Gresham's law Crown in the city of Antwerp, to explain to Queen Elizabeth I what was happening to the English shilling. Her father, Henry VIII, had replaced 40 percent of the silver in the coin with base metals, to increase the government's income without raising taxes. Astute English merchants and even ordinary subjects would save the good shillings from pure silver and circulate the bad ones; hence, the bad money would be used whenever possible, and the good coinage would be saved and disappear from circulation. Gresham was not the first to state the law which took his name. The phenomenon had
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and the cat says he wants to sleep with Anthony (but not Alexander). In the end, Alexander says it has been a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day for him. His mother says to him that some days are like that, even in Australia. A running gag throughout the book is Alexander repeating several times that he wants to move to Australia because he thinks it is better there. It ends with his mother's assurance that everybody has bad days, even those who live there. In the Australian and New Zealand versions, he wants to move to Timbuktu instead.