I wish I could agree with that, but I tend to doubt it.
This country’s system of coins and currency will most likely continue the way it’s headed and end up like that of many developing nations, where paper bills are used for everything down to price levels that we would count in pennies. From the perspective of the WW2 generation, that’s already happened here–think of all the things they could once buy for a nickel. From our vantage point now, inflation over a generation or two will bring about the same thing. A cup of coffee will cost $10, but we’ll still have dollar bills–and quarters, dimes, and nickels, exactly as they are today–because most of the population seems to have conceived a sadly petty notion of what this country stands for, and will not draw the line between fundamental rights and necessary governmental supervention.
“Voice of the people” indeed. You don’t have a ‘right’ for the currency to look and feel the way you want any more than you have a ‘right’ to a federal funds rate below 3.0, or to have your bank open on Sundays. Other democratic governments around the world seem willing to make unilateral decisions about this sort of thing, so why can’t the same thing happen here?
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No, but we do have a right to claim people with your opinion to be totally wrong, and lobby Congress to ignore them whenever possible. So long as we can convince the majority of Congress that you and yours are dead wrong, we win. God Bless America!
One solution might be to copy the British fifty pence coin (which is worth almost exactly one US dollar), and have an equilaterally curved heptagon with the same diameter as the current $1 coin. The same diameter would mean that coin machines would still be able to take it, while the seven-sided shape would mean that people would be more easily be able to distinguish it from a quarter.
(Though I don’t understand Americans complaining that the saccy dollar looks like a quarter, when all the bills here look exactly the same unless you look at them closely. Obviously, it’s what you are used to, and a lot of people here are very conservative).
I spent two yesterday, and the cashier didn’t blink. I don’t like them, but the change machine only dispenses them (seriously, I watched a person put a dollar bill in a machine expecting quarters, and out popped a dollar coin), and I had to break a five a couple months ago. I don’t think they’ll catch on this time, either; they’re too heavy and look like chocolate coins.
Yes, but what can you buy with a quarter? There used to be nickel-and-dime stores, but today’s equivalents are the stores where everything is a dollar.
We have 50 state quarters a bicentennial quarter and the regular quarter. They then release different $1 pieces close in size to a quarter. How many different styles of coins the size of a Canadian quarter does Canada have? I can’t quickly tell if I have all American quarters anymore, or foreign coins mixed in.
With the rise in all metal prices paper money looks better all the time.
So? The point of coins has shifted from “money you use to buy things” to “money you use to make up the total of things”. When the total number of coins needed to buy something becomes ridiculous, then they should be dropped. Like the penny is at now.
Wow, half your customers will actually accept dollar coins in change? :eek: I won’t even try anymore because people kept insisting I give then bills instead (some got quite upset). This even happens if I round up and give a dollar coin instead of 97¢ or 99¢. Half-dollar coins and 2-dollar bills are much easier to foist on people.
Why can’t the US make a two color coin for the $1 piece like so many other countries have… UK, EU, Tunisia, Iran, Bahrain and others I can’t recall have these with either silver in the center with a gold ring around it or vis versa.
There is no way it’d be confused with other denominations.
I used to leave them as tips. But one night I needed change and tried to get change from a bartender and she thought it was a 50 cent piece. I had no trouble correcting her, but then it made me worry that some of the waitresses were short changing themselves whenever I left one, so I stopped doing it.
Put it this way: I wasn’t aware they existed until this thread.
I used to be all about switching to coins but now, since I haven’t carried cash in almost 6 years, I really don’t care. I guess the $500 million a year savings would be nice but it’d just get blown anyway. We spend that much now about every 7 seconds in Iraq and no one cares.
Funny how ancient countries like France, Italy and Greece can adopt the Euro; Britain can completely change her monetary system; Canada can adopt the metric system and drop the $1 and $2 bills in favour of coins, but you folks in the U.S can’t change a damed thing. What’s up with that?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You don’t think I’d go into combat with loose change in my pocket, do you?
As much as I agree that coins for low denomination makes sense, I don’t really want to carry around a pocketful of loose change, nor a pouch of them. It makes it very hard to sneak up on and dispose of sentries when trying to take out the guns of Navarone.
Personally, I never have more than $6 in singles in my wallet, and that’s rare. I dunno what all you people do that you’re carrying around so many dollar billsstrip club, but I think I could get along okay with loonies. Certainly did while I was in Canada for a week.
Of course, I’m primarily a debit card devotee, so.
I will never understand why people from Europe have a problem with our money. Yes, it is the same color but surely a 1 dollar bill looks different to you than a 20. It really isn’t that hard.
As a guy, I hate carrying around coins. Just look at the denomination of the money. Again. I don’t understand.
