# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/21 "2011-05-08T01:02:49Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Some would like that, but the First Amendment forbids it. :o That was an epic typo. Well,how do you feel about a gold standard? ---
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/22 "2011-05-08T01:03:09Z")
I nominate William McKinley for the $2.50 coin, based on his leadership in the Spanish-American War and martyrdom at the hands of a deranged assassin. And mostly on the fact that he was the 25th President. ---
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/23 "2011-05-08T01:06:55Z")
I just remembered the episode of The Tom Green Show where he had a sack of PENNIES and he tried to buy stuff with it in random stores. The image of him dumping the pennies on the counters is replying in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/24 "2011-05-08T01:12:23Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > 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? You do bring up an interesting point. What if we had “small change abolishment month” in which all small coins to be found had to be cashed in. After that, all of them have no value as genuine currency. I would love to know the economic and social impact of such a thing if anyone could predict it. A massive number of people would suddenly have a small amount of additional money to be spent, deposited, or invested. What would happen? Is that better than coins hiding in all the couch cushions right now? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/25 "2011-05-08T02:01:16Z")
I’m for dollar coins, but it pisses me off the way they keep reissuing new ones every few weeks. I thought there was only the susie and the sackie. But a few weeks ago I was fishing through the change bowl for some quarters and noticed a few yellowish quarter-sized coins, the face of which I totally did not recognize. At first I thought they were foreign coins. I had to grab my reading glasses to read the fine print on them. They’re new goddamned dollar coins! Presidential goddamned dollar coins! New designs made every goddamned year! They all look goddamned different! Get off my lawn! When did I get these?? Maybe some other poor sucker thought They were quarters too, and gave them to me as change. Add to this mess of new dollar coins to all the different state quarters and it turns out that we have more different-looking coins than there are weeks in a year. That’s absolutely insane. I pity the fool who gets off a boat and looks at our coins for the first time and sees what looks like 50 or 60 different kinds of coin. Get rid of pennies and give us a snazzy looking two-tone dollar coin like the Thai 10 baht piece: [![](https://worldcoingallery.com/countries/img5/175-227.jpg) ](https://worldcoingallery.com/countries/img5/175-227.jpg) …and stop making the stupid paper dollar! Oh, and start adding some color to our paper money while you’re at it. ---
**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 8, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/26 "2011-05-08T02:01:26Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You do bring up an interesting point. What if we had “small change abolishment month” in which all small coins to be found had to be cashed in. After that, all of them have no value as genuine currency. I would love to know the economic and social impact of such a thing if anyone could predict it. A massive number of people would suddenly have a small amount of additional money to be spent, deposited, or invested. What would happen? Is that better than coins hiding in all the couch cushions right now? It would cost the banks a lot of money to process and ship all of that small change, for only a small gain. And as far as I know, all currency ever issued by the US government is still valid and can be cashed in, even if it’s from the nineteenth century (never mind that the actual currency would be worth more as a collectible). It’s a point of pride for and show of confidence in the government. Why would you want to mess that up by declaring small coins are no longer valid? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/27 "2011-05-08T02:10:06Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > 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. Well, its a very inexpensive card reader attached to a fairly expensive phone that no doubt requires a fairly expensive phone-plan. The idea of ditching cash is appealing to me, but its hard to see how it would work if there’s a several hundred dollar barrier to entry before you can participate in the ability to buy things from other people. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/28 "2011-05-08T02:18:58Z")
I love susies and sackies. Tipping your strippers would be strange at first, but I would prefer if we got rid of one dollar bills. Higher denominations I am not in favor of switching to coins. Carrying lots of coins is more bothersome than carrying a wad of bills. Poor people don’t always have cards. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/29 "2011-05-08T02:21:15Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It would cost the banks a lot of money to process and ship all of that small change, for only a small gain. And as far as I know, all currency ever issued by the US government is still valid and can be cashed in, even if it’s from the nineteenth century (never mind that the actual currency would be worth more as a collectible). It’s a point of pride for and show of confidence in the government. Why would you want to mess that up by declaring small coins are no longer valid? I wouldn’t want to mess that up. It is mainly an economic question that I don’t know the answer to. Small amounts of money get converted or redeemed by massive numbers of people. Much of that would have just stayed hidden or unused otherwise. What happens? Inflation? Short-term economic boom? ---
