What happens if someone destroy money?
Depending on the country, nothing.  For example, the US has about $1.3 trillion dollars of cash in circulation.  Which means that if you were to burn a million dollars of it, that would be 0.000077% of  the circulating cash.  But cash is a small portion of the actual money in the US.  Only about 8% of all money is in cash, the rest is in other forms of value, which means that you'd only be destroying 0.0000062% of the US's money if you burned a full $1,000,000.
That's like saying the Dollar is untrustworthy because Madoff used it in his scam, or that the Dollar is a criminal enterprise because US cash is the number one currency of the black market.  If you believe those arguments as well, then I grant your criticism, but otherwise you'd be inconsistent.  Personally I don't think it makes sense to blame the money in any of these situations.  Money's just a fundamental tool for all economic activity, good or bad, and in all of these cases, I'd argue the money did exactly what it's supposed to do.  Seems a lot more reasonable to blame the individuals involved. Echoing JohnF, and assuming you mean the physical, rather than abstract meaning of money?  The abstract concept obviously isn't replaced (unless the currency is discredited, or like the creation of the Euro which saw local currencies abandoned). The actual bits of paper are regularly collected, shredded (into itty-bitty-bits) and destroyed.  Coinage tends to last a lot longer, but it also collected and melted down eventually. Depends on the country, though.  No doubt, many people who took a gap year to go travelling in points diverse came across countries where the money is a sort of brown-grey smudge you hold with care in thick wadges. The more modern economies replace paper money on a dedicated cycle (around three years according to Wikipedia, anyway). Assume that he reformed his ways. He stopped the destructive behavior (gambling) and had enough money from a job going forward to pay for all his future expenses. Then it is true the old debts will fade away both as being collectable, and as a source of a negative mark on the credit report. Also assume that the people or companies never figure out that the the relative has a steady source of income, also assume that all the debts can be forgiven and have no long lasting impact. If any of those assumptions aren't true the plan won't work. The trail of debts will continue to grow, and may have additional complications. As debts fall off the radar, they may be replaced even faster by new threats. Many a person has used a debt consolidation loan, or a home equity loan to pay off all the credit cards; but found themselves back in trouble because they never fixed the underlying problem: they spend more than they make. In the case of a home equity loan they put their house at rick, as a replacement of unsecured loans. If the gambling continues, the lack of payment of old debts becomes a crutch for the ability to generate new debts. Under US law, if you clearly have more than half of a torn bill it is worth its full value; the smaller piece is worth nothing... except that having both halves makes the banking system much happier, since it prevents some particularly stupid counterfeiting attempts. So this proposal wouldn't be cheat-proof unless the cut is close enough to the middle to make determining 51% difficult. And I'd like to see you try to explain to a bank how so many bills were cut in half... (This is more normally an issue when money has been damaged unintentionally, of course.) "Im not sure, but let me try. ""That person"" won't affect the value of currency, after two (or three) years (maybe months), agencies will report anomalies in country. Will be start the end of market.  God bless FBI and NSA for prevent this.  Actually, good ""hypothetical"" question." glass steall is one.  getting rid of glass stegall meant commercial banks could create iou money irresponsibly through loaning and sell the loan to wall street speculators.  This drives up assets to bubble prices.  Inflation for all. Coins have the minimum value of the metal they are made from.   Bank notes (paper money) would only be valuable when it becomes rare.  And there isn't a good way to predict how quickly something like Zimbabwe dollars will become rare (that I know of at least). "In the United States if the person insures an article and then claims a loss of that article, the insurance replaces the missing/destroyed article. If later on the item is found the original is owned by the insurance company. The person who purchased the policy doesn't get to keep both.  Of course if the item was so valuable to be priceless the insurance company would be open to an exchange of items or money.  But if they suspect fraud...then it becomes a legal matter. Even when a life isn't involved it can be a source of dispute: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/spencer/spencers-art-law-journal5-7-10.asp INSURED V. INSURER: WHEN STOLEN ART IS RECOVERED, WHO OWNS IT? Kenneth S. Levine  This essay is about the word ""subrogation,"" which frequently appears   in insurance policies. An insured painting is stolen and the insurance   company pays the owner’s claim for the value of the painting. Many   years later, when the painting is recovered, its value is many times   what it was when the insurance claim was paid. The insurance company   takes the position that it owns the painting, while the owner says I   own the painting, less the value of the insurance proceeds received.   The resolution of this dispute depends on the meaning of the word   ""subrogation"" in the insurance policy. When life insurance is involved, the item being replace is the lost stream of income. The question of returning money and how much would be a legal issue. They would also want to know if there was fraud, and who was involved." "The SFGate had an article on this a few years ago: http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-government-fines-companies-who-gets-cash-3189724.php ""Civil penalties, often referred to as fines, usually go to the U.S. Treasury or victims."" Short answer in the case you references it would be the US Treasury. In cases where there is a harmed party then they would get something to account for their loss. But it can get complicated depending on the crime." "But I think another interesting postscript to this which is relevant at this time is that the orchard wildfire isn't the only thing that can make money ""disappear"".  The use of a currency rather than a transferable note means that it can be an independent store of value, so there are perverse outcomes that can happen that can't happen with IOUs.  So say some particularly wealthy person in the village starts to hoard his money and corners a large fraction of the money supply (say he's anticipating some horrible plague).  The number of Loddars decreases, and the orchard owner starts paying his workers fewer Loddars as a result.  But their debts are denominated in ""old"" Loddars which were easier to come by, and quickly the workers are unable to pay their debts, or have to spend all their money on their debts and have none for anything else.  They default on those debts and the money ""disappears""--but it doesn't disappear for any physical reason (the workers are doing the same amount of work), it disappears because of a shock to the monetary supply.  This is a ""demand shock"" versus the ""supply shock"" of an orchard catching on fire." The question is about the US but to add the European perspective: The rule over here (I only know German law, but assume it's the same for all of the Euro area) is that you need more than half of the bill or you have to be able to prove that more than half of the bill was destroyed (good luck) in order to get it replaced. Deformed coins can also be replaced. But all only as long as you didn't break it on purpose. So giving half of the bill to the cab driver would be on purpose and (if the central bank knows about it) make the bill (or coin) invalid. German information: https://www.bundesbank.de/Navigation/DE/Aufgaben/Bargeld/Beschaedigtes_Geld/beschaedigtes_geld.html It's quite the contrary. If there are mass failures of banks, then the money supply will collapse and there will be vicious deflation, increasing the value of money held as cash. It's only if governments print money to bail the banks out that there's a (small) risk of hyperinflation and the effective collapse of the currency. I can see three possibilities:  * The money was illegally transferred and used for operating costs when they started having trouble.  * The company was playing Enron-like accounting games, and were reporting imaginary profits and gains.  In that case, the money never really existed.  * The money was outright stolen, and is in somebody's offshore bank accounts.  Or some combination of these. Similar action is being undertaken in Europe following the example of Cyprus. As WND recently pointed out, finance ministers of the 27-member European Union in June had approved forcing bondholders, shareholders and large depositors with more than 100,000 euros in their accounts to make the financial sacrifice before turning to the government for help with taxpayer funds.  Do they get compensation later if the bank recovers? In general, Roth IRAs, are associated with the individual.  Unlike 401(k)s for which the business holds the retirement account in the name of the individual.  So, although the company may have helped you set up the Roth it is in your name and you can continue to contribute to it.  Wikipedia has some helpful information here. It should be noted, however, that sometimes businesses set up special deals with retirement service companies or brokers that hold Roth IRAs so you should check with the particular company/broker that holds your Roth.