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Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

You discover you have a money tree, what is your next move?

Asked by Hypocrisy_Central (26879points) November 20th, 2010

You travel to an exotic land on vacation. An old man admires your camera, he says he don’t have anything of value but his special beans that if you planted them correctly it will more than make up for your camera. He somehow convinces you to take that deal. You get home and you plant them and a tree starts to grow. You figure it is a fruit tree common to the old man’s area. When the tree gets about 3.5 ft tall it starts to bloom, not a whole lot but a little. What is grows is not fruit but money. Mostly $1s, $5s, and $10s, with some occasional $20. Do you attempt to spend the money if you can’t detect any difference than the bills you have in your pocket or purse? Once you know they act and are accepted by all merchants and banks as if they were printed in a mint would you tell anyone other than your immediate family you had a money tree? Would you uproot it and try to grow it in a pot indoors, or would you be afraid you’d kill it? If after it got to about 5ft $100 dollar bills would sprout would that be a game changer? And if grew fast enough for you to harvest money from it twice a week would that have anything to do with how or where you’d attempt to grow it? And if you kept it outside (to get as big as it could) how would you hide the fact that money grew on it from neighbors or others you did not care to know? And would you be scared pissless that someone would find out and try to kill you for the tree?

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12 Answers

iamthemob's avatar

(1) Build greenhouse around tree with money from tree.

(2) Buy shotgun to protect tree, also with money from tree.

(3) Harvest, invest, repeat.

Blueroses's avatar

Holy crap! First move is to take some cuttings and try to get a few more growing.

LuckyGuy's avatar

Are you growing poppies in your backyard?

ucme's avatar

I’m a lumberjack & i’m okay
I works all night & I works all day
I cuts down trees I wear high heels
Suspendies & a bra.

Yeah, i’d be happy-ish :¬)

mrentropy's avatar

Why does a tree from “exotic lands” have American money as fruit?

Cruiser's avatar

Trust me you don’t want to mess with currency that has not been printed by the US Mint. Never ever EVER! The Feds will catch up to you sooner or later….and they will not be nice about it when they do.

faye's avatar

What @iamthemob said with a really good lock. Actually I’d try to grow it in the house, sun lamps, it’s own rooms, showers at it’s request, etc.

babybadger's avatar

If the fact that money trees exist ever got out to the public, there would be chaos. That is the hard, cold truth. The economy would be ruined, as would the entire system of money. Thus, this discovery should NEVER be released to others…..In truth, I think that I’d eventually be so guilty of having a legit money tree that I’d destroy it.

Andreas's avatar

Well, seeing as I went to a foreign country and got these seeds (how that happened doesn’t matter) I would have to decide whether or not to declare them to Australian Customs. If declared, Customs may or may not allow them into the country, but in any event I would likely have to tell them about the seeds.

If I said they were seeds of a money tree, then maybe they’d think drugs and confiscate them. If they didn’t confiscate them but allowed their import, then the seeds would be quarantined and I’d incur a small cost for their quarantine service (what’s a small cost to government?). After quarantine the seeds would be returned to me so I could then plant them.

On the other hand, if I didn’t declare them AND they decided to check my bags and found them, then I’d be in big dog-do. Customs would automatically confiscate them for destruction, fine me for making a false declaration (at least several hundred dollars in fines) and may also have me arrested for trying to import a banned substance if they thought drugs. (In case of arrest, the fines probably wouldn’t apply. They’d get those in court!)

Do you see my dilemma? But that’s just for starters.

Assuming I get through this leg of the process the following would likely be the scenario.

The tree(s) are happily growing wherever and it comes time to harvest.

Yankee dollars! Great, not. Now I have to go to a bank to change them to Aussie dollars.

Bugger!

And it’s not even the parity-thing of USD to AUD. Small amounts of currency are one thing ‘cause I can tell the bank they’re leftover USD from my trip, and they’ll likely just convert them at their low rate for currency as opposed to traveller’s cheques.

But the fun will begin when I have to take them in on a daily or even weekly basis. How do I explain that? I haven’t got a clue.

So then, the bank reports this to the authorities and guess what: I get a visit from Australian Federal Police or the State Police and questioned about counterfeiting or money laundering. Sheesh! Can’t a bloke take a trick!

So, @Hypocrisy_Central, no offense (no homo, even!) but I don’t want this rotten tree. It just costs me far too much in inconvenience.

Lets get back to my place, we’ll crack open a cold beer or two and just chill. Let the tree stay where it is, but I don’t want it.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

@mrentropy *_Why does a tree from “exotic lands” have American money as fruit?
Ahem They are special, they know those things….........

@Andreas Since the seed are special if they realized they were planted in Aussie soil and produced Aussie currency would you be so quick to walk away, especially if they were the same as the money you have in your pocket that if you mixed the two together you could not tell which one you grew from that the government minted?

Andreas's avatar

@Hypocrisy_Central Just when I wanted to make this a humourous tale you turn it serious again!

Given this latest information I certainly might have to rethink my position.

rethink done

@babybadger Welcome to Fluther. The money tree wouldn’t be legit, but I think in all seriousness I’d have to go along with you. No government would like to see it’s economy destroyed , by money tree or otherwise.

@Hypocrisy_Central That’s my revised answer.

DerangedSpaceMonkey's avatar

Give it all the Miracle Grow, love and affection I can. LOL

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