Man saves life by decreasing money supply!

This is a story that I will use next time I am teaching about the money supply. What do you do when you are lost on a freezing cold mountain and desperately need some warmth?

Yong Chun Kim was lost on Washington State’s Mt Rainier and survived by making a fire in a snow cave. Although money is probably reasonably easy to burn, he saved this until last, using the much less combustible socks, Band-Aid, and toothbrush first, But he finally had no other choice and had to burn notes from his wallet. The result was a decreased money supply, although probably not enough to undo the effects of the American Fed’s round of quantitative easing!

In actual fact, burning banknotes in the USA is illegal, although I doubt that Mr Kim will find himself prosecuted in this instance.

The link to the story (which als includes a short news report) can be found here.