**Author:** ![SSgtBaloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@SSgtBaloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSgtBaloo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/30 "2011-05-08T04:21:11Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You do bring up an interesting point. What if we had “small change abolishment month” in which all small coins to be found had to be cashed in. After that, all of them have no value as genuine currency. I would love to know the economic and social impact of such a thing if anyone could predict it. A massive number of people would suddenly have a small amount of additional money to be spent, deposited, or invested. What would happen? Is that better than coins hiding in all the couch cushions right now? I think the easiest way would be for the treasury to simply stop production of the undesired stuff, pulling it out of circulation as it cycled through the banks, and issuing new coins for ones, twos and fives as they came out of circulation. We did without pennies for a while a few years back when the price of copper shot up so high that people were melting pennies down for the metal (that was before the zinc core pennies; ETA: and probably the cause, now I think of it). ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/31 "2011-05-08T05:56:34Z")
> [@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. An addendum if I may. Unless you’re even older than me, or have spent a lot of time in other industrialized countries, all of the younger Americans who say they hate coins–you don’t know from coins. Barring foreign travel, you’ve never known what it is to hold a couple of coins in your had that you could buy a couple of beers or a sandwich with.We don’t have coins anymore, we have shrapnel. I think the reason it’s so hard to change this is that a great deal of our politics hinges on very marginal issues which we should rise above. If a Representative fears that 2% of their constituency will turn against them if they vote away the dollar bill, they’ll never do it. I think another issue is that some fiscal conservatives harbor the belief that the old “real” dollar of 1962 or even 1928 will come back some day. Minting a coin out of cheap metal would dash that hope to smithereens. 100 years ago people hated dollar coins because a dollar was a LOT of money then. A big heavy coin like that was too easy to lose. That’s clearly not the case anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/32 "2011-05-08T13:26:49Z")
Canada has gone partly in this direction. We have loonies and twonies ($1 and $2 coins) and I keep hearing that they will abolish the cent. Can’t do it too soon for me. I would also abolish the 5 and 10 cent coins, while I was at it. It seems to me that the $5 bill is becoming increasingly rare. What they should do is mint new 25 c. coins that are the size of a penny and then smaller $1 and $2 (and new $5) coins to reflect the buying values they actually have. ---
**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 8, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/33 "2011-05-08T13:47:34Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Well, its a very inexpensive card reader attached to a fairly expensive phone that no doubt requires a fairly expensive phone-plan. The idea of ditching cash is appealing to me, but its hard to see how it would work if there’s a several hundred dollar barrier to entry before you can participate in the ability to buy things from other people. And how exactly would this work for the talented street busker? Now- You toss your coins or bills in the hat while someone plays a melody and/or sings a song. Idealized Future- You listen, pull out your card, and the busker stops playing and/or singing and/or juggling to whip her phone out of the backpack, you make the transaction, the transaction is confirmed electronically, and she picks up her equipment to continue her routine. Actual Future- Sorry, but it’s too much trouble to go through all that, and the bus will be here any minute, so screw it. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/34 "2011-05-08T14:17:18Z")
> [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](#): > > I’m for dollar coins, but it pisses me off the way they keep reissuing new ones every few weeks. I thought there was only the susie and the sackie. But a few weeks ago I was fishing through the change bowl for some quarters and noticed a few yellowish quarter-sized coins, the face of which I totally did not recognize. > > At first I thought they were foreign coins. I had to grab my reading glasses to read the fine print on them. They’re new goddamned dollar coins! Presidential goddamned dollar coins! New designs made every goddamned year! They all look goddamned different! Get off my lawn! When did I get these?? Maybe some other poor sucker thought They were quarters too, and gave them to me as change. Well, I agree that there have been way too many designs in recent years (Presidential dollars, state and territorial quarters,\* [“Westward Journey” five-cents](http://www.coin-collecting-guide-for-beginners.com/image-files/westward_journey_jefferson_nickels.jpg), [Lincoln-bicentennial cent reverses](http://www.coinnews.net/wp-content/images/2009/Four-2009-Bicentennial-Lincoln-Penny-Images.jpg)). A _few_ of the state designs have been nice in themselves, though the reshuffling of written elements\*\* was unnecessary and unattractive. But, the Presidential and “Native American” dollars at least have the major advantage over the SBAs that they _are_ a different color. The Susies were far more likely to be confused with quarters. Maybe you got these as change in a postage-stamp or transit-fare vending machine? - Some thought giving the territories, particularly pipsqueaks like USVI and the Northern Marianas, their own designs was emblematic of the overkill–though I have to say that as graphic compositions those coins are prettier and more balanced than many of the actual state ones. \*\* “United States of America” instead of “Liberty,” “Liberty” instead of “In God We Trust,” “Quarter Dollar” and the date trading places, “E Pluribus Unum” and “In God We Trust” migrating… no. The old arrangement of all these was fine. State reverses could have simply been rendered in the space previously occupied by the eagle, just as was done for the bicentennial reverse. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/35 "2011-05-08T14:20:36Z")
