# American money is stoopid! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 7, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091 "2011-05-07T20:52:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SSgtBaloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@SSgtBaloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSgtBaloo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/1 "2011-05-07T20:52:56Z")
Inspired by a tangential idea sparked by [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=607499). 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? ---
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/2 "2011-05-07T21:26:56Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/3 "2011-05-07T21:29:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/4 "2011-05-07T21:30:38Z")
It’s getting to the point that ALL physical currency is obsolete. Slide the debit card. ---
**Author:** ![SSgtBaloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@SSgtBaloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSgtBaloo)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/5 "2011-05-07T21:31:17Z")
You have proven my point that as a group, Americans are hostile to metal money. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/6 "2011-05-07T21:51:08Z")
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. From previous threads **[What to do with dollar coins](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=555202)** and **[Are There/Were There Ever Any 3-Tiered Currencies?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=586159)** > [@What to do with dollar coins](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-to-do-with-dollar-coins/531852/114): > > We already pay for things rounded to the nearest cent. > > For example, gasoline is priced to the [mill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_%28currency%29) (that’s the extra “9”), but you pay in full cents. Likewise, any percentage, as for taxes or commissions, can easily produce fractions smaller than one cent, but these are rounded with no objection. > … > Actually, what would make the most _sense_ from the internal logic of American currency, would be to drop the cent and five-cent coins, and make the dime the smallest _unit_ (like it says, “ONE DIME”). > [@Are There/Were There Ever Any 3-Tiered Currencies?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-were-there-ever-any-3-tiered-currencies/561228/21): > > …let the dime be our smallest unit. Just drop “cents,” or render them theoretical, like mills. > > …ending minting of the cent but maintaining “nickels” and rounding off all sums to the nearest five cents…leads to to the perception that somebody is being stiffed a little on each transaction, and it just feels conceptually awkward to have a system in which an actual denomination is a multiple of a theoretical unit (imagine if your pocket change all these years had included five-mill coins). Abandoning physical cents entirely (including the five-cent piece), on the other hand, is a recalibration of the scale to a new unit. Pricing in dollars and dimes is no more “rounding” than present pricing in dollars and cents. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/7 "2011-05-07T21:58:04Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/8 "2011-05-07T21:59:26Z")
> [@YaraMateo](#): > > I thought was going to be a rant about how American money isn’t basedon a **god standard**. Some would like that, but the First Amendment forbids it. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/9 "2011-05-07T22:02:54Z")
This has been argued over so many times here: Anti: I don’t want to carry a ton of coins around with me. Pro: You don’t need a ton of coins if you have coins in sensibly large denominations. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/10 "2011-05-07T22:21:01Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/11 "2011-05-07T22:25:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 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. You can do that now with Paypal. I would say that in 10 years cash will be all but obsolete except for illicit activities. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/12 "2011-05-07T22:26:21Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain;13774089)I would say that in 10 years cash will be all but obsolete except for illicit activities.[/QUOTE] I heard that 20 years ago. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/13 "2011-05-07T23:40:58Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Some would like that, but the First Amendment forbids it. That used to be true until surprising recently. A lot of American money is on the god standard just like the country is. It says so right on it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/14 "2011-05-07T23:52:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![inkling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkling)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/15 "2011-05-08T00:02:42Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/16 "2011-05-08T00:08:31Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![inkling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkling)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/17 "2011-05-08T00:47:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/18 "2011-05-08T00:48:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 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. That’s just a technology issue; there’s already a [very inexpensive card reader](https://squareup.com/) 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. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/19 "2011-05-08T00:48:37Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I heard that 20 years ago. 😃 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. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/20 "2011-05-08T00:59:48Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > This has been argued over so many times here: > > Anti: I don’t want to carry a ton of coins around with me. > Pro: You don’t need a ton of coins if you have coins in sensibly large denominations. … and you won’t have a lot of coins if you stop minting the small ones. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091.md?page=2)