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Greenbacks No More
Chacham writes "The Financial Times has an article about the US adding colors to some denominations of US currency. Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.I still haven't gotten used to the larger pictures. And now this? As Kermit the frog sang, It's not easy being green." The Federal Reserve has a press release. At least there's no mention of RFID tags.
What the hell is paper money? Is that what my parents used to buy things?
Well, here in Canada, we've had funny-looking money for ages. It was supposed to help cut down on counterfeiters, but bubble-jets keep getting better - they're even cloning the $5 bills now!
Different sizes helps the sight impaired.
Damn, I just go my vending machines to accept the new bills. Now I have to do it all again.
It's about time we catch up with the 21st century and delineate paper money with color and size. When travelling abroad, it's often easy to get used to the foreign currency because of the size/color differences. I can imagine if the currency were all the same size and color with pictures of strange old people on them, it would be difficult.
Then again, maybe confusing currency can be an anti-terror mechanism!
Yeah, cause those Europeans spell "20" as... umm... "20".
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.
One would think the big number in each corner would be a pretty big giveaway as to the bill's value.
:-)
I'm all for color on our bills. Our money is pretty boring compared to "exciting" foreign money.
But then, when it come to money, I'll all for boring. When "exciting" and "money" are used in the same sentence, it usually means I'm losing my ass.
Congress will raise a terrible stink about this.
They went around and around with Tres over the last modification of the bills.
I doubt it will happen.
With the value of 1 Euro about to == 1 Dollar we should all just get some Euros
I'm pretty careless and I probably once gave a $10 tip when I meant to give $1.
"International visitors complain 'We can't tell your denominations apart,'" said the Bureau of Engraving and Printing which will release new versions of the $20, $50 and $100 bills next year.
What you mean besides having different pictures and a HUGE FUCKING NUMBER on them? This just seems silly to me.
Is your browser retarded?
In the UK, paper notes all have a brightly coloured square/triangle/circle etc. which help people who are partially sighted identify them. They're also slightly different sizes to help completely blind people identify the differences.
Apparently, up until now people in the US are patriotic to the extreme and can't stand to see their precious 'greenbacks' changed.. so it's about time this happened.. Let's hope they don't encounter too much resistance eh?
Now I can use every color in my ink cartridge.
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At least there's no mention of RFID tags
all currency $5 and beyond are tagged already ANYWAY. see that line about 1/5 way into the bill from the left? if i remember correctly they are magnetically tagged.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
"foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills"
does the phonecian numbering system still present a problem for some corners of the earth? I wasn't aware that the roman or summerian numerals where still in use.
Or is the next 'new math' going to be based on adding colors, instead of numbers? Yeah, you gave me two blues ($5) and a yellow ($10), so thats a blue-green ($20.)
Right. There are better reasons that this.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
We call them "pennies"
I just the look of the Euro bills myself :)
The Treasury and Federal Reserve now changes the design of the currency every seven to 10 years to try to deter counterfeiters.
I would think that a number of different designs circulating for a single denomination of currency would infact make it easier to get away with counterfeiting. People would be less familiar with the design of the bill and be more likely to discount inconsistencies in the design by the fact that it is a different circulation.
I stole this Sig
The large print arabic numerals on the bills should be a tip-off as to their value. If people can't read numerals to determine value, how can they do the arithmetic to tell whether they got the correct change? What's next? A cash register that resembles a twister board? "That'll be two reds, a blue, oh and left foot green"
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Lets forget these paper bills altogether. If we want to make our money more interesting and easier to distinguish, we should just start using giant round rocks with holes in the middle.
The federal government instituted these bills so that the seperate states didn't make their own money, which was all of different colors, and of different sizes. They made everything the same so that our own people could have it easier. What the hell are we doing catering to foreign countries? Why not put the small pictures back and leave us the hell alone? Besides that, how will vending machines and change machines, etc, be able to adapt? They won't. We'll have to re-make all of them. Damn. What a total waste and hassle. Hm... leave it up to the federal government...
is just trying to find more ways to waste taxpayers money...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The redesign of $10 and $5 notes is still under consideration, but a redesign of the $2 and $1 notes is not included in the plans for the NexGen series
I haven't seen a whole lot of $2 bills lately. Are they planning a comeback or something? I sure hope not. It'll go the way of the one-dollar sacajawealadamabob coin they introduced not long ago.
Now strippers can tell what I'm throwing on the table at a glance.
Ever see the back of a twenty Dollar Bill.........ON WEED
Although I'm English, I've lived in the USA for a few years, on and off, and *still* find the homogeneity of the bank notes to be irritating. One shouldn't have to check twice that one isn't handing over a twenty instead of a dollar bill; besides which, it's just a *token* -- it doesn't *mean* anything, really. I say this simply because people get way too caught up on the perceived importance of things like this - the obvious example being those Europeans whose principal argument against the Euro has nothing to do with financial stability, but is instead concerned with such ridiculous notions as "tradition" and "national pride".
But I digress. Different American bank notes *are* difficult to distinguish between, and I'm not surprised that this is a concern when it comes to the ease of counterfeiting, either.
And if I'm rambling incoherently, it's because of staying up all night only to watch England lose. Bah.
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills
The Federal Reserve announced they would also hire outside consultants from Parker Brothers.
---Lane
Either you are a) using low amounts of bills so it is not an issue or b) you are using a lot of bills so you damn well better pay attention to what you are handling??? Right now US currency is one of the few non-retarded cash systems out there. The Simpsons summed it up perfectly this Wednesday:
"Look at all that pink and purple."
"Our money sure is gay."
To: Federal Reserve
Re: US Currency
Don't be Gay.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I've never heard of it either. I'm sure it might be strange to others, but I don't want a rainbow in my wallet.
Colour will also help features that will make the notes harder to fake.
How does changing the color hurt counterfeiters? Before, you could print any denomination with your ink, but if they change the colors you'll probably only want to print one type and stick with it. That doesn't sound like a huge setback to me, since I hear the margin is pretty high from cost to sale of counterfeit money.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
With the last redesign, low value notes ($2 and $1) were not affected. Now this new colored money will only be done on the $100, $50 and $20, leaving the $10 and $5 as well as the low denominations.
Doesn't anyone find is strange that we'll have three completely different kinds of bills co-circulating when this is done?
I am the evil aardvark!
Do we really need different colors on money for different denominations? Don't most languages aroung the world use Arabic(really Indian, but that's another story)numerals? Can't tourists read these? I know some countries even have different size notes for different denominations. That makes them a pain to fold and put in a wallet. This proposal will meet some static from people who think it's just plain silly, but not as much as their plan to introduce the new 69 dollar bill with Clinton's face. http://www.uncoveror.com/clinton.htm
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Parker Brothers should offer themselves up as consultants to the Federal Reserve Board.
After all, they already have the whole process down pat...
Information about the previous redesigned 1996 notes and the history of U.S. currency is available at the Bureau's (Bureau of Engraving and Printing) website at www.moneyfactory.com.
The changes are not there to help people differentiate between the different denominations, they're there to make it harder to counterfeit the bills. They've even said that they're keeping the same look and feel, so the changes won't be that dramatic. They're even trying to make them backwards-compatible with vending machines.
Just about every country I've been in (European and Asian) has different colors and sizes for currency denominations. And coins, too! It makes it much easier to count money.
:-)
I'm from the U.S., but if I hadn't grown up with our coin system, I would not find it at all intuitive.... United States coins come in denominations of 25, 10, 5, 1 cents... 25 being the largest coin, followed by 5, 1, then 10. If that's not confusing enough, if you want to know how much a coin is worth by reading the words on it, you'll find that the 25-cent coin (quarter) is a "Quarter Dollar", the 1-cent coin (penny) is "One Cent", the 5-cent coin (nickel) is "Five Cents", and the 10-cent coin (dime) is "One Dime". What the heck is a dime?
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
But Americans brought the world McDonald's!
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.I still haven't gotten used to the larger pictures
As one of those "foreigners" who now lives in the US, I've often wondered how blind people operate here? All the bills are the same size. If you can't see what's written on the bill, how do you know if you've just offered a $1 bill or a $100 bill to the checkout clerk? How can you check your change?
Its not just the blind. Imagine being able to put your hand in your pocket and know how much cash you have just by feel. That's cool. No more standing on a dark street corner in the bad part of town counting through notes to know if you have enough for a beer/cab home/meal/whatever.
Virtually every other country has different sizes for notes of different amount. This seems like such an obvious and useful thing, I'm amazed that the US hasn't adopted it? Is this the ultimate Not Invented Here syndrome?
Sailing over the event horizon
You Americans have always been jealous of us Canadians and our beautiful money!
Brazilian 1: "Look at all that pink and purple."
Brazilian 2: "Our money sure is gay."
What about Elbonia? Don't they use mud?
I wish *they* would let us vote on it... I'd vote against adding color to US Currency.
Although the article states the current bills as a "boon to swindlers" because the bills are hard to distinguish, I disagree. I know the difference between a 1, 5, 10, etc. If you're too stupid to be able to distinguish your money, you deserve to have it stolen.
Regardless, I believe one of the attributes that makes US currency recognizable around the world is its simple color scheme. Its powerful, and looks like no other currency. When color is added to US currency, I fully expect the value of the dolor to drop because it will no longer have the bold, simple 2 color scheme. It will be just like every other paper currency on the world market.
I recently watched a documentary on the History Channel, which contained a segment about the federal reserve. A federal reserve employee expressed these very sentiments, even before the idea of adding color to US bills became a serious prospect.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
apparently we were the first country to use polymer notes...
two good links are here and here
and this shows all our polymer notes
-----
no sig for you
Matt
And if I'm rambling incoherently, it's because of staying up all night only to watch England lose. Bah.
Some humor to cheer you up
The problem with currency changes is that you have old currency in circulation. I went to Ray's Pizza in Lower Manhattan and the man behind the counter had recently come here and had not seen the "OLD" 20's -- and thought my bill (gotten from an ATM that morning) was faked. In any situation where new currency is issued, the gov. needs to assure a "waiting period" in which you can freely trade in old bills for new ones and get the old ones off the streets. The whole point of the "new" bills is to prevent fakes -- as of right now, you can still get an old fake, rough it up, and use it on the street. Plus, old greek men will think you're trying to cheat them, even when you arent. (No greeks were harmed in the writing of this post)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.
Yeah, exactly the opposite of what happens with the british unit system you use. Those are really easy compared to understanding your money...
(For the humour impaired: This is supposed to be sarcastic.)
Marcelo Vanzin
IIRC, America used to have rainbow coloured bills back in the 1800's, before going to greenbacks.
Honestly, I think a truly global currency would be good, but I think that some fat cat is making lots of money from the unequal exchange rates.
Murphy was an optimist.
I've always thought US monochrome money was by far the best looking money in the world. Other countries with all their "pretty" colors look like fake, monopoly money.
US money, on the other hand, looks like serious money , beefy and substantial. There's no mistaking that US currency is a serious document.
In fact, I thought the current redesign really took a lot of the "heft" out of the bills. Now color?
Who's running the federal reserve? Whoever it is needs to get a clue. Next the military will be painting our fighter jets with nice, pastel colors.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm a Canadian trapped here in the land of dull Greenbacks and I can attest that, while the confusion factor over the domination is not that high, damn, its a dull, ugly currency.
If only I had a lot more of it.
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It looks as though you've never travelled or lived outside the U.S. in your entire life.
Having different colors does make a huge difference for a lot of people. I've lived in four countries (including the U.S. now) and I definitely think that colored foreign currency notes are much easier to handle compared to boring green U.S. notes.
I don't see what's so bad about makeing different bills different colors, i think it makes it alot easier to see what you have in your wallet without haveing to take out that gigantic wad of paper. besides, when you goto another country and are forced to use thier curency, you usually just use the color of the paper to tell you what bill it is.
