When Jay-Z isn't rapping, he's a canny businessman. He co-owns the New Jersey Nets and the 40/40 Club. Hova's last album sold 680,000 copies in its first week. He co-founded Roc-A-Fella and when he sold the rights to Rocawear last month, Jay-Z netted $204 million. In short, Shawn Carter is a wealthy, wealthy man.

But S. Carter apparently prefers Euros to dollars these days.

In his new video (Blue Magic from the American Gangster soundtrack), Jay-Z drives through the streets of Harlem flashing huge stacks of 500 Euro bills. Not dollars. Euros.

Some commentators think it marks a cultural watershed:

When I start seeing rap stars flashing euros instead of U.S. dollars, I know our economy is in trouble. Jay-Z carries a lot of weight. Just look at what happened when he began boycotting Cristal champagne. It’s sad that rap stars can no longer show their style with a good old $500 U.S. bills (featuring President McKinley) and now need to flash $500 Euros (featuring some sort of suspension bridge). I don't need the chairman of the Federal Reserve to tell me about the state of our economy. I just need Jay-Z, the new Alan Greenspan. I don't blame Jay-Z. A stack of $50,000 in Euros would equal $72,000 in U.S. currency. And you’d need 144 $500 bills to equal a stack of 100 $500 Euros. I don't know if even Jay-Z has that large a money clip. When I start seeing rap stars throw around the Canadian Loonie, then I know our economy is really in trouble.

What do our economist/investor readers think about that? Hell, what do our music-addicted readers think about that? Let us know.