When the U.S. treasury modified our monetary bills recently to make them less simple to counterfeit, why did they keep all bills the same color?
The bills look more alike now than they did before. I have almost given a $50 or $100 when I thought I was giving a $20 a few times already.
Using, say, blue for hundreds, red for twenties, green for tens, etc., would make the bills much easier to differentiate. Other countries have done it for a long time.
Yeah, all-green money is a tradition here. But are people really all that attached to it? I think those who don’t like the idea would get over it quickly and actually like multi-colored bills.
[aside]This, I feel, is why our half-assed attempts to convert to the metric system in the 1970s failed. The government should have simply imposed it, gotten rid of all reference to non-metric weights and measures and strongly encouraged the private sector to do the same. People then would have eventually caught on and gotten used to it.[/aside]
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
This is actually a Great Debate, I guess. I personally think multi-colored bills would be better. But there’s always the old fogies (you know who you are) who will say “that’s monopoly money.”
Hell, I’m still waiting to see if those new ‘golden dollars’ fly. Personally, I hate having change jingling around in my pocket, and while I agree if we HAVE to have a coin dollar, the gold color will eliminate that Susan B. Anthony quarter/dollar mix up, I think just like the multi-colored money, people will resist it for no other reason than the fact it’s ‘different’
There is a number of organizational systems which could be more efficiently set out, with colored bills and ‘gold’ coins being only one. For example, inserting letters into the numeric zip codes would have expanded the number of postal zones without adding all the length of the hyphenated zip code (those four extra numbers); adopting a metric system of measurement for product distribution (and thereby streamlining product labelling systems by joining the rest of the manufacturing world) to name a few.
I can’t seriously imagine the reasons such changes have not been undertaken. I truly doubt that “consumer resistance” is the real reason. (If consumer resistance were given any weight in government organizational decisions, the daily lives and routines of most Americans would be quite different than they are. Heck, gas prices would be mere pennies…)
Who cares if it’s worth 65% of American money? At least our money is pretty. Thbtbthbpt. Anyway, euros are also cool, and French money is even cooler (but I wish it were the same size.)
Australian money is very cool too. It is all different colors, and it has little plastic ‘windows’ in it. I cant imagine how someone could counterfeit it.
Rose
I think consumer resistance is a big reason. We here in the US sometimes don’t realize it, but we’re very conservative compared to the rest of the planet.
I have personally watched a grown man refuse new-style US$20 bills at the bank - he said (loudly!) that he didn’t like them, and that he didn’t think anyone else did, either. As if the poor teller had personally decided to change the bill’s design. She had to cull old-style bills from her drawer to shut the guy up. Too many US adults look at Canadian or Australian or British bills and exclaim “it looks like Monopoly money!”
US currency is boring and serious, darn it, and if it doesn’t look boring and serious, then as far as the public is concerned, it doesn’t count. It’s lamentable, but I think it’s true.
Actually I hear that up here a stripper will be known to stick a rolled up poster between her undulating buttocks, and the person who knocks it out with a coin gets to keep it… although I imagine they see pennies once in a while!
My point exactly. If such resistance were given any serious weight in government organizational decisions, then those newly designed bills would be pulled out of circulation due to consumer outrage such as you mention. That ain’t gonna happen.
Around the time they put out the new $100 I heard a treasury representative explaining why our money is so boring. Don’t agree with it, but sure is interesting. American money isn’t just American, it’s international. It’s the currency of choice for everything from Gun deals, to drug deals, to simple commerece in many countries. Those countries don’t often have good communication, and if they made drastic changes to the dollar, when peole saw it they might freak out. Think it was counterfiet, whatever. IT would cause widespread panic and rioting. Seems plausible.
No, because the additional money being spent on ink would be saved by the lesser amount of counterfeit money being made. Of course, I’m sure neither of us have any “hard numbers” to quote here.
Oldscratch, what you say makes some sense. The world view of the U.S. dollar is quite different than the view from home. Any changes would have to be c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y weighed for their bottom-line value, and while a percentage of $$$ may be saved by making the currency less liable to counterfeiting, that sum may be minor when compared to the negative effects of a global currency change.