If you cut a dollar in half.

The lore of grade school explains that you can take it down to the bank and get a dollar for it. Just as long as it has the serial number on it.

I never tested this theory, given that there are two serial number on each bill, a nice fat 100 percent return on every dollar..... just, well, ummm, seemed to be too good to be true.

Somehow though, a large group of adults, including my friends, your parents, the government and everyone on Wall St. decided that you could cut a dollar into a thousand or more little pieces, and those would somehow be worth a whole dollar when you went to cash it in.

In the past few months this theory has been soundly disproved.

In actuality a big kid just stole your dollar.

Derivatives simplified.