Also in other countries, they change thier curency often to try to protect against counterfiting, the reason the US has the most counterfit dollars is because we don't chance the look of are bills for very long periods of time, and one of our dallors usually goes a very long way in other countries. just my opinion, i wouldn't mind hearing what the rest of you think
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money shot
Excerpt from zzz: Bank notes of Belorussia: 3 and 10 rubles. Most countries put famous people on their money, Belorussia decided to put animals. There's a very special way to fold two notes...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I think it is great that the U.S. is finally deciding to play with the rest of the world. Not only are the current American bills ugly and hard to differentiate, we have an incredibly poor denomination system.
$1 bills are practically useless, and would be much more efficient if a coin was successfully introduced as a replacement.
$5, $10, $20, $50, $100 and that's it? Why don't we at least have a $250 or $500 and a $1000? Again, the dollar has become severly devalued in the last couple decades and it would be smart to start introducing larger bills again.
B_H
on the other hand, bartenders should be weeping like babies right now.
i'm the jedidiahmarkfoster your parents warned you about
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See, US currency does not have to be interesting.
Already most people are interested in it.
Considered harmful.
It is high time that the United States join the rest of the civilised world in adopting colourful currency. You will soon find that it raises the spirit and invigourates the soul.
I would suggest a psychadelic colour scheme that hearkens back to the days of free love and peace. I suspect that won't go over to well, but a man can dream, can't he?
"I'm a rocket man / Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." - Sir Elton John
I used to work for the treasury department, and back about 10 years ago they were working extensively with the FBI to improve on the ability to track down money laundering and counterfeiting.
The biggest thing heading our way in that department is a nationally linked serial number scanning system. Basically, since virtually all stores have laser scanners already, and a strong desire to avoid getting fed counterfeits (since they lose the counterfeit money without reparation), stores will be offered the opportunity to scan the money you hand them, and have a unique serial number checked against a national database. Money being used at multiple locations at the same time can be flagged as counterfeit, and refused by the stores.
The big benefit to the FBI comes when they can then follow money virtually every time it is spent. It can even be correlated with time stamped receipts at the stores to see what was bought.
A portion of this system is already in place in a number of banks, which have better scanners that work with the existing money supply, but in the next generation of currency, there will be a small bar code on the upper right edge of the currency for this purpose.
Its a pretty cool system, and should really help to cut down on organized crime.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Try looking at the NUMBERS on the bills!
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.
Where can I find some of these foreigners? I'd like to do some currency exchanging!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Given that money is meant to be representational, and given that the different bills represent entirely different amounts, it only makes sense to distinguish them from one another as much as possible.
I once met someone working within the US treasury and took the opportunity to ask him why they didn't take advantage of color printing. He reckoned that it was politics more than anything else; no politician wanted to be the one to suggest changing something with which Americans identify so strongly. I guess it's a bit like the British being sentimental about the pound despite all the jobs and markets they're losing to Ireland and the other countries who've adopted the Euro.
As I look closely on American One dollar bill,
i) There is a pyramid with an eye.
ii) There's a message in Latin I guess, says "Annuit Coeptis. Nous Ordo Seclorum." What does that mean?
iii) And the phrase:
"In God We Trust..."
MDCCLXXVI
I know what you mean. But the worst part of it is that now your average near-sighted stripper will be able to tell who the cheap skates are from across the stage. Us poor guys who wave the singles will be screwed!!!
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I constantly had problems there due to all of the zeroes on the money. When you're wheeling and dealing, it can be tough to tell the difference between 500000 and 5000000 on the fly. Luckily, the few times that I did give the wrong bills (5 mil instead of 500,000), the person was nice enough to correct me. Regardless of how countries differentiate their denominations, it requires familiariry with the bills to get to know them. Unfortunately, sometime it takes trial and error...
Damn, now I'll have to upgrade all my counterfeiting equipment!
Monopoly money. Maybe it's just some strange message from the gov't?
Seriously, where do they have the time and the money to spend on new designs and colors? I for one think it's a total waste of time to make a new design and add color to some bills which have just changed in the past 10 years. Don't you think the gov't has more important issues to deal with other than issuing new colored money?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I for one like the look of US$ Classic, gracefull, and fits easily in the pocket.
When I was in England I was walking around with a pocketful of pound coins. What a racket!
-"The early bird catches the worm, but the late bird sleeps the most"
I remember seeing a $500 when I was a kid.
Supposedly, they got rid of them to make things harder for drug dealers/cash laundering.
But if you look at inflation, isn't it time to bring them back into circulation?
I just hope the secret service thinks it's funny.
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
There are several times in the US past when bills had other colors on them. Dating back to the 1800's. No one died then. Why does this have to be a big deal.
"Look at all this gay money"
--Kidnapper
The Tanzanian currency makes higher-denomination bills bigger. Back in the 80's when they let their currency float, inflation got pretty bad and they had to introduce new, bigger bills. It got so bad that they had to reset and introduce a new bill (1000 shillingi, as I recall) that was smaller than all the smaller bills. The 500 shillingi bill wouldn't properly fit in standard wallets.
Funny that many people are so concerned over how their money looks. Never mind the reasons for not changing it, everybody seems to have their own. Then again, there are not that many reasons to change sizes and colors either.
It's hardly an important issue.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
...like a credit card receipt. i'd be tearing them up and throwing them away. :(
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
While they're at it, howsabout some real change in the bills - like changing who's on them?
Start with the $20. Jackson. How did this genocidal maniac, who laid the seeds of the Trail of Tears, who shattered the Constitutional balance of power by ignoring rulings of the Supreme Court, who appointed Taney (who authored the Dred Scott decision) to that same court, end up honored with a place on our money?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Well, with about 100 posts so far, I see about half from non-Americans, with legit reasons why the US should use this system, and about half from Americans, basically saying fsck the foreigners...they need to learn to read the numbers...etc.
It speaks volumes about our (Americans') culture and attitude towards the rest of the world as a society, and yes, I'm American.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
Most "foreign" money comes in different sizes for the same reason that it comes with Brail. The colours/holograms/scratch-n-sniff patches are just for cuteness.
How do the visually impared deal with USD?
I am a Karma Library.
Go to any country in the world. Give away a $1, $20 or $100 to whoever wants one. See how many $1 bills you actually give away. See how many $100 bills you actually give away.
If you give away anything but $100 bills, then I'll believe foreigners can't tell American money apart.
Just as I'm about to finish the script for my live-action adaptation of Danger Mouse, I learn that we're changing our money. Great.
So now the name Silas Greenback will be an antiquated reference and the villainous character will have to be changed to reflect whatever color the government finally chooses. It will change the entire dynamic of the show, since the name "Greenback" made since because he is GREEDY and therefore desires MONEY, and because he is a FROG. A GREEN FROG.
I just hope they don't choose pink...because then the villain will have to be a Flamingo in order for the name to work. And there's already a bird villain in the show - the nefarious Stiletto! Not to mention Mad Manuel, "the Flamenco assassin", which sounds entirely too much like flamingo.
Thanks for ruining Danger Mouse, you feds!
Considering the cost of ink cartridges i don't think it will be very profitable.
Actually, probably NOT screwed...
Yea, but you usually don't see the older designs in circulation. Banks take it out because they get worn, etc. I imagine they keep they cycle like that because that is how long they think it will take to produce a reliable counterfeiting machine. My theory is that the shorter the cycle the more difficult it is to counterfeit.
Who is John Galt?
The last thing I want is multicolored money. I don't want some asshole to know I'm carrying a big note by seeing a certain color in my wallet while I'm at the grocery store.
There are many situations where it's possible for other people to view my money. I don't want some careful observer 5 meters away to know I'm carrying more than usual because of some colored Monopoly money!
I just don't get it... how can people have a hard time with out money? I'm pretty sure that it has always taken 20 1's to make a 20. or are they planning on changing the math too? I mean do we really need to make a 20 the size of 20 1's so that people can line them all up like a jigsaw puzzle to figure out how much they are worth?
It makes me wonder who is training these monkeys.
But Americans brought the world McDonald's!
But that was a curse!!
Let's just drop the paper altogether and go back to the gold standard! Whoo-Whoo!!
Oh wait, I can't remember what a troy ounce is anymore. Dang. How many shavings to a bit again?
Why do I never get a fortune in my fortune cookies?
Keeee-rist, doesn't the government have anything better to do? I'd argue that one of the reasons why people - albeit subconsciously - regard the dollar as highly as they do is because of its monochromatic appearance. Because of that it looks solid. Sturdy. Foreign currencies might be more festive, but to be honest, to us Americans it just looks like their treasuries couldn't make up their damn minds, which is not a big confidence builder.
And I know I'm about the hundredth person to mention it, but how hard is it to look at the corner of the goddamn bill?
In any event, Congress will never go along with it. The treasury department has been trying to switch over to dollar coins for years, but Congress just laughs at them and beats them up for their lunch money whenever it comes up.
Imaging a Beowolf Cluster of these!
somebody uses something other than ones? She's gonna have to do more than rub her breasts on my face for a fiver, or am I a cheap bastard?
Note to self: Stop asking rhetorical questions... I mean, do they ever accomplish anything?
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I wouldn't be too sure about your wallet, either. I hear the new $10 bill will be made of Jello :)
Living better through chemicals
Boy am I humiliated. Up till now I thought my 6" money was quite adequate.
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Hmm, yes, sounds like how interesting the culture is, also.
Yes, that's why U.S. popular culture dominates the world. Because it's "uninteresting".
Culture doesn't always evolve to match the tastes of snobs, you know.
Of course, this is a pain because just carrying around $50 can double the size of your billfold.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
That's a really great government website! Check out their "Lucky 7" dollar bills and their "Lone Star Bills" just for Texans.
That government is more and more wacky all the time!
Come on. Really. US currency is the most well known currency on the planet, is used in lieu of local currency in some locales, and has several mechanisms installed to prevent counterfeiting as well as to ensure the readability of the bills.
Go to the Secret Service website and look up the details behind the reason why American currency is designed the way it is.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Besides, in a few years we might end up being a cashless society anyway and banknotes won't matter anymore.
Ah, but that was caused not by NASA's failure to use metric but by Lockheed's. Lockheed figured that since people in the US use the english system, they should translate all of their data to english units before they sent it over to NASA with the probe. NASA assumed the data were metric, because, well, that's what everybody in science uses! This is why NASA people now refer to the English system as the "Lockheed system"
\
Great! Now when I play monopoly I could really be losing a lot of my money.
I new I should have put up a couple of hotels on St. Charles!
I had much more of a problem with the fact that a dime is physically smaller than a nickel or even a penny, but is worth more. What's up with that??
memorize which color goes with which. Which, of course, is SO much easier than just reading the number.
and let us vote on the color. Pink! Blue! Purple!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
no matter what a stripper says, there is no sex in the champaign room.
;-)
Now that we're pretty close to having LCD paper, and wireless internet access in every major city, I'm all for the next generation of money having LCD hologram foil that has a full 3-D animation of George W (or whomever is President when it's "printed") waving out from each bill. Whenever you're in range of a wireless network, the hologram can be updated to meet the current political climate, and of course banner ads can scroll between the large flashing colored denomination symbols. (Quickly pulsing red ball means $50, slower green pyramid means $20).
Now if they can get integrated micro-foil speakers too, we can have money that talks to us and cries "Spend Me!", "I've been in your wallet for 3 days, Don't you need more Cheezy-Poofs?"
Apart from the war rant I think this deserves a little +1 MOD.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
If Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) has his way
Particularly of interest were these paragraphs:
To phase out the penny, Kolbe said, cash transactions would be rounded up or down a nickel over a transition period before removing it from circulation. But Americans for Common Cents (ACC), a group dedicated to keeping the penny, said Kolbe's rounding proposal would hurt Americans, particularly the poor, because companies would round in their favor.
"Corporations have a profit margin and will have a tendency to round up," said Mark Weller, ACC's executive director and senior vice president of the Sagamore Group lobby shop. "There will be a disproportionate effect on those who can afford it least."
Since businesses run this country anyways this is probably inevitable, but it would really hurt the consumer in the long run. A penny isn't much by itself, but over a lifetime that is a huge loss...
