Inspired by a tangential idea sparked by this thread.
I’m an American and I think our monetary system, while sound, could use some adjustment. My only gripe is that much of what makes up our change is nearly worthless. If everything smaller than a dime were to be eliminated, and the folding stuff up to the $5 bill were eliminated in favor of coins, it would more closely reflect the actual value of the money.
Americans are stubbornly resistant to coins worth more than 25¢. The fifty cent piece is something of a collector’s item. People who find them in their change pull them out of circulation and sack them away, as if they were made of precious metal. The new, smaller $1 coins were thought at one time to be an ideal replacement for the big coins we used to have, but the Susan B.Anthony coin did poorly. Feminists might blame male chauvinism, but I think it’s because they made it too similar in size to a quarter.
Does anyone here remember the mill? That was a monetary unit used for calculating taxes equal to 1/10 of a cent. Right now our penny is worth about that much in 1960 dollars (perhaps earlier, plus-or-minus). The only reason people don’t want their pennies to go away is nostalgia and bad math skills. They fear that they will lose out if we start rounding up to the next coin. At the same time, you need complex electronic systems in vending machines to allow us to buy stuff with folding money.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like folding money. It spends just like anything else. and it’s convenient for large sums, but coins are compact, durable, and last longer than paper bills. If they really wanted to eliminate the $1 bill, they should just stop printing them in favor of making more $1 coins.
Just why isn’t the American Treasury deciding to eliminate small change and introduce larger coin denominations?
Honestly, change is a hassle for me. I rarely carry it on me. I don’t see the point in make more coins. I think making paper money is cheaper, but I might be wrong.
I thought was going to be a rant about how American money isn’t basedon a god standard.
Fuck dollar coins. Fuck two dollar coins. If I want to haul a buttload of metal around with me, I’ll pack the .45. Bills and debit cards do it all lighter, faster and quieter.
As to the costs of the currency itself, large-denominated coins beat small-denominated bills. (It costs less to print a dollar bill than to mint a dollar coin, but the coin lasts far longer in circulation while the bill will have to be replaced several times.) Of course large-denominated bills cost no more than small, and circulate less, so no problem there. Small-denominated coins (cents and five-cent pieces) are outright losers, as soon as they’re struck.
The trouble with a card-only system is that there is currently no way to make card-to-card transfers. Paying the babysitter or the kid that cuts your grass, honoring the street busker for brightening your day while you are waiting for the bus, buying that cotton candy from the roving vendor while you watch the parade-these things make coins and bills necessary.
It’s less of an issue for me because I use a credit card almost all the time but I do agree with the idea. I’d make the quarter the lowest denomination coin, along with one-dollar, five-dollar and ten-dollar coins. And then we should have paper money in $20, $100 and $500 denominations (and perhaps even a $1000 bill).
We should either revalue the currency by a factor of 100 so pennies & nickels are useful again (as in what used to be a $5.00 beer is now a nickel beer again).
OR
Stop making all coins except a new plastic dollar coin about the size of a dime. Stop printing bills smaller than the 10. And mandate that although retail items can be priced down to the penny as now, all retail purchase post-tax totals are rounded up to the nearest dollar, with the extra rounding amount going to the tax man, not the retailer. That last feature would eliminate the retailers’ incentive to make purchases just *happen *to come out at $X.01.
So a gumball costs a buck now? I don’t think that’s likely to happen, or really very desirable. Effectively, that means that everything, even a single tiny machine screw, costs $0.90 or more, pre-tax.
There have to be enough pennies in junk drawers and under car seats to get us by for many years to come. I propose to put a moratorium on minting pennies for the next ten years and the nickle for the next five. The problem with these is “overage,” which is another part of the budget issue.
$1 and $5 bills to be replaced by coins. The other bills should go the plastic route, but made in differing sizes to assist the low vision folk.
To inkling: gumballs are what, a quarter now? How 'bout the machine gives you 4 for that dollar?
That’s okay for me, sure, but honestly, my taste for gumballs died off after I turned 12. Giving four gumballs for the dollar preserves the cost:gumball ratio, but I don’t think any mother wants her kids to have four gumballs before dinner.
Your point is valid, though - make it up in scale - but while I think the penny has pretty much outlived its usefulness, I think the quarter and dime have some life left in them. I’d be just fine with the USian versions of Loonies and Toonies instead of bills. Put Lincoln on the single to appease Illinois and we might get it through.
That’s just a technology issue; there’s already a very inexpensive card reader for most phones, and the only reason that’s required is because nobody’s offering easy electronic transfers between bank accounts yet. My money’s on one of these technologies becoming ubiquitous long before the US fixes its currency issues.
So did I, but you can easily see it coming to fruition now, whereas 20 years ago it was on the drawing board. I stand in line behind people at the convenience store charging $1.27 purchases on their debit card. Twenty years ago, hell, even 10 years ago that would have got you beaten and shot.
It’s slow, but it’s coming. Just me, for example, I don’t take out my weekly “allowance” in cash anymore. Just keep my spending under that limit. I usually have less than $20 in my wallet just for the occasional minor purchase that would require it.
Five years ago the only time a card came out of my wallet was for a major purchase.
