2016: What a mess

Hoo boy.

2016 has been one wild ride.

This year, world politics entered its rebellious teenage phase, everyone totally lost it over a dead gorilla and Russia may or may not have hacked the US Election. We also lost a lot of incredible cultural icons — and with them, went many of the laws of reality, apparently.

Because if you thought everything seemed to be just a little insane this year, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re spot on. 2016 really was the year of, “No wait, did that really just happen?”

And the financial world was not spared. Here are the top absolutely insane money things that happened in 2016:

Celebrities had money issues. Big ones.

For starters, Kanye West announced he was $53 million in debt. Ouch.

That’s pretty bad, but my favourite celebrity money scandal of the year would have to be Nelly’s tax issues. Between taxes and a big fat federal tax lien, he reportedly owed $2,561,794.

But never fear! 90s kids never forget our icons, and the internet rallied to #SaveNelly. SPIN magazine worked out it would take 287,176,547 Spotify streams to pay off Nelly’s debt and the internet took it from there.

Unfortunately, no one was quite clear on whether or not it actually worked.

Apple tried to charge us $1k for a phone with no headphone jack.

And the less said about that, the better.

The UK took a shot at the title for “worst decision ever.”

Brexit happened. Like, actually happened. No one believed it would- apparently, not even people who voted for it. Yet it did.

The country descended into chaos and the pound followed. The real effects of Brexit on Australia are perhaps yet to be seen, but, if Britain has its way, it looks like there’ll be a lot more biscuits, beer, scone and jams in our futures.

America responded.

You thought Brexit was potentially the dumbest thing a large group of disgruntled voters could do to their country? Well then you’ve obviously underestimated the hot mess that was 2016.

Not to be outdone by its tea-swilling cousin (uncle? Evil stepmother?) the good ol’ US of A stepped up to the plate and showed the world what a really, truly bad decision looks like.

Just like Brexit, Trump actually winning the US election seemed like the kind of thing that was so ridiculous it could never actually happen. But it did, and Trump single-handedly plunged world financial markets into panic by becoming president elect.

Meanwhile, Australia got a new fiver.

As the UK and US were busy making waves in worldwide financial markets with their questionable political decisions, us Aussies had much bigger fish to fry. We welcomed a new $5, and by welcomed, I mean promptly dropped our bundle over it. Never has Australia been more eloquent than when discussing our feelings about this newest iteration of our currency.

But I’m pretty sure it was all a savings conspiracy hatched by Glenn Stevens anyway.

And had a generational spat over smashed avo.

In a nutshell: “Millennials can’t afford to buy houses because they buy too much avocado on toast. It has nothing at all to do with the economic climate they inherited from us, their parents.”

In an even more concise nutshell:

And hey, there’s still 15 days of 2016 left — that’s plenty of time for this year to throw us another curveball. But don’t worry guys — I’m sure 2017 will be kinder to us. I’m sure.

ShesOnTheMoney blogs over at Mozo.com.au.