No, this is not going to be a column about credit cards, shopping or e-commerce during the recent holiday season. I hope that you are up-to-date on what is going on with the economy on your own for now. Or just open your year-end 401K statement to find out!

Christmas always brings about cherished memories, particularly of one's childhood. For me, I seem to think about the toys of my youth, particularly board games and puzzles that I always found fascinating and challenging.

Perhaps if you have some short people in your household, you might have a few board games lying around. And for the not so short and not so young persons, there are myriads of video games to choose from. I bet that one or two found their way to your house this past Christmas. As for us, we are now the proud owners of two brand new digital hand-held Sudoku games to help pass the time and to keep our brains alert!

However, today I want to share with you a story about the classic and venerable board game of Monopoly and something that transpired during a shopping trip last month. And believe it or not, this discovery actually relates to the purpose of this column!

Did you know that Monopoly has replaced cash with debit cards? That's right, the board game that has given millions of children their first taste of capitalism is phasing out money.

No more currency! What is going on here?

Is it any wonder the national economy is in a tailspin?

What next? A game of Life with credit cards?

Yes, that game (where you stick little pins representing mom, dad and babies in a car) also is cash-free. Its credit cards even carry the Visa logo. I'm surprised the vehicles don't have a Budweiser sticker on them. Maybe next year.

I first uncovered this devious terrorist plot in a Wal-Mart, of all places.

I went running through the aisles of the store, found my wife in the housewares department and (like a little kid at Christmas) grabbed her by the sleeve and literally dragged her to the Monopoly game display.

"You've got to see this!" I was screaming over and over.

I held up a Monopoly box with the words "Electronic Banking" on it and pointed to the words "Debit Payment System."

Her response was wonderful. (I have trained her well!)

"Nooooo," she moaned. "How are children going to learn to count? How will they learn to make change?"

Precisely. Exactly. On the money! (Pun intended!)

Searching the Internet, I discovered that Parker Bros., the subsidiary of Hasbro that makes Monopoly, first unveiled the debit card game in socialist England in 2006.

Of course. Where else? Communist China, perhaps?

Think of the consequences. Children, instead of counting out a pile of bogus $500 bills to put a house on Park Place, simply slide a plastic card through a scanner. Hey, if you land on Fannie Mae maybe you get to bundle your debt and sell it on the stock market for millions.

Land on Community Chest, and the federal government hands you $750 billion.

"Make millions with a swipe of your card!" the back of the Monopoly box exclaims.

Wheel and deal your way to a fortune even faster using debit cards instead of cash. All it takes is a card swipe for money to change hands.

"Now you can collect rent, buy properties and pay fines, all with the touch of a button. It's a new way to play the family classic that's been brought up-to-date with higher property values and locations based on your favorite landmarks."

Even the player tokens have been changed. There's a baseball cap instead of the old top hat. There's still a dog, but now it sits in a handbag, a la Paris Hilton.

The space shuttle has replaced the airplane. There's also a flat-screen TV token, a Segway (that I mistook for an old-fashioned push mower) and an Altoids tin that looks like a laptop computer but has the word "Altoids" stamped on the back. Product placement lives.

The Wal-Mart I visited still carries a Monopoly game with cash money, but it was apparent that the more costly electronic versions were being pushed as Christmas gifts.

It was like seeing an old boxed set of black-and-white Flash Gordon movies sitting next to "Star Wars" in a CD display case.

There's no contest.

The game board is from the "Here and Now" edition of Monopoly, which replaces the old railroads with O'Hare, Kennedy, Los Angeles and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airports ($2 million each).

Times Square replaces Boardwalk for the price of $4 million.

And Jacobs Field in Cleveland ($600,000) replaces Baltic Avenue.

At those prices (calculated before the recent decline in property values), you would need a truckload of cash to play the game - or lots of $1 million bills.

At first, I was distraught to see the White House for sale at $3.2 million but after some thought realized it probably had been bought for much less.

The French Quarter in New Orleans sells for $2.6 million at pre-Katrina prices. They might want to shift that baby to the old Baltic square.

You can even buy the precious Liberty Bell as a property for $1.6 million and the Johnson Space Center in Houston for $1.8 million.

I guess the message to children is that anything in America is for sale at the right price.

But Disney World in Orlando for $2.4 million? I think Walt paid more for that property when it still was swampland.

There still are dice, at least in the version of Monopoly I bought. But Life uses an electronic gadget to tell players how many spaces to move. You can't expect kids to add up all those little dots on the dice, I suppose.

Maybe this isn't such a big deal. After all, most children prefer video games to board games today.

Still, it seems to me that Monopoly money once was as American as apple pie.

And what happens when the batteries in the debit card calculator go bad?

No one will know what to do. Just like in real stores all over America.

We at TPAtlanta wish you all a most prosperous 2009, whether your business still accepts currency or not. Happy New Year!

Calvin D. Johnson, Publisher
publisher@tpatlanta.com
Trans Atlantic Systems, Inc.