created an economic system in my elementary school class.

I was 9 yo, and I decided to found an economic system within my elementary school classroom.

I invented a coin, the “team,” which I created using the sheets taken from the class printer and which I “validated” with my signature, banknote by banknote.

I started by distributing banknotes worth 35 teams to each class member, and we all immediately started using it to buy and sell notebooks, pens, snacks, etc.

Since I was the “central bank” in the system, I started printing more banknotes and keeping them just for myself.

In this way, I would have been able to have plenty of stationery and snacks, I thought.

Regardless of the consequences, I then started printing new banknotes at full capacity. To speed up the process, I also had the brilliant idea of ​​starting to print only 500 team banknotes (it took me the same time to create one for 5 or 500).

I also hired two of my friends (Sarah and Francesca) to work every day during the playtime, who cut the banknotes and wrote them for me for 100 teams a day (the same banknotes that they produced).

I would only have to put the final signature to validate them.

In a short time, however, I learned what inflation was. In fact, after a few days, transaction after transaction, a notebook had gone from costing an average of 20 teams to 1500 teams. Inflation of + 7400% in just a few days.

After a couple of weeks, my locker was crammed with all sorts of stationery with dozens and dozens of notebooks, pencil cases, pens, colored markers, etc.

I was happy with what was going on, but at the same time, I was starting to feel a little guilty and wonder if what I was doing was right and ethical.

It started as a game, but the situation had exploded in my hands in a very short time.

The system collapsed when the teacher Barbara one day, organized a class meeting. During the parent and teachers meeting, many complained that their children were always running out of stationery.

So I returned the stationery to my friends, and we stopped using my currency.

However, I still jealously keep the banknotes at my parents’ home as a memento of my “first business.”