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
A "dime", or 10-cent piece was once called a "disme" when 10 cent pattern coin were minted in 1792. (Disme means "tenth" and was supposed to be used like "dollar" and "cent")Furthermore, until 1873, he U.S. Mint minted 5-cent silver coins called "half-dimes" (half-dismes in 1792). The familiar "nickel" wasn't minted until 1866, and was bigger than a dime because it's made of base-metal (dimes were mostly silver then), 3 parts copper, 1 part nickel. Nickels say 5 cents, to differentiate from the half-dimes.
Our money seems counter-intuitive, since all our coins are debased. Metal content was changed in dimes and up in 1964 from 90% silver to the current copper-nickel composition.
The U.S. Mint also made half-cents and cents as large as a half-dollar till 1857, a two-cent piece and two flavors of three-cent pieces, but that's a different story for a different post.
I am the evil aardvark!
It seems that most of the people posting about this did not bother to click on the links. Here's part of the Federal Reserve says about the new colors:
"...The NexGen designs will include the introduction of subtle background colors. While color is not in itself a security feature, the use of color provides the opportunity to add additional features that could assist in deterring counterfeiting..."
Canadian money has been different colours for ages - periodically when a bill becomes too easily conterfeitable, they change the pictures/anti-counterfeiting measure completely.
;)
However, a couple of years ago I heard a funny story where some unscrupulous Hong Kong "business men" were exchanging money from Burma or somewhere exotic (to me), and calling it Canadian. No one knew what Canadian money actually looked like, as most Canadians travel abroad with American Greenbacks
I've seen enough americans here saying "read the fscking number". but what when the bills are inside a wallet, or purse ?
you have to take all the bills out to read the numbers ? oh, but there's the images, right ? wrong. except for the 1 dolar bill I have no fucking clue of who is in each bill. inside a wallet all of them look the same to me.
now with colors at least I'll know that they're diferent, and it'll be easier to associate the colors with the face value if I ever go to US.
face it, from all the so called "civilized" countries, US is way behind in terms of currency printing technology.
What ? Me, worry ?
I'm against adding color to the bills. The US dollar is the most accepted, stable currency in the world. It may be "boring", but it's trusted. From a marketing standpoint, the greenish color scheme has fantastic brand awareness. People know it's US currency just by glancing at it. We will do our monetary system a disservice by trashing this brand
Miko O'Sullivan
Who gives a fuck what foreigners think about MY money? I could care less if some visitor can't figure it out on their own... Just ask someone, they'll tell you, just like I did on the streets of Manhattan 2 weeks ago. Good God, why don't Americans worry about American issues...oh that's right it's not politically correct to be concerned about your own country.
to the euro? Colorful and generic.
The fact that some people seem to get so emotional about bills seems to indicate that money is a substantial part of their identification with their national identity.
It's only money. I find this a bit troubling. And I'm not even American.
I suspect in most parts of the world, this is a no-brainer.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
all I want is for the "big bills" (for me thats anything over a 20 dollar bill) to be Pink so I know what to grab from people and not waste time on those smaller notes :)
Ave Molech Setting
Is your life so boring that looking at colored money entertains you? Get a life, McFly.
Yes, there are numbers at the top of the bills that distinguish currency.
The problem if you are unfamiliar with the bills or handle a high volume is relying too much on the number in the corner of a bill.
I recall hearing a couple years ago on the local news about a person who was simply taking the corners from $20 bills and affixing them to $1 bills. He was doing this during the holiday season, so the cashiers stressed from the frantic pace of things were letting them slip by.
I would imagine foreigners not being familiar with our bills might be vulnerable to the same type of scam.
Having another immediately evident distinguishing factor that people can easily recognize would protect against this.
In the short term, the different types of bills circulating may make things difficult; however, in the long run this is probably a good idea.
This whole color change is just a cover. The government has already used all the hidden conspiracy information in the $20, so they need to add more.
Don't worry, though. Hundreds of Origami Experts and Interior Decorators are standing by to unravel the dastardly secrets.
The U.S. government has never recalled or devalued its currency.
Explain why they're raising the amount of money in circulation (scarcity decreases, so does value). And why I can't exchange my old silverbacks for pounds of silver?
They have been devaluing currency for as long as I can recall. So I reiterate my subject line.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
P.S. can you throw in some totem pole seeds with that?
The US does not have "a" culture, it has many and most are quite interesting, actually. Fortunately, each sub-culture isn't permitted to design its own currency, though I imagine that would be interesting.
I challenge you to walk into a boston pub and tell all the Irish-*Americans* there that they have no culture. Yes, its from Ireland, but they are also Americans and as such, that is our culture as well. The argument goes for many of the immigrants that have chosen to call the US home.
Yes, I know, I was spouting off a bit there.
I guess it's just that I've spent way too much time living in the Suburbs, and anyone who's lived in them knows damn well the suburbs are completely without culture (other than the culture of consumerism).
There's a reason I have plans to move INTO a city (such as Boston) - so I can get somewhere where there actually is culture, people that walk from place to place (instead of taking moving metal boxes everywhere), and getting past the feeling of being the only person around cause everyone's so isolated from each other.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Told me that he just kept different bills in different compartments of his billfold. He asked clerks to seperate them for them, and if things were complex just handed his wallet to the clerk. Clerks don't cheat the blind guy we guess.
Wow, are the europeans that stupid that they can't read a number.
"Me like pretty colors. Me no like numbers. Numbers hard!"
Why the hell is this offtopic? And can some 'foreigner' with insight into how vending machines in other countries work flawlessly with different sized money?
I was speaking with my co-worker about this, and the massive cost of redesigning and implementing new vending machines were the first response out of his mouth. I was thinking more along the lines of 'not folding nicely in a wallet', 'can't people read numbers' etc.. I've used vietnamese, jamaican, and british money, and the first two I never wanted coins, because of their low value, and in England hated waking up with a pocket full of pounds after a night of drinking, not to mention wondering how many had fallen out of my pocket on the subway/taxi/couch I had passed out on/in.
"The introduction of additional colors will also help consumers to identify the different denominations."
I thought that's what the huge NUMBERS in every corner were for.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
Everyone is talking about how we need to put triangles and such on our money so you can tell the value of the note quickly. I think people are overlooking the fact that the most important shape on every bill is the picture of a human face. If we know someone we can all quickly tell them from a glance. I think our friends Washington, Hamilton, Jackson, et al, do as much to tell the value of a note as any funky shape would. I understand it takes people from other countries a while to get to know our friends but then again life sucks sometimes. Yes people in the US can be Amero-centric. Yes I can see how it gets annoying -- get over it! Oh I also think the human face is a good anti-counterfit method. Yes, changing the size of the different bills would be good for the blind -- aint gonna happen though. Look how much money it costs for them the switch to the Euro. Think we are going to spend that much over here? Also legal tender should have this rock solid -- you can trust me -- I will be worth this much forever feel. Changing the design every few years isn't going to help that image. When the new $100's and $20's came out am I the only one who thought it looked like Monopoly money (and I don't mean cash in M$'s bank account?) Yes it is just a slip of paper (well US money is more like cloth than paper) but it should somehow feel like it is something more.
Personally, I'm all for the change. But there is something that no one has pointed out yet: The enormous cost of new capital machinery.
Many years ago I worked for Coca-Cola, who had 1 million plus vending machines with dollar bill acceptors in South East Wisconsin. Figuring the hard costs alone of new bill validators at 20 million bucks, you can bet there are going will be some VERY strong lobbying when these proposed changes start getting discussed.
.....
The new (currently new I guess) $20 bill ;-)
How in the blue hell can you mistake a 1 for a 5, or a 1 for a 10, or a 5 for a twenty?
Oh my, I looked at the 5 and thought I gave you a twenty, but really it was a 50 because... I AM STUPID.
Apperently most aliens are stupid. "How the hell can I tell the difference between a 1 and a 5 dollar bill when the number are printed so clearly on them? This is just ridiculus!"
I am afraid it is true. The proud USA spirit seems to have been encoded into a stupid gene. Why? Well,it is just a guess, but when a country can't even adopt metric when the rest of the world has....need I really say more? Occasionally bright ideas are suggested, such as changing the color of our money, but those ideas are coming from foriegn genes.
We're proud and stupid. God Bless USA.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I didn't know about the "Lockheed System" tidbit... that's rather amusing.
Anyway, that doesn't change his argument, because if the US had been using the metric system, Lockheed wouldn't have assumed that NASA was using the imperial system. (I prefer the term "imperial" system rather than the "english" system, because even England no longer uses it.)
I know when I've been trolled, but what the hell...
So, if our beautiful greenbacks are so damned uninteresting, could you please explain to me why US currency is so desireable to you and every other snooty foreigner?
Sure, you'll criticize it as uninteresting, but you sure as shit wouldn't pass up a stack of dead presidents, would you?
When It Counts.
I don't think the currency is ugly at all. Far from it. While other countries' gaudy bills look like flyers for some cheap rave, our distinctive greenbacks always look exactly like money. You may not be able to tell how much from just a quick glance or feel, but that is not necessarily bad. The designs on the bills are intricate and detailed yet highly visible and consistently recognizable, as is the color and feel of the cash. The idea that a multicolored design is somehow more desireable than a monochromatic one is just plain dumb, like saying that color photography is artisticly superior to black and white. As for the subject matter of dead great presidents and historical monuments and emblems, that suits me just fine. It may not be touchy-feely, but it's our history.
And on a side note, just how is changing our currency going to benefit the US? A careless tourist may give you the wrong money, but no cashier will accept it - except maybe if it is too high, which ultimately represents an influx of cash. Too bad for them, but it's their own fault.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
>What a racket!
...
Makes for a far more effective mating call than the ever-silent paper-stuffed wallet tho
"Old man yells at systemd"
Wouldn't it make more sense to make the notes different sizes like many other countries do? When I lived in England, it'd be a simple task of sticking my hand in my pocket and finding the required note by its size. Blind people are still going to have the same difficulties they've always had figuring out what note they're holding (actually, I'm interested to hear from any blind readers on how they do this). [1]
I'm sure these new notes will be much more expensive to print than the current note. With the state that the US economy is in right now it seems like a very large waste of money.
And, on a personal note - I prefer green anyway.
[1] Aside: the disadvantage of this would be having to replace the bill slot on millions of vending machines instead of just reprogramming them.
I bet it's a secret plan to bring the US into Europe, especially as the dollar has dropped so much, and investors are being advised to "invest" in Europe :)
See the bbc's business section http://news.bbc.co.uk...
Bonsoir!
What if you're colorblind?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Wouldn't making it harder to counterfeit the greenback bankrupt several countries? How's Russia going to survive when half its paper curreny gets flushed out as fake?
Federal Reserve - Susan Stawick - 202-452-2955
Bureau of Engraving and Printing - Dawn Haley - 202-874-3545
Alternatively, fill in this form.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The penny should absolutely be abolished in all cash transactions. Keep track of it in all credit and check transactions, but as for cash, it's worthless.
It costs almost a penny to make a penny, and they don't circulate at all. They end up in shoeboxes and jars all over, but they just don't circulate. They're a complete and utter waste. They should be abolished.
Likewise, the dollar bill should be abolished in favor of the dollar coin. And the two dollar bill should be brought back into prominance. Thus we end up with the same number of coins (subtract the penny, add the dollar) and the same number of bills (subtract the dollar, add the two dollar), so cash drawers don't have to be redesigned.
It's an overhaul that's way over-due. I think the people complaining that abolishing pennies would hurt the poor are showing an amazing lack of imagination, and are suffering a horrible case of "the sky is falling" syndrome.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
I don't know where you get the idea that it's deliberately for "foreigners"... I heard this story on the radio a month ago, and the story definitely mentioned it was to make counterfeiting more difficult.
The newest Canadian bills are not only different colours, but they have braille, a special glossy maple leaf overlay, and a bunch of pressed on 'dots' which, with some difficulty, can be peeled off to prove they are not just printed on. All of these things (except, perhaps, the braille) are primarily to stop counterfeiting.
