Which country’s genius deserves the €200 note?

Money can look like just about anything. In ancient China, bronze knives circulated as a means of payment; during the Depression, Californians used clamshells instead of cash; in 1970 Irish shoppers were forced, by a banking strike, to make do with ious written on toilet paper. As Hyman Minsky, an economist, put it: “Anyone can create money; the problem is getting it accepted.”