Money

The Talking Heads said it: American money is the ugliest money in the world; that's why it's worth so much.

Maybe there's something to this. But forget how ugly it is; that's a matter of taste. What's indisputable is how incredibly boring it is, despite the fact that we spend so much more (ugly, boring) money designing our (ugly, boring) money than just about anyone else.

Let's start with the paper. In most countries, bills come in different colors, so even without looking carefully (or soberly) you can immediately tell 20 rupees, which is worth about a gumball, from 1000 rupees, which will get you cabfare all the way across India. They also come in different sizes, so you can reach in your pocket and pull out that Hong Kong $2 as a tip without pulling out and rummaging through that big wad which may have a $1000 on top in front of the local Triad boys.

Our bills--including the fancy new "uncounterfeitable" bills (like "uncrackable" software copy protection)--are all identically-sized, identically-green, identically-dull slips of paper. Although it is cool that you can wash our bills in your pants pockets and they come out good as new (if considerably lower in cocaine content), there's not much else going for them.