I’m old enough (53) that I remember when tipping a dime or quarter for a cup of coffee or a soda was acceptable. Nowadays, I feel kind of cheap if I leave any coins as a tip. The minimum tip seems to be about two bucks, for even the cheapest diner. ---
**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 8, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/36 "2011-05-08T16:17:43Z")
> [@inkling](#): > > 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. No. I said the post-tax **total**. If you buy two items, one for $19.95 and the other for 27 cents, the pre-tax total is 20.22. Ordinary sales tax is applied, say 7%, so that’s $1.42 and the pre-rounding total is 21.64. The post-rounding total is $22.00 and the tax man gets his 1.42 plus the extra 36 cents of rounding. Back to your example … If machine screws are 22 cents each, and you buy one of them **and nothing more** , then yes, it’ll cost you $1.00. With the retailer getting 22 cents, the sales tax being 2 cents, and the “rounding tax” being 76 cents to get the total up to a whole dollar. But knowing it’ll cost you a dollar, you can also choose to buy 4 screws at 22 each = 88 plus say 7% sales tax is 6 cents for a post-tax total of 94, plus 6 cents roundoff for your dollar. So the “problem” you assert is a big deal percentage-wise only when buying single items selling for well less than one dollar. And that’s a situation where even though the percentage impact might be huge, the actual cost increment is negligible. And guess what: if you drove to the hardware store to pick up a single 22 cent screw, the time & vehicle costs of that trip already swamp the cost of the screw even if you paid an extra $1 in sales taxes. ---
**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 8, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/37 "2011-05-08T16:24:23Z")
> [@inkling](#): > > > [@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. I did not write the inner quote above attributed to me. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to keep the record straight. And yes. my overall proposal was at least partly tongue-in-cheek. The goal was to eliminate the need for coinage without a major rework of the currency which would ignite the tinfoil hat brigade, and without requiring we go all electronic either. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/38 "2011-05-08T16:24:44Z")
Having used the Euro money, Hungarian money and UK money, the only real advantage of the European money is the way that the bills are sized differently and colored differently. That was nice- no more fishing through a sea of ones to find that one elusive 20. I can take or leave the higher value coins vs. dollar bills, to be honest. I never found it much more convenient to have pound or euro coins vs. dollar bills, especially since US vending machines have handled dollar bills for 20 years now. ---
**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, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/39 "2011-05-08T17:02:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I did not write the inner quote above attributed to me. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to keep the record straight. I guess I goofed up the quoting somehow, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. And yes, _rationally_, you’re right that the amount it matters to the average consumer is pretty close to nil. The American consumer, however, and especially the American politician who claims that he is speaking for the American consumer, is widely noted to be pretty far from rational. Perhaps it’s a workable solution in a technical sense, but it’s a nonstarter from a political perspective. Which is also why we still have pennies. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091/40 "2011-05-08T17:06:39Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > If a Representative fears that 2% of their constituency will turn against them if they vote away the dollar bill, they’ll never do it. I think another issue is that some fiscal conservatives harbor the belief that the old “real” dollar of 1962 or even 1928 will come back some day. Minting a coin out of cheap metal would dash that hope to smithereens. Indeed a significant mental stumbling block – doing away with the single dollar note would look to many members of the public as a capitulation to the dollar’s reduction to “mere small change”. They would look upon it as some sort of harbinger of doom, telling tales of how when other nations did away with their _centimes_ or whatever it meant they were on their way down. I would find interesting the idea of the dime being the single fractional, prices being quoted as $1.8 or $296.3 OTOH the quarter creates a problem in that scenario as it breaks decimal progression, so you’d have to also interrupt minting of the quarter to create a wide-circulation .2 or .5 piece (or both) as intermediate between the 1 and the .1 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-money-is-stoopid/581091.md?page=3)