... and guess what: I use both Canadian and U.S. currency every day, and the different colours of Canadian money make it wayyy easier to differentiate different denominations.
Consider this, many times, you just went to a bank machine and got $100 as five $20 bills. Then you buy a pack of gum to break one of the twenties. Later, when you go to pay for something that's $4.95, and you want to find that $5 bill you know is in your wallet, it's MUCH easier to just look for a blue piece of paper, rather than looking at the writing on each individual bill. Maybe it only saves you 5 or 10 seconds, but if you're in a line with 5 or 10 people, and each person takes 5 or 10 seconds longer, that adds up over the course of a day.
Besides that, twice in the last two years, someone giving me change in the U.S. has tried to pass off a $1 as a $10. I noticed it, but I wonder how many times they actually succeed?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
But the entire reason to change the money so far has been "Americans are resistant to change" and so, to prove that they aren't, they should change.
Huh? Because using US cash is only marginally more difficult to use than other cash, it should change. C'mon... It's not like US money is all written in 3cm squares with only barcodes on them to differentiate them.
A similar argument: "In the US they only have stick-shift automobiles! As a foreign contractor this is annoying! Back home everyone drives automatics! And when we tell them to change they say 'We should change just because it assaults your refined foreign tastes?' like a bunch of rubes! Stupid americans..."
To say that a people are free to chose only what you let them isn't freedom.
Actually I wish all automobiles had to be stick-shifts. It would solve the cellphone problem right quick.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I always wondered why US currency wasn't different sizes, or used "feelable" edges, so the visually impaired or blind could identify the denomination.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I'd bet this is just a big scam by the pocketbook industry to boost man-purse sales.
planned obsolescence:
First my Nintendos
then my OS
now my wallet...
At my first job in retail the manager had a $100 bill pinned to the wall. One day I asked if it was from the first sale or something. He said, no, check it out. I look again, no big deal. I look once more and notice that it's really the center two fifths of a one with the ends from a hundred crudely stuck on with tape. The cashier hadn't had enough change to break it & had given it to the manager, who hadn't noticed either. The printing is right, the paper feels right, it all looks fine. This scam works because as long as 50% or more of the bill is intact it's still legal, so you can cut the ends off a hundred & still deposit it or cash it at a bank. This would be much harder to pull off if the bills were different colors.
Keeping it confusing to foreigners could be considered an anti-terrorism measure. "Hey, that guy tried to pay with a $5 instead of a $50! Grab him!"
It took (lots of) non-americans to make your Treasury change colors & sizes.
I really wonder how vision-impaired americans cope with this problem.
I guess that taking care of tourists is much more important that taking care of your own blind people.
See this for a careful design of bills. [To be honest, I'm not happy with the artwork personally]
Okay, I was a little harsh. Just see this initiative like a Section 508 applied to bills & coins.
It makes life much easier of handicapped people, as, it also help you normal guys (508-compliant Web sites are usually cleaner than non-508)
Not just new hued (i.e. not bright colours, but various hues) bills but magentic inks, water-spots, metal foil sown into the fiber, various printing methods (for a tactial feel to the blind). Other countries such as Canada have introduced braille for the blind.
The braille is also good for check your pockets at the bars before offering to buy the next round of beer. While in Britian I had my first exposure to different sized bills, and I found it useful to be able to assess at a glance what is in my wallet, and to double check the change from the taxis driver after a night out. Too often you cannot read the bills since it is dark, and taxis are pretty horrid at having burnt out interior lights.
Of course many people will be distracted by the "national image", the real issues of harder to make a quality counterfeit it to the benefit of the US economy, and just about everyone in the US except criminals and the CIA (who have been accused of counterfeiting, but never proven).
For those who cannot understand the tourist angle. I suspect that is a PR claim, but visitors are not only dealing with a new currency, they are often using a second, third, or fifth language, and also trying to do currency conversion to their native currency when shopping and trying to budget their trip. There are those shop keepers and tourist industry people who try to take advanage of the similiar appearance. I'm know that there has been more than a couple bait-and-switch cases of people doing much like a card trick when giving back change; to not just tourists but everyday Americians.
-- Off topic so go ahead and mod me down but I am pissed. --
I went to ft.com (source of the article) and I got a error message saying I was using an unsupported browser!! How can Opera 6.0 not be supported? Lazy web developers!!
Lord, bless my users that they may stop being such fucking idiots!!
Anyone have a picture of one of the new bills? Preferrably a large tiff image, around 2400 dpi, front and back...something I could print at the local Kinkos?
Yes, but the exchange rate is emormous. Talk about a land fill!
no matter what a stripper says, there is no sex in the champaign room.
:)
I have a friend from New Orleans who can say from personal experience that that phrase is not true. Well, at least not in the (I strongly suspect) mob owned bar he was in.
I think you're on to something there. Our country is a nation of immigrants who have come seeking political freedom and economic opportunity. And what symbolizes economic opportunity in America more than anything? MONEY. GREENBACKS. $$$$. Which incidentally have pictures of the folks responsible for said political freedom. A symbol of our nation. Multicolored, multisized bills with non-historical designs, in contrast, look like monopoly money to us.
P.S. I also think we should bite the bullet and go metric. But changing the highway signs alone will be crazy expensive.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I've always thought doubloon (double-looney, in this case) was good, but it never caught on. Toonie is pretty bad.
You can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
If you look at the traditional US currency from a distance (both sides), you'll find that it all looks exactly the same, except for the $2, which has a big picture on the back. Of course, few people regularly use the $2. It was really nice when the new $20 came out, because it looked really different from the other bills, while still looking somewhat like US money. Then they came out with $10 and $5 bills that looked like $20 bills (since I'd gotten used to $20 bills looking the new way).
Rather than using different colors, they should use different designs: leave the $1 the way it's always been, the $20 the new way, make the $5 and $10 different in other ways, make the front of the $2 like the back (wide, rounded image). Make $100+ bills different colors.
Of course, they could make the bills all different colors, but leave the $1 the same way we're used to. I think the identifying feature of US currency is the fact that there are all the busy sections of little lines, more than the color.
I can only imagine the hue and cry from businesses if you tried changing the size of money. From a practical standpoint, it's virtually impossible to pull off.
There is a substantial investment in bill accepters (soda machines, subway ticket dispensers, etc.. ) and money trays (cash registers, cash counting machines, other things used to transport cash). They all assume same-sized bills. Anything which isn't backward compatible with the "hardware" in circulation would cost literally billions of dollars in upgrades. Unless each bill was smaller than the current size bill of today, how would you even perform an upgrade without cutting a bigger hole for the bill accepter into the machine?
That being said, I'd love to see different sized and colored money. I don't know what anyone's talking about. It is a heck of a lot easier to see a red small bill and thinking $5, than having to thumb through it, pick it out, look in the corner and read "5" and think $5 bill.
So much for penny-ante poker games.
It says about adding 'subtle colors'. I wonder what does that mean? Probably basically green notes with slight shades of different colors.
Most of the bill is not visible when it is stacked in wallet along with other bills. Being able to pick the right bill when only a small part of it is visible is a good thing (tm)
- get rid of pennies...they leave little round marks in my feet
- make nickels smaller...like the size of dimes
- make dimes bigger...like the size of pennies
- make quarters smaller...like the size of nickels
- stop making bills valued under $10
- make more of those cool sakajewia $1 coins
- issue $5 coins slightly larger than those $1 coins
Helps the blind, helps foreigners...only people I can see complaining are the cheapskates who won't give a stripper $20-30 for a lap dance...If all you're there to do is put $1 in her g-string, rent a fscking movie...if you want some touch, pay up.Since you'll are so adept why not make all your coins the same size and colour ?
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
But, seriously, doesn't it bother anybody else that if we color our bills, everyone (including the bad guys) would be able to see the color of your money? I will have to stop carrying around $500 at a time.
Say, how's Pele doing in the tournament?
Well, here in the US, I've worked at numerous stores handling cash, and I can tell you that "knowing who's on the face of a bill" and bill color definitely has a effect on the ability to counterfeit. Some small-time counterfeit attempts will try to do things like cut single corners off a $20 or $50 and then put those high-denomination corners onto the body of a smaller-denomination bill, like a $5 or something.
It's not a high-volume method of counterfeiting, but some people will give it a shot anyhow. Now if the colors of different denominations change, surely you'll notice if the corner of a bill is an entirely different color from the body of the bill. It's not such a bad idea.
Otherwise an inattentive clerk might look only at the corner of the bill to determine the denomination, and won't notice that, "Hey, waitta minute, why is Lincoln on the face of the $50 bill?" Sure, you can also read the "FIFTY DOLLARS" printed on the body of the bill as well, but colors would definitely help.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Well, since we patent/copyright the greenbacks, that means we will be the only ones with green money. Then, if someone does happen to copy it, we can use our weapons of war to impose new food additives in other nations' alternative fuel!
/. lighten up a bit and realize that you are probably complaining about the "noisy minority." Why? Because a majority of Americans really don't give a flying you-know-what on this issue; it's really only the (few) cultural die-hards who think that green is somehow superior.
Come on, people, doesn't it occur to you that there might be a cultural thing going on here? I'm an American (and damn proud of it), but that doesn't mean I'm against changing the color of the bills. Hell, it'll certainly stop me from pulling out a 5 when I meant to pull out a 20 for gas. I suggest that you anti-America folks here on
Good example: you should see the look on other Americans' faces when I pull out an Australian bill. The first response of these individuals is either "Wow, that is so cool," or "I wish our money was like this!"
So, again, perhaps you should lighten up before flaming America and our weapons of war, additives, and patents or we'll bomb you with patented additives.
He who has no
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Everyone knows the term "dime" comes from "dime bag". ;) and a quarter is for a quarter ounce.
Of course a dime bag is $10 and a quarter ounce is $110 which just further confuses our european visitors more used to Amsterdam pricing.
Let's go whole hog and make money in powers of 2.
$1, $2, $4, $8, etc. denominations.
It would make it so much easier for geeks to count, and make writing software for ATMs so much simpler.
;)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I was at Mardi Gras in New Orleans (lived there at the time) a few years ago and had a Canadian friend ask me if I knew why Canadian bills were all different colors. With a dead serious expression he said "So you can tell them apart when your drunk.." and walked off. Knowing his drinking habits, I've always got a personal chuckle that in his case I believe it.
Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
Changing the form of paper money is not without costs. Consider that vending machines, subway machines, and any other bill-accepting device must be upgraded to recognize the new format.
I read in the USA Today this morning that last time our paper currency was altered (1996), it cost the vending industry $350 million to adapt. The same article quotes that only about $50 million in counterfeit currency is passed per year.
Is it just me, or does this sound like a huge waste of money? By changing the currency once again, the government is going to force the vending industry through another huge upgrade, the costs of which will inevitably be passed on to consumers. All to counter a measly $50 million in counterfeiting?
I understand that aside from the dollar cost of counterfeiting, there is also the issue of trust in the currency (a legitimate dollar is worth a little less when counterfeiting is widely suspected). But still, the vending industry's $350 million investment only lasted 6 years, and I bet most of the money was spent earlier rather than later, so even the amortized cost is still much higher than the cost of counterfeiting.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out if the lawmakers that allowed this just happen to be in the home state/city of a vending machine parts manufacturer... Government waste makes me sick.
However, next came bill changes, then the $2 coin, then more bill changes, and so on. The complaining has gone down and down over time. Now, we pretty much just accept that our money changes. New bills come out and old ones leave. It is no big deal, and it really doesn't bug anyone.
My point, yes there is huge resistance, but eventually, people come to accept change. You have had the same money so long, that even a bigger head has caused complaints and outcry. People will get used to change.
PK
Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
As things stand in the world today you can travel to almost any 3rd world country on the planet and find that the locals will accept two forms of payment, the local currency and U.S. Dollars. If the U.S. Dollar stops looking like the U.S. Dollar, then some of its appeal around the world may drop off. Just think about that the next time you are being asked for a bribe by some 3rd world police officer when he finds a bottle of tylenol in your bag.
