What is it you prefer about coins?
Personally, I don’t even like carrying smaller change. I can’t keep it in my wallet and sit comfortably, and falls outs when I put it in my side pants pockets. I only keep it on me until I can get it home and put it into a jar.
I can see the long term benefits of dollar coin for the country as a whole, but for me, as an individual on a day to day basis, I see no benefit over paper money.
Well, God doesn’t trust you either- you’re running around with all His money.
After all, it does have His name on it. 
“Because the Canadians do it” isn’t a valid reason to do anything. 
No, but it’s a good source for information.
I’ve spent enough time in Canada, and in other countries where the lower denominations are all in coinage, that I have realistic experience with dollar coins, or their equivalent.
I like them.
Yah, there’s an infrastructure change needed to adopt them, and that’s a problem. But the habit of carrying the coins develops fast, when they’re implemented properly. Frankly, the US Mint has consistently done such a bad job of it, that I think they really want coins to fail.
I live in one of those countries - our largest coin (in denomination, not in size) is worth around $2.50, and the smallest bill, $5. We do just fine.
This is how I feel as well. I vacation sometimes in Niagara Falls, and I never get over the dollar + two dollar coins. First, it seems like I go through my cash in no time because the smallest bill you have is a $5.
Then it is the weight of the change. After a couple of days, you can literally have $60 or $70 worth of change in your pockets.
I don’t understand how Americans need to be “informed” of this. You can carry around dollar coins if you want, but people, when given the choice do not.
Like emcee, I can see the benefit to society, but not to me as an individual. What do you like so much about the coins?
Why don’t you spend that change? Is it because you are so used to having low-value coins that you don’t think of spending those loonies and toonies?
Personally, even in the US, I try to spend my coins as much as possible, rather than hoard them in my pocket.
Sounds familliar. I’ve probably been there. 
I hoard coins, but not in my pockets. Quarters go on the dresser to be saved for laundry day. Dimes and nickels go in a bowl on my office desk, for use in the snack machine. Pennies…I just try to get rid of as best I can!
You’re doing it wrong.
Spending change is a hassle - you can’t sort them you can dollars in your billfold, so you end up dumping out your pocketful of change to pick out the exact coins you want, each time, while everybody waits.
If you only had one kind of coin, or they were all drastically different sizes, that might be different. As it is, I just never spend them. I try to use debit when possible, and when I use cash I just dump out the leftovers on the top of the dresser each evening to collect dust thereafter. It’s a waste.
A few years ago most of the vending machines that I go by had stickers on them indicating that the machines would accept dollar coins.
I had to get a metro card from the machine tonight and all I had was a twenty. I selected a $15 metro pass (the smallest value you can select when you’ve used a twenty) was so not looking forward to getting 20 quarters back as change. It was great to hear “clink clink clink clink clink” and look down to see five shiny gold coins in the change bin.
So the DC Metro system is on board with dollar coins. Hopefully that’ll get lots of them into the pocket of tourists.
Get rid of that damn paper dollar.
I think that’s the key. Americans just aren’t used to pulling out their change when they pay for something, as a general rule. This is because it takes so MUCH change to buy anything at all. Even a newspaper costs at least a dollar around here (for the Star-Telegram)(not sure how much the Dallas Morning News costs in a machine). So I stand at the vending machines, digging out my quarters and dimes and nickels, and finding lots and lots of pennies.
As far as I’m concerned, pennies are only good for squishing. They just aren’t a useful coin any longer. I’ve noticed that in many restaurants, where you pay at the table, the server doesn’t bother with pennies. The change comes back rounded up to the nickel.
If we got rid of the penny and the dollar bill, if the old ones got deposited and then destroyed, and no new ones were issued, then we’d have a great chance to implement the dollar coin, and possibly a five dollar coin as well. Then we could go back to spending our change, instead of hoarding it.
Exactly. When a cup of coffee cost a dime, people didn’t hoard dimes. Now that a (cheap) cup of coffee costs a dollar, why would people hoard dollar coins?
I know that it seems that way because they are so loud and active and meddlesome. But the charismatic, evangelical Protestants are not the largest of the Protestant groups. “Mainstream” Protestant groups such as the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Lutherans, and so forth, have the largest overall membership in the United States.
I believe that even ceremonial suport of any god by our government is a slap to all Americans whether we feel the sting or not. We can believe in God and still value the Separation of Church and State.
I agree with this 100%. In the back of your mind, you don’t even think of coins as real money except for saving for the change machine at the bank.
It’s even getting to the point that it doesn’t even work for the soda machines. With 20oz bottles becoming more common, you pay about $1.50 for a drink, so that is two $1 bills (with 50 cents change that goes in your pocket)
I agree that the penny is next to worthless. Does Canada still issue the penny?
Has it occurred to anyone that “In God We Trust” is a lie? As a nation, we don’t trust God for anything.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, we didn’t trust God to take care of the problem, we defeated the bad guys the hard, secular way.
And we learned just how untrustworthy God really is on 9/11. By promising 72 virgins to guys who flew planes into our buildings, God really stabbed us in the back.
Oh, and “under God” in the Pledge gives a lie to the “indivisible” part, since God is very divisive.
I wish people would stop this. It’s condescending and untrue.
I’m obviously being extremely snarky, but what specifically is “this” you’re objecting to and how is it condescending?