High-quality counterfeits of American $100 and $50 are keeping North Korea's economy afloat, The End of Money author David Wolman reports in Time. Estimates on Pyongyang's black market counterfeiting profits range from $15 to $25 million "to several hundred million dollars' worth" every year.

There will be no more "dollar coins." Nobody wants them. The coins, we mean; their heft is too great for the threadbare, hole-studded pockets of the average American pant. But dollars themselves—sure, we'll take em. Got any? No.

The Federal Reserve is rolling out new $100 bills. Pity. We quite liked the current design: clean, uncluttered, bold, and crisp on the fingertips (or so we hear). Now it looks like a god damn child's crayon scratch pad.

"Altria" (makers of Virginia Slims, Marlboros, and, mmm, Parliaments, the cigarettes of Jackie Onassis™) is, sort of, packing up and leaving for Europe. Their new focus on the production of tobacco across the Atlantic may destroy the economies of several of those states south of here that we don't go to—and it also means, far more importantly, that the ballet scene in New York is totally screwed, as Altria's $7 million a year in local arts funding is heading for the hills. This marks a brave new era in our city. Will the next generation of young New Yorkers even remember how we once spent our weekends? All those endless nights spent unhappily shuffling off to a friend-of-a-friend's terrible performance piece?