Ike
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, actually, you can't. But you can evaluate people by how illogical their arguments are.
Actually I bet compainies would be more likely to round down. It's absolutely amazing how many people equate $39.99 with $30 rather than $40. I bet they would rather round to $39.95 than an even $40 just to keep the suckers in check.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Likewise, the dollar bill should be abolished in favor of the dollar coin.
;-P) and remove low denomination paper money from circulation.
Yeah, right... I hate carrying around change when I can carry the much lighter and easier to handle bills (try putting coins in your wallet). Nobody carries silver dollars (or those new Sacajawea dollars) in lieu of paper money because they simply suck to carry. I hope we don't follow the lead of Canada (and all those other third world countries in Europe
Also, they stopped really circulating two dollar bills because nobdody liked them. You can just as easily carry two ones or a five, and that proves much more versatile. Besides, having to regularly deal with currency in multiples of two breaks up the scheme of things. Five ones equals one five, two fives equals one ten, two tens equals one twenty, and five twenties equals one hundred. Two dollars just don't fit in (Change for a ten? Ummm... one five, two twos and a silver dollar OK?) Fifties don't really fit well into the scheme I described, but I hardly ever see those anyway. I much more often see twenties and hundreds.
Having said that, I thought Woz had a really cool idea. He would take uncut sheets of twos and bind them into a perforated book. Then he would tear them out and give them as tips. I understand he once got into trouble with a casino doing that...
Because how interesting the money is to look at has nothing at all to do with the value of it.
:)
Just because the money is ugly doesn't mean I wouldn't love to have a ton of it.
komi
The ultimate goal of science is to unify all forces of nature to a single law that can be silk-screened onto a T-shirt.
Hmm, the foreigners are not really the problem. Ask blind people, they're the ones who have trouble with the bills. The European Central Bank had the Euro bills and coins designed in a way that makes them usable for the visually impaired as well (different sizes, contrasting colors, relief printing, different coin edges).
Most definitely, it's time for the US to do something about those lousy bank notes (yes I know, most tender is plastic cards anyway). Maybe taking a look overseas could occasionally help (considering that, for example, Germany had most of those features for almost ten years)...
</rant>While I love your handle, I have to point out that this was not the way the gold & silver standards worked...The original poster is pointing out that you had a system where the value of the dollar was tied to a set amount of precious metal (i.e.: ten dollars, for example, would always be worth an ounce of silver). When the gold and silver standards were abolished, then the dollar was no longer tied to any particular value in the material world, and precious metals became merely another commodity.
Yeah, remember those things? The
Sacajawea dollar coins that were supposed to be in use everywhere by now, except that people kept pulling magpies and stashing them away in socks without ever actually spending them, just like the Susan B. Anthony dollars before them.
Americans may or may not have noticed that the $1 bill is the only one that hasn't been redesigned with the larger off-center portraits, and it never will. It wasn't "officially" planned that the dollar coin would replace the dollar bill, but clearly that was the hope.
I want them back, and I want them everywhere. I want to be able to stick them into soda machines instead of having to carry around four times as many heavy quarters. I want them worse than I want to be able to tell my paper bills apart by glancing at the color, because dammit, they're so convenient. But the Mint seems to refuse to produce any more, and nobody but me wants to spend the ones they get at the Post Office.
Sadly, the Mint seems slow to respond to new ideas. Much like the rest of any given federal government, I suppose.
Or, perhaps, you're just busy setting up strawmen because you don't understand/agree with the USian point of view? Maybe?
Does green always mean 20, and blue 10 and purple 333? Aren't you in danger of thinking your blue euro note is the same as that blue yen note? Should the UN establish a commision to standarized monetary colorization and force all signatory nations into compliance?
According to the U.S. Mint catalog, golden dollars are still being produced every year. (Had me fooled. I honestly haven't seen one in a store since 2000.)
I moved to the US from Scotland about 7 years ago. I actually had more trouble getting used to US coins than bills. I still don't understand why 5 cents is larger than 10 cents??
But the US bills are just BORING. You need some color in there to brighten it up a little. In Scotland we had not only different colours for different denominations, but the design changed depending on what bank printed it!
So somebody thinks it's easier to get the entire US population to adapt to colored money than it is to get a relatively few amount of foreigners to adapt to numerically differentiated money? That's a good idea.
Maybe we should change all our road signs to something non-English to make it easier for the foreigners, after all, they're not used to road signs written in a non-native language.
And what happens when some foreigner mistakes a Blue US $20 for a Blue French $.001? What's the solution to that one? Put numbers on the bill, like they have now? Double check with what bill you're paying? Actually read the denomination on the bill? What a novel idea...
Doing away with the penny is basically giving in to the idea of infinite inflation, and that a penny will never again be worth something.
The dollar coin can be useful, but I prefer paper. The last time I spent a few days in Canada, I felt awash in coinage. I'd feel sorry for anyone who makes a living off of tips... and slipping a coin into a G-string just isn't the same! (Not that I'd know...)
Pennies do circulate, even though you yourself may not use them.
Abolishing the penny altogether probably would hurt the poor to some degree, though I'm not prepared to argue that it would be catastrophic, but it would undoubtably have a negative effect if merchants are allowed to round all transactions to the nearest nickel. My real concern is that officially getting rid of the penny would speed devaluation of U.S. currency.
Asians tend to live in a multi-asian culture, so it's easy for them to tell asians apart. because they have to hone their asian-differentiatiation skills.
Similarly, someone who grew up in Italy might have a hard time telling a bunch of swedes apart unless {s,}he had managed to live in sweden for a while. (yep... Tall blonde... what the hell else do you need to know?).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I for one agree that the greenback has a tremendously strong brand identity arond the world. Pick 20 countries at random and show people on the street a dollar, a euro, a pound, and a yen and see which one of those currencies gets recognised more then any other. My money's on the dollar.
Changing the US currency's color is a change so radical, it would be like Coke deciding to change the color of its 2-Liters Blue, 24-packs Green, 1-Liters Purple, and leaving the cans red.
Would it help out tourists? Of course it would. But last time I checked, foreign investors spend a hell of a lot more money then a german family that comes to see the statue of liberty for a week.
The so called "federal" reserve is a private bank, that is ALLOWED to poof create "money" out of thin air, then LOAN IT AT INTEREST to the government, where they hold a literal gun to your head and force you to pay them back. What for besides thievery I have no idea, but there ya go.
They should be charged with counterfeiting and treason, IMO. It's just about the biggest scam running in this country, that and any so called difference between the democratic or republican mafia gangs.
Frankly, I don't care if innumerate foreigners have trouble distinguishing which bill is which. It's good for our economy. If they want to leave a $92 tip on a $8 meal, who are we to complain? And if they don't pay enough, the cashier will tell them.
of those "foreign" people who have everyone else's things revolve around them..
Think about it..
It's my money, and since it's mine, I say that it stays green. Screw the bastards who don't know elementary math.
carfree website
carfree cities, book
i don't give a shit what color it is
i just want MORE of it.
If the colors end up as:
Purple - $1000
Black - $100
Green - $25
Red - $5
White - $1
You'll know their plan!
What I don't understand is why they give you anything at all. When you put money on the table, they should just pick it up, nod a smile to you, and put the money in their till. That way, the cut out all the drama of losing it $5 at a time.
More than anything, I wish dollars were symmetric -- meaning no "correct way up". There's nothing more annoying than someone handing you a big crumpled wad of bills and having to pile them all the same way.
Always encrypt with rot13 TWICE for extra security.
Advantages:
Vastly more efficient recognition of denominations.
Easier to use for the poor-sighted.
Denominations can be recognised at a distance by merely a brief glance.
Disadvantages:
It's what everyone's used to.
The advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. And I'm sorry, but calling everyone stupid for not wanting to stop and read every single note does not count as an argument against the coloured notes.
They blocked Opera. Of course, as soon as I spoof as Mozilla I can get in fine. I wrote the FT a nice note. :)
Constitutionally Correct
This is great. I believe the whole story is a troll. You guys just gave some deep inside into the American soul. Ever wondered why Americans are pretty unpopular in most part of the world (except with those expecting tips)? You guys just love foreigners, don't you?
I spent some time in Europe and the different colors was nice for telling which kind was which (especially when each bank has their own flavor of currency), but the different sizes made sifting through them in my wallet a pain. Each one fit the wallets folds differently and the different heights made it harder to get at some. It really made me miss my old greenbacks. I can't really see a whole lot of sense in catering to foreigners if the numbers are clear and in a uniform place. I think that it does make sense to people with bad eye sight, however. I guess the different sizes help when eye sight gets really bad, but there is going to be a learning curve. On second thought lets just abolish money altogether. It isn't like I'm getting paid what I'm worth/do anything anyway.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
It's truly amazing that the US economy pretty much gets by on Cents, Nickels, Dimes and Quarters whereas some countries have had as many as 8 different denominations of coin before the Euro. (Yeah, there's technically a Half Dollar, too, but I think collectors or casinos are the only place to see them anymore, banks don't like to order them as stores don't use them.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The way it looked was like it was one of those ultra-kooky conspiracy things...
Anyhow, it was something about how the new bills will be called something else (instead of a US Dollar, it will be US Currency), and that it was only to be used inside the US, not outside.
Sounded crazy...
But given all the other TONS, AND TONS OF FUNKY SHIT - the DMCA, CCDBTA (sp?), USA Patriot Act, recent events - does it not seem like something possible?
Why do I have this impending feeling of gloom and doom - like some MAJOR SHIT is happenning, that very few are paying attention to, that Americans in general, and the world maybe, are ignoring - like we are sliding into a "Brave New World"/"1984" REAL DYSTOPIA - but in a way no one seems to care? I have this VERY REAL FEAR that I am going to "wake up" and cry "WHAT HAPPENED! WHERE DID MY LIFE GO!" - all to the sound of others screaming the same...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I'm all for replacing the $1 bill with coins, like those gold ones that nobody ever seems to use. I travelled a while back thru Canada and saw their $1 and $2 coins (loonies and two'nies) I think it's a good idea. The coins are going to last a lot longer than the bills so I think it'd be more cost effective for the goverment in the long run. Of course, all sorts of other costs would be involved in vending machines and such.
MoTec
You seem to miss the point of a dollar coin. It is to save the country money. A coin takes slightly more to produce than a bill, but it stays in circulation for much longer, so the actuall money of keeping a currency over time decreases. The fact is right now, it is cheaper in the end to use coins in denominations of as much as $10, because the low denomination bills get destroyed so quickly. Also, coins are somewhat harder to counterfit.
In Canada when they first introduced to $1 coin, most people bitched about it with the exact same arguments you make here. Most have stopped now because it IS rather convienient to have and to use. The two downsides are that many things that usd to cost a couple quarters are now a dollar (may also be due to the poor state of the Canadian Dollar value), and you can accumulate quite a bit of change after a night at the bar (but, hey, at least it's change thats worth something).
color GUIs are for wusses
Yes american media downplays the importance of the euro and many of americans barely know that it exists.
As you can see the EURO gained quite a bit against the the dollar in the last months.
My question: did you ever consider to buy euros for longterm investment ? (as we europeans bought US dollars in the past)
I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. (eg whether you feel the dollar is overvalued or not, US economy will recover to 1998-99 levels etc .. (a 2nd internet bubble ? I don't believe so)
click here for infos about the euro currency
Actually isn't the dollar the most counterfeitted money because Americans are the best criminals?
It is very common to find what are known as "raised notes", legitimate bills which have been modified to look like higher-denomination bills. If a clerk, customer or foreign tourist isn't paying attention, they may receive these types of bills. There is
a page on the Secret Service web page about these type of counterfeit bills. Switching to different sized and different color bills would eliminate this type of fraud.
My other first post is car post.
Yes, I'm American. No, I haven't dealt with foreign currency to a great extent, other than the usual "Oooh... Canadian penny!". But let me tell you: Being able to tell at-a-glance what a bill is should have been done a long time ago.
Imagine you're writing a computer program to recognize the value of money. The process your program would go through is something akin to this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plan from our current perspective.
2) Orient the bill. Which side is up?
3) Determine what we can and cannot see on this bill.
4) Determine if we can see one of the corners.
5) If we cannot, we must re-orient the bill and go back to step 2.
6) Determine where the edge is.
7) Grab the image a little bit away from that corner.
8) Read the value of the digit.
9) Look that image up in a table.
10) Get the value from the table. That is the value of this bill.
Now assume you're writing a program for color-coded bills. The logic may flow something like this:
1) Locate the bill in an X-Y plane from our current perspective.
2) Read in the RRGGBB value of this bill.
3) Look those values up in a table, matching the closest values.
4) Get the value from the table. That is the value from this bill.
The human brain operates in a similar manner: Orientation is difficult. And reading is much more difficult in adverse conditions, such as low-light or harsh weather (i.e. "I need to catch a cab! How much do I have?").
Colored money would be a good thing to have. Especially for us lazy Americans.
char sig[120] = "\0"
It seems to me that there might be a little bit of a privacy issue here. Imagine if everyone in the church knows that you only put a $1 in the plate by its color, or if somebody knows you tip poorly by the colors you leave on the table.
-Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/
Now whenever you open your wallet a single glance will be all that is required to count your cash. That goes for you and me both. So I'll know how much you have. Yet another privacy denied.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
This "oh, the poor foreigners get confused" gambit smacks of BS to me. So what? International tourism, while being hugely important for many countries throughout the world, is only one facet of that multi-header, multi-national juggernaut we call "the U.S. economy". Surely not a large enough facet that we need to go out and change our entire currency (at who knows what cost) so that people spending a six day / seven night vacation at DisneyWorld don't accidentally drop a $50 instead of a $5 when buying their 64oz. Gutbuster(TM) for Jr.
I think the real issue here is making it more difficult to counterfeit bills. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've heard for years that multicolored money is more difficult to counterfeit that bills which are of more limited color schemes (i.e. U.S. greenbacks).
In all likelihood, one impetus behind this move is to make it more difficult for foreign counterfeiters to reproduce U.S. dollars. If that is the case, then in actually what they're trying to do is make it MORE confusing for foreigners, not LESS.
What I'd really like to see is reversible money - like playing cards. How much time is wasted each year by clerks, bankers, and everyone else that has to waste time getting a stack of money all facing the same way?
Then perhaps they should stay home. I mean how hard can it be to look a the numbers?
This is so goofy it isn't even funny. Next the British visitors will come over and insist on driving on the wrong damn side of the road, because otherwise it is too confusing.
will the stupity of our officials in Washington ever cease?
Remember the Alamo. Oh wait that supposedly offends little students of mexican origin. Well dammit they are Americans now, GET OVER IT.
hmmm which is bigger a 1 or a 20? sounds like numerical discrimination to me. I mean how can the number 1 ever stack up against a 20, or even a 50, and god forbid a 100 ?
perhaps they should all be 1's. that would make the little bills all equal and they can feel good about themselves.
what a crock.
whenever i play monopoly, we don't use the Ones, and just round everything to the nearest five because it's more convenient. real life is a different story, though.
Try scanning and printing a $20 note and a 20 (that's Euro, for the font-impaired) note. Look at the result. It would be much easier to spend the american fake.. for instance in a bar. Who the hell reads microprint??? The colours in the Euro-fake would seem off the mark at first glance, whereas the dollar is mostly just murky dark green. It is extremely difficult to match colour on a desktop scanning/printing setup. Professionals spend $$$ on such systems and it's still not 100% foolproof. I'm Dutch, and we used to have very brightly coloured bills which were nearly impossible to scan and print colour-correct. I had some great fun with glue and fake banknotes stuck to mall floors when I was a kid.. but many people saw they were fake from a distance. Dollars would have been a lot more fun. I must admit I'm not very familiar with american bills, so I don't know if the higher denominations have them, but the holographic foil-strip that goes onto every single euro-bill is certainly a good idea! RFID-tags are of course a little less attractive ;-)
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
This generally (foreigners having trouble with our currency) wouldn't be a problem, but apparently we are in the minority and foreigners are in the majority (as far as population is concerned). ~:0)
To all the tourists who don't like our money, I'm going to go to your country and change all price tags to colors. Therefore you won't even have to learn to count.
Hey at least we honor our great leaders with puttin them on our money.. Unlike some who perfer animals.
Strippers get higher tips due to our massive canadian coinage. they get five dolla bills slipped into their g-strings or higher. So it's gooder for the strippers!
Dude, you get the SAME dance for a buck as a five or ten spot.....
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither!"
I'm surprised the idea of changing our coins hasn't come up. The US doesn't print arabic numerals on their coins, but instead force people to read:
One Cent
Five Cents
One Dime
Quarter Dollar
The dime in particular probably doesn't make much sense to people outside the US.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
I just wish they'd stop printing In God We Trust on them.
How about the term "standard" (seeing as the name of the measurement system is US Standard)? And what's with this "imperial"? What empire are we talking about?
This is a special excite
This
You took those colors from Monopoly!
You just landed on Baltic Avenue, you hoser, you owe me a browner, eh?
Urban myth.
The Polymer that the notes were printed on was developed by a government body called CSIRO - Commenwealth Science and Information Research Organisation. Interesting story I read in an Australian Coin and Banknote magazine about how they initially tested their plastic (polymer) notes. CSIRO's research facility had a lot of $7 notes printed up for use internally.
Polymer banknotes do wear out eventually, however more commonly they are removed from circulation because the ink rubs off as they bend. I used to work in a supermarket, and collect banknotes, so I kept an eye on them. We would regularlly have $5 notes (our most common note) in circulation for 5 years, and many longer. In my wallet right now I have a 1996 $20, 1998 and 2001 $5 and a 1999 $50.
Banks use a low heat to flatten them out when they get them, since the polymer does hold creases and bends
Here in Canada, on our new $5 and $10 bills, as well as the 20, 50 and 100 that will be coming out over the course of the next few years, braille dots have been added to the top corner. This way the blind as well as people with partial vision impairments can work with the braille and colors.
You might think that the dots would wear off or get damaged in being handled so much, but I've seen a fair bit of banged up new 10s and the dots are hanging on. IIRC, it's some process patented by the Bank of Canada, and it may already be in use in some foreign countries.
Maybe they can take the opportunity to remove the ridiculous and unconstitutional "In God We Trust" motto that has plagued the notes since 1957.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
75% of all counterfeiting is done outside of the US.
The reason we have the most counterfeiting as opposed to any other country, is that the dollar is the strongest and most international currency in the world.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
I'm 26, since I remember, in Mexico we have always had collors in the bills and about 10 years also in currency.
Just let me tell you this is of great help, to have different size and colors makes the things a little easier and I like it.
Omar
Well some colors that are on the paper money in certian countries are just obsurd. To quote one Simpsons episode, about Latin American money: "Our paper money is so gay." I hope the US won't have to stoop that low. ;)
Orange
I've seen some poor German guy mistake $250 for $2.50. He tipped a buddy of mine $100 because he thought it was a dollar. That's a bigger problem, Currency like the Yen, where it's a couple thousand yen to buy anything is better in my opinion, because it's impossible to mistake that confounded decimal for a larger sum of money. That's where the real problem is.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Up here in Canada, when I look in my wallet and see a wad of bills, I know I have money. Furthermore, with a quick glance, I know approximately whether I have a lot of money (red = a lot), or a little money (blue = not so much).
I didn't realize the States still had $1 and $2 bills. I went for a trip in the States, and found that the whole time, my wallet was full of cash...but I never had any money.
I mean, why NOT switch to colored bills? What's the problem? It doesn't seem serious enough or something?
I dunno...I don't get it.
We ditched our paper currency quite a number of years ago, now we have bills made from a pseudo-plastic compound. Sure our currency is coloured but the best anti-couterfeit measures are:
1) it's not paper
2) items such as transparent sections of the note
If the US go throug with this change it will be great! Even if they don't bother with a colour change, they should at least look at making the notes out of a meterial other than paper.
Trust me:- No more accidentally leaving a 10er in the pocket of your pants and discovering it a mushy ball after they go through the wash...
-- Dan =)
Standard works I guess. I'm used to "Imperial"
>>And what's with this "imperial"? What empire are we talking about?
The English empire, silly. The whole "The sun never sets on the British Empire" thing?
Finding a twenty of world currency in your wallet: find the corresponding colour.
Finding a twenty of republicland currency: while holding the wallet really close so as not to be robbed, carefully pull out bill by bill without anyone noticing the total amount you're carrying until you find one with the correct number in the corner.
Bah, this is like explaining tradition and cultural values to a republican...
THE SKY IS FALLING! The US is actually changing the colour of it's notes! Surely this must be an attempt by the evil Eurosozicommiefacists to take cotrol over the American Economy and to enslave the American People, with the help of the Kyoto Treaty!
Either that, or they finally realised that you can copy the damn things with colour photocopier.
"Wait, was that a $20...or a $2...?"
Subtle colors don't do well with me, and I imagine that, unless we start having Peter Max design our money, the colors are going to lean more towards the pastel end of the spectrum.
ObCanadian: I'm married to a Canadian, and I hear this rant about the mono-chromatic money *all* the time. To me, Canadian money looks like I should be using it to put houses on Park Place....
"Just because you're a genius doesn't make you a smart guy!" -- Narrator, Powerpuff Girls
Here are some of the people and things I'd love to see on there instead of what we've currently got:
- the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley or Mt. Ranier
- the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge
- Martin Luther King or Harriet Tubman
- Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman or John Muir
- Duke Ellington, Aaron Copland or John Coltrane
- beautiful birds like the Eastern Bluebird or the Great Blue Heron (OK, I know we've already got the Bald Eagle)
Imagine a beautiful full color panorama of the Grand Canyon on the back of a 20 instead of the White House... wouldn't that be nicer?The list could go on and on and on... but those are just a few ideas I've had ever since they did the first redesign in the 90's. I guess the US government is too busy trying to create an image of grandeur to actually use symbols that come from the country's cultute and natural heritage.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would be OK to leave guys like Washington and Jefferson on there - they are some of the founders of the country and deserve to be represented. But having some more focus on culture as opposed to government as the things symbolic of our country would be nice. You know, "of the people, by the people, for the people..."
I haven't seen an inkjet that can come CLOSE to replicating the fine detail on our newest bills, let alone a consumer-level scanner that isn't flummoxed by all the fancy goo-gaws (tiny print, etc). Try scanning a bill sometime, you'll see large areas that just don't scan right.
This is of course ignoring the fancy reflective and/or iridescent areas that we've had on our larger denomination bills ($20 and higher) for years now. No inkjet in the world can duplicate this, and it's one of the most obvious missing features in any fake bill.
Methinks you're speaking out of your ass if you're claiming someone can use an ink/bubble-jet at home to print out money.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I think I need practice with really large denomination bills. If the government would just send me a bag full of VERY large denomination bills I could willing to practice.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I would love it if our money were prettier. However, it seems to me that this idea comes across every few years, and nothing ever comes of it. The new 20's were supposed to be in color, and then they decided not to do it. Ho hum.
You do have to admit, though, that it's pretty stupid to say that foreigners would be able to differentiate our money better if it were in color. Even if it were in color, it would be in a different color code from what they're used to.
the 50s are smoother because they never get used. The other denominations get used much more often. I remember rejoicing when I got both my brother's fifties.
What a stupid idea, make the money even more like play money to supposedly suit foreigners. I just don't buy it. Sure, I've seen different colored money in other countries, but I certainly never learned their color code, I looked at the numbers on the bills. Has the new world order standardized the color code for money, or will this just lead to more problems? How many foreigners, not competent enough to read the numbers on the bills are going to be thinking in terms of our color code, rather than their own? We're just inviting problems when we encourage foreigners to use a color code, then someone is sure to accuse us that we deliberately cheated them because they didn't realize that our bills are not valued in the same order as their bills.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If they every change lower denoomination bills, it will meet a lot of resistance amongst the vending community unless these notes will work with the current standard dollar bill acceptors. Given the many failures of the reintroduction of new currency in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a major public backlash against the new notes.
The different sizes in money is to cut down on counterfiting. For example. If the 50 dollar bill is larger than the 1 dollar bill, you cant blow the ink out of a 1 dollar bill, and then print a 50 on it. It's been used in asian countries forever.
Having same colour and same size notes actually costs the US billions in extra cash counting.
Notes have to be sorted first to ensure that a bundle is all 10's for example. In Europe, if a 100 is slipped in by mistake, the counting machine will stop because the note is a different size. In the US, the 100 will get counted as a 10 (or vice versa). Hence fewer mistakes and less sorting time for the coloured and different size notes.
If you want to go ahead pissing money down the drain - be my guest. But don't go all superior and claim we can't read numbers. I can - but poor sighted (not blind) people from anywhere in the world can have problems telling the difference between 10 & 20 dollar bills.
Oh, there goes a six pack of Molson, eh! I sat on my duff for half an hour last month to get that from the government! I'd better catch it.
doesn't make a difference to me ... i never have more than three quarters anyway.
The best currency denominations are ones based on powers of 3. See theres a trinary number system, that instead of having the values 0,1,2, it has the values -1,0,1. This is called balanced ternary. I know it sounds weird, but it works out. This number system accurately represents the way we pay for money: if we want to pay 3 dollars we can pay 5 and get 2 back.
So the best system is based on the denominations 1,3,9,27,81 etc. This is the most efficient system for doling out change to pay an exact amount.
Think of it this way. There is a riddle which goes like this: if you have a two pan balance and you want to weigh an object (integral weight) with the fewest number of counter weights, which counterweights would you need? There answer is 1,3,9,27, etc. If you want to measure 14, you put down a 27 on one side, and put down a 9, 3 and a 1 on the side with the object you're weighing.
So you only need one of each bill to pay *any* amount exactly. So let's say you want to pay 14 dollars. You give 27, and you get back a 9, 3, and a 1. This works for ALL values.
see American Scientist: Third Base
so... if England started speaking French, the english language should no longer be called that? would it be "imperial language" or some other damned thing? have someone grab your shoulders and pull really hard to try and get your head out of your ass.
let's get rid of English, even though it's not even American, because that language is way too hard for foreigners to understand.
Got friends?
In 2004, we get to hear about how this system is already in place in a line with 5 or 10 seconds longer, that adds up over the world and the U.S. is the root of all evil. Although I'm English, I've lived in the bad part of town counting through notes to know if you've just offered a $1 as a dangerous and anti-democratic institution, benefitting the rich at the bars before offering to buy the next generation of currency, there will be working so smoothly that all citizens will be offered the opportunity to scan the money you hand them, and have a unique serial number scanning system.
Basically, since virtually all stores have laser scanners already, and a strong desire to avoid getting fed counterfeits (since they lose the counterfeit money without reparation), stores will be distracted by the stores. The big benefit to the ease of counterfeiting, but never proven. For those who cannot understand the tourist angle. I suspect that is a great idea, because it finally allows the US economy, and just about everyone in the US except criminals and the CIA (who have been accused of counterfeiting, either. I used to the blind.
Other countries such as Canada have introduced braille for the treasury department, and back about 10 years ago and had a Canadian friend ask me if I knew why Canadian bills are not only different colours, but they have braille, a special glossy maple leaf overlay, and a strong desire to avoid getting fed counterfeits (since they lose the counterfeit money without reparation), stores will be a small bar code on the ability!
--
Ask the Ya-Hoot Oracle Anything!
I don't think a single American has spoken in favor of colored money yet. Maybe they'd get mobbed by angry crowds or something.
Apparently, an easy way to start a fight with an American: "Your money makes no sense. You should maybe make different bills different colors, so as to make them more distinct, and possibly vary the size, like almost every other country in the world."
Well, I guess it's just the weight of tradition. Same reason you don't use the Metric system, like everybody else...
(Oh, cripes, I'm gonna get flamed!)
You can wash a bill many times before it becomes unusable. they're designed that way.
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i hear microsoft is lobbying for this..
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)...Now i know why.
After reading all these comments that basicly say "I hate change", as a reason to not make the switch to colour coded money, I now understand why the USA never made the switch to metric.
They are different coloured and slightly different sized so you can look in your wallet and know exactly what you have without taking them out to check the numbers on them.
They are made of plastic so if you accidently throw them in the wash with your clothes they are fine.
They're incredibly tough and next to impossible to damage without atacking them with scissors.
They've got a built in hologram like device with a tiny clear plastic window to make them extremely hard to copy.
AG
Foreigners are just a bunch of stupid people anyway. If they can't understand what 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 mean, they shouldn't be allowed into this country in the first place.
Have a hard time differenciating between the bills... What kind of lame-brain dumb motherfscker has a hard time differentiating between bills that have the gosh-flippin amounts written all over both freakin' sides?!?!??!!?!?
How many folks remember that phrase? Some of you younger people might not recall it, but I'm of a generation that does. The memory of _bad_ money is long, *very* long. The greenback (US Dollar) means something because its stability was a consequence of the worthless Continental. No one wanted to repeat that mistake again.
;-) I sort my bills front to back, smallest to largest denomination. I can just as quickly check the denominations I have as I could looking at the colors. Since I never carry more that $20 - $30 in my wallet my search time is effective nil. :-D (Yeah, yeah, it is anal method, but at least I don't have to think about the various bills in my wallet.)
So, yeah, I do think that brand awareness plays a part in US currency. The current green-colored bills mean something to people. It is peoples' belief in a currency that is what sustains it. If the average US citizen starts viewing the NextGen bills as 'Monopoly' money or funny money it will be doomed at a currency.
The Fed knows this so they'll work long and hard to try to convince people that the bills are 'ok'. They have the recent redesign going for them, I think. People have a fresh memory of a change so possible resistance to another change might work.
Oh, on the counterfeiting reason for the change, I find it interesting that in past years the reason the Fed gave for not introducing color was that it was supposedly *easier* to counterfeit color bills. People looked at the color and not the denomination, whereas with ours people checked that actual bill. (Also, printing up some bills on your printer won't work. Greenbacks are cloth, not paper, and won't literally feel right.)
Finally, as far as the problem with checking the denominations go, just do what I do: perform an insertion sort.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
In Scotland, there was a trial with credit card-like replacements for each bill (or each note, as it is called in Britian). I thought it was great - perfectly washable -- for example, I could take my wallet kayaking and not care about getting it wet.
Unfortunately, everyone else hated the idea, so it was dropped.
1 and 2 cents gets rounded down
3 and 4 cents gets rounded up
When you introduce the randomizing effect of sales tax and multiple item purchases, the effect is a wash. Doesn't matter how rich or poor you are, Rep. Kolbe's bill won't cost you or save you any money
For more information, go here.
What you are assuming is that all counterfeit comes from printing, it does not!
Remember you don't need a complete bill for it to be legal tender. I have seen counterfeit bills circulated that were 100% made from other US bills. The counterfeiter cut a right edge off one $20 and a left edge off a different $20 (both are still legal $20 notes). They then cut off both edges of a $1 and fixed them to it. In this manner they made $41 turn into $60!
This is especially relevant to all of you who think looking in the corner of the note is sufficient.
..O'Reilly money!
What country does NOT have multiple colors on their money (besides the US)?
Seems that it is only used for the convenience of selecting the right bill at a glance.
Yes, assuming 5 cash transactions a day, for a 2 year phase-out period, and assuming corporations managed to make every transaction cost 4 cents more (completely and totally unrealistic), that'd cost a whopping $140, over 2 years. and that's with completely rediculously bloated figures. can't we just say that half of that $300 check everybody got mailed was to cover phasing out the penny?
why is the US in the business of tailoring it's national policy to foreigners?
Even though I agree that changing the color (or size) would be interesting and might help some people, I am not really sure it provides such a great benefit.
I think the perspective is skewed by other countries having colors in the currency, which is actually a contrast in currency model rather than a genuine problem.
Consider the following analogies for example:
Would a Briton find the same colors for a denomination "10" in France, or Russia? If the 10 is red in Britain, and Green in Russia, is that not confusing?
How about the reverse? Does an American automatically figure out "10" v/s "20" immediately on arrival in another country? Hardly.
So the bottomline is learning curve rather than the color or size.
I have dealt with currency from 3 countries for an extended period, and after the initial learning curve, I am figure out / count / sort all of these at the same speed.
Or is it just an irrational fear - "I never thought currency could be in the same color"? Isn't it the same fear which makes people say - "but he ain't white / black / brown". Is it just the fear of change !
One of my instructors during Military training mentioned his time stationed in Turkey. All personnel were REQUIRED to convert most of their paychecks to the local currency, the lira, at the official exchange rate.But they would then take a handful of US $1 bills with them when they went off-base.
If they wanted to buy something in town that cost the equivalent of $10US, they could buy it with a single $1 bill. Any train ride cost a single $1 bill. The locals didn't want the Turkish lira money, they wanted the American $1 bill. Because the $1 bill was worth a lot more than the official exchange rate would allow.
The other funny part is that an American $10 bill or $100 bill was worthless, because the locals didn't know what they were. They knew what the $1 bill was, and that's all they wanted. That is the true value of a US 'greenback'.
So try your test, but don't be surprised if not everyone follows your reasoning.
By the way, the reason the military were required to convert most of their paycheck to Turkish lira was politics and economics. If everyone cashed their paychecks for $1 bills, then spent them in town, the economy would go down the drain. The exchange rate was seriously imbalanced, just to prop up the lira. A flood of $1 bills would have crashed the whole system.
Look, If I went ot the UK I wouldn't complain that they put the Queen's face on all their money instead of US presidents, so when they come to here they shouldn't complain about all our bills being the same color. There is no reason that I should have to acomodate tourists as if they are some sort of protected minority. If you don't like the way we do things in America, DON'T COME HERE.
Other than that, I think it's not such a bad idea.
Different coloured notes have got nothing to do with people who can't read. It's to do with making it even easier to recognize a note. It's a fact, anyone denying this dosn't know what they're talking about.
And why do stupid people deserve to have their money stolen? Or are you just trying to argue with a stupid point?
2) When I think of the USA, the colour of the notes are the last thing I think of. Sure, if you see a note, it's easly recognised are a cliche US note, but power and pride of the US economy don't spring to mind....Just a US note. I doubt the enconomy would suffer if the US changed their colour scheme. Hell, not big shots/coporates/stock markets/govenments deal with cash anymore anyway. It's all stocks, electronic cash and other stuff I know nothing about.
It's the love of money that's the root of all evil!
I mean, money just sits there, doesn't it. What's evil about that? It just sits there, being green, tempting me, making me want it, making me want to do bad things to get more of it...
OK, OK, money is evil. Even just sitting there, it's being evil, making me evil.
Heisenberg (or was it Pratchett?) was right, the act of observing changes the observer, now I'm evil. Ahhh nuts!
The first time I visited the US I had some trouble with the notes, but the far bigger problem was "one dime" coins. Most people in the world know that there are 100 cents to a dollar, but what the hell is a dime? Nowhere on the coin does it tell you its value. (Before you flame me, yes I do now know what it is.)
It's the other way around. Seriously, whose color scheme will we use? Not Canadian -- wouldn't want to get them mixed up. If the point is that people from other countries aren't used to our non-color scheme, why should I believe they're going to jump on board and learn our new COLOR system. Isn't it easier to READ THE NUMBERS than to learn a whole new color scheme?
