[QUOTE=Amp]
The day of the paper dollar bill is over. It has gone the way of the dodo.
[/QUOTE]
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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[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
“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.
[/QUOTE]
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!
[QUOTE=gaffa]
The US should just tell the coin-op industry (the people who have lobbied to prevent any changes to the dollar coin’s size and weight) to suck it, and create a dollar coin much like the British Pound coin. And then get rid of the dollar bill.
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
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.
[/QUOTE]
But this argument is moot because a dollar still buys plenty of shit NOW. Not good shit, but $1 can buy you something still.
[QUOTE=Justin_Bailey]
But this argument is moot because a dollar still buys plenty of shit NOW. Not good shit, but $1 can buy you something still.
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Giles]
The US dollar coins and the Canadian dollar coins are the same size (as are the other coins in circulation, except for the Canadian twonie, which has no corresponding US coin). The poor Canucks have no problem distinguishing their quarters from their loonies: are US Americans significantly dumber than them?
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Giles]
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.
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose]
I have standing instructions from Walgreens management to foist them off on customers ASAP, so they’re not left in the drawer at closing time. About 50% of customers won’t take them. I find it helps, when s/he’s standing there puzzling at this strange foreign object, to say brightly, “It’s a dollar coin! I’m told they’re…collectible!” This frequently does the trick.
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Usram]
Are these things catching on? People using them much in everyday life, or an interesting curiosity that you see very now and then, or are they just for collectors?
[/QUOTE]
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?
[QUOTE=silenus]
Better that than constantly repairing/replacing pockets worn out by heavy, noisy coins.
[/QUOTE]
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.
[QUOTE=Leaffan]
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?
[/QUOTE]
Because the US is not Europe. snooty
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.