Of course it's true that adding color makes it *easier* to distinguish bills, I have to contend with your statement that american bills are "difficult" to distinguish between. I have never, ever, squinted or got out my magnifying glass to try to tell them apart, or asked for help from the cashier. I've never asked for someone to wait up while I compare all the bills in my wallet to see if I can find the twenty. That, to me, means it is not "difficult". In fact, I'd say it is easy to simply look at the big numbers in the corner or the new big portraits to tell what denomination it is. Yes, it could be somewhat easier with colors, but that comes at a cost of altering tradition (and you know how Americans love their money!). As an actual American, I do prefer the tradition over the minor convenience.
leave our money alone! Screw Europeans. I don't want MY money looking and feeling like Monopoly money like European and Asia currency does. It's rather sad they can't tell the difference between bills, it's not that hard if you actually pay attention.
BONESAW IS READY!/Randy Savage
I know that they make coins to save money, but since I don't expect them to actually give me that money back (god forbid), they might as well spend it on something I get a tangible benefit from. I don't want to carry around dollar coins if I don't have to. I suspect the reason Canadians stopped bitching about the $1 coins has more to do with the fact that the Canadian government didn't really care. I can't imagine any possible convenience advantage to having coin money worth more than a quarter (note that nobody in the US uses 50 cent pieces, either).
I can't imagine anybody likes using coin money. If something costs $1.79, I'd rather just pay $2 than fish through my pockets for exact change. If the government abolished bills smaller than $5, I'd either have to pay with a five and get a whole bunch of coins back or pull out a handful of change and pay with exact change. Either way sucks.
And, while you're at it, fix up your bloody immigration form you fill out on the plane to take a short trip to the States. As well as asking whether I was involved in the Jewish Holocaust (well, no, but I killed a few hundred Tutsis in Rwanda and the odd dozen Bosnians, but I suppose that's OK), it asks whether I had "committed any crimes of moral turpitude" (can I call my lawyer to determine whether killing Tutsis and Bosnians is a crime of moral turpitude? I don't feel in the least guilty about it, and given the last question it doesn't seem like the US is too cut up about it).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
If numbers are too tough, then you shouldn't be playing with that much money anyway.
It's not that anybody can't tell the difference between the bills, it's that making it easier to tell the difference is a good thing. Color makes bills more distinguishable at a quick glance, from a distance, in low light, whatever.
It's weird that so many engineer-types here don't seem to understand this. You want color and numbers for the same reason that you want for loops and while loops. You can get by with just one of them, but it makes things needlessly difficult for the reader.
I have often wondered why foreigners have trouble getting together American money. While it could be that they are as bad as math as we are - I'm personally good at math and have little trouble dealing with cash overseas - another thing to consider is that our denominations do not follow any rules.
Condider British money:
0.01 0.02 0.05 0.10 0.20 0.50 1.00 2.00 5.00 10.00 20.00 50.00
Notice the pattern, 1/2/5 x power of 10? Now look at U.S. money:
0.01 0.05 0.10 0.25 (sometimes 0.50) 1.00 5.00 10.00 20.00 50.00
What the heck? Quarters and twenties? That's just bizarre. But both are too ingrained in our national psyche to go away. I mean, can you imagine a $25 bill or a 20 cent piece? Also $2 bills have not done well historically.
At least our use of numbers is not something for the Islamist terrorists to get mad at us about. Unless we are trampling on holy territory by using their numbers.
As to changing size, I'm convinced that different-sized currencies halve the lifespan of bills, and I like the snug fit most vending machines provide. Braille is probably a good idea, since it is more definite than trying to distiguish a few 16ths of an inch in size.
If your interested in seeing what the money of the past looks like, found a good url. http://www.frbsf.org/currency/bills.html
A 1776 1 3rd dollar. 33.3333333 cents. lol
I think the design is terrible and not very modern nor easy to use.
Make all the coins increase in size with value, and put holes in the middle (useful to string multiple coins together)
Make the bills easily readable with increasing size and braille on the upper left size. Make them out of thin tear-proof black plastic with a colored strip along one end so that when they sit in your wallet you can see how much you have at a glance.
No decorations just a big fricking number in white contrast against the black!!!!!
Just think how easy it would be to track the stuff with the kind of chips you could implant in this baby!!!! You could practically have it fingerprint everyone who touches the bill and beam it to the NSA! No more drug payoffs with US currency cause you can send out a signal and have it blow up at any moment!
Oh now anyone knows that human nature, and how extra whiney some people are, will still piss and moan because the new money won't match the money from THEIR country. Catering to one country will upset another or making the bills unique with the fruity colors will further confuse foreigners since once again it won't match THEIR country's money scheme and thus the whineing will begin anew. This is a no win situation.
Besides the new anti-counterfeiting benefits of the new money, there is another reason that our government likes to print new money. It is an easy source of revenue for the government. If they just printed more of the same currency style, it would inevitably result in inflation. But if they change the currency design, they can get away with printing more currency without inducing inflation.
When the government prints a new currency design they can rest assured that numismatists all over the land will instinctively hoard both the currency produced for the last few years prior to the change and the first few years of the new currency. Take a look on eBay and see what a 1909 V.B.D. penny or one of the WWII steel pennies sells for nowadays (in comparison with other currency of the same denomination and similar age).
This collecting activity essentially allows the government to add more value to its coffers than the value it must expend to produce the new currency. This can be done because much of the currency will never be spent as such. It will be kept as a collectible object with inherent value above and beyond it's face value as currency. The net effect is that collectors are paying the government for the ability to retire currency from circulation. They're doing the same thing with the quarters that have logos of the 50 states on the back.
The U.S. Postal service is another successful example of this sort of practice. They print and sell a tremendous number of postage stamps that will never be used to send a letter.
Ever driven a CAR? Ever noticed how signs don't come in uniform shapes and colours, only differentiated by the WORDS on them?
.. basically everyone except the US (which, I note, also rejects the metric system) has been holding on to its quant "old" money while other countries have made their bills easy to differentiate, and harder to counterfeit.
No, you haven't noticed that -- because colours are the most intuitive and fastest way of humans differentiating between several distinct objects. Ever tried to say what colour something spelt when the words were in another colour? You probably didn't do 100% because of that same fact.
That's why Canadians, Britons, Austrialians, etc, etc, etc, etc,
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The Federal Reserve press release does not mention color being added to help tourists, though it does say it will help consumers identify denominations. It looks to me like the Financial Times article is trying to make tourism look like the reason when it's really not the primary motivating factor at all.Grow up and don't believe everything you read, or at least check other more reliable sources. But of course, this is slashdot; I don't actually expect that much.
Hey, for once we Canadians are way ahead of the American! We did the colour thing ages ago, and are slowly working towards making -everything- a coin. No one dollar bill, no two... just larger and larger coins. I figure eventually we will have a $100 bill that is the same size and shape as a normal bill, but made out of solid nickel with a hinge in the centre. Nevermind hard to counterfeit, hard to carry.
The "foreign confusion" argument is truly terrible, but there are some excellent pros:
Searching: In Canada, when you open your wallet, you can tell what you have right away. Just as books have spine labels, making stacked bills easy to read is helpful. It may be my lack of experience with American bills, but it always feels like I am looking through index cards. Hardly a huge complaint, but no Republican could resist the chance to make money easier to spend.
Boredom: I would imagine that working in an American mint is currently the most boring job in the world.
Excitement: American money looks so somber... like it should be neatly stacked somewhere. Coloured money looks like it is dressed up with nowhere to go... it seems like a shame not to spend it.
Exotic Dancers: Currently look out to see men or women waving green at them... wouldn't it be nice to know right away what table to dance on first? Someone just has to take out an orange and wave it around and you get first service.
And lastly;
Capitalism: America is supposed to be the home of the red, white and blue... freedom and individualism, and over the top spectacle. Meanwhile, all your money looks like it was dressed in olive drab by Chairman Mao.
Given the increasing proportion of money velocity that happens electronically rather than the old-fashioned way (promissory notes, letters of credit, checks, paper currency and coins), I wonder how long it'll be before modern governments start phasing out non-electronic transactions entirely and start posting all buying, selling and lending against databases under control of their banking and finance authorities.
I seem to recall a passing reference in a short story of William Gibson's -- might have been "Johnny Mnemonic"? -- to the idea that paper currency might actually become illegal. Certainly it would be easier for the US to implement this in the guise of making us all safer from terrorism by allowing the Powers That Be to track every transaction. The IRS would love to make the underground economy suddenly 100% taxable, I'm sure. To the extent that it would aid in the War On (Some) Drugs, it's probably further desirable to certain folks.
In parting, here's a musing by Neal Stephenson about the very subject of electronic currency: his short story "The Great Simoleon Caper", a sort of a free-software take on the idea.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Those of us who are smarter use the markers which can detect the wrong paper, we know the proper feel that the money has (which most counterfeits get wrong) and are very well able to see each and every one of those 'invisible' countermeasures, even with the naked eye. What? Didn't you know that it's easy to see, say, the strip inside them, by holding it up to a light? Everyone at pretty nearly all the shops around here has educated their clerks & they *do* check the currency. Happens all the time.
...and the final step in our glorious plan for Canadian World Domination!!
Just what Americans need. Another excuse to avoid reading.
Take a close look at Mr. Grant's left lapel some time, or the top of the little scroll containing the words, "Five Dollars" below the portrait of Honest Abe.
If you still don't believe me, look closely at the lower part of the rim of the cartouche containing Old Hickory's mug.
In all of those places, you will notice that what at first appears to be a simple line is actually text reading, "The United States of America."
And for reference, I pay for my computer habits with a full time bit of cashiering, and yes, I check every single fifty and hundred that comes through my hands.
i dunno, i like silver dollars a lot. I don't
think they're too much trouble to carry around.
whoever heard of a 'gold dollar' though.
those things are terrible. I lent a buddy of
mine a couple bucks a few weeks back, and he
tried to pay me back in gold dollars.
I wouldn't take the damn things.
I've only gotten stuck with them a few times, but
whenever i would try and spend them people would
recoil in horror and start to pull their hand back.
I figure I'll just use any other ones i come across to pay tolls.
Those bastards have it coming.
"Weasling out of work is important to learn; it is what separates humans from animals. Except for weasels."
So, seeing as this is going to happen, what color would you choose...
I think we should make a shirt: "Got Green?"
:wq (Because Vi is better)
This is not a troll, but it probably is flame-bait, but wtf.
[sarcasm on]
It really is hard to tell our paper currency apart, what with the denominations printed in about 10 - 15 places on each bill. And they sure are hard to counterfeit, what with the 6 or more obvious counter-measures, and the 6 or so non-obvious counter-measures in each bill.
[sarcasm off]
I LIKE our money the way it is. I don't want money that looks like a rainbow shit on it. If foreigners can't take the time to learn the denominations of one of the hardest currencies in the world, then fuck'em.
For an alternative to the greenback, check out Norfed
It is legal money that is backed by real silver and gold, and can be converted into e-gold for your internet purchases.
The one ounce silver coins are real cool, too.
See, that's why you bring back the $2... for the strippers :-)
:-)
Besides, which do you prefer to carry, 4 quarters, or one dollar coin? A dollar coin would consolidate much of the coinage you carry around, imho.
Besides, if you really hate it, just use your check-card for a nice, exact-change cashless transaction!
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Australia has made a much bigger jump, in that all the bills are now printed on a polymer, instead of paper, the bills, last on average about 5 times longer, and they have some cool features such as clear windows in the bill, that I would guess are impossible to copy.
:-)
As well the bills are translucent, and if you hold them up to the light you can see parts of the design on each side add together if everything is alligned up correctly.
And the 2 best things about Oz money,
1. You can wash them, and nothing happens to them at all.
2. You can put them in the oven and make shrinky currency (Although that would be illegal and I do not suggest you do it
Besides, which do you prefer to carry, 4 quarters, or one dollar coin? A dollar coin would consolidate much of the coinage you carry around, imho.
:-)
No, not really. I usually carry 5-10 dollars in singles, I rarely carry change any longer than it takes to purchase something and get home and empty my pockets. The quarters I use for laundry, the rest I save and cash in when my change jar fills - or squander in penny-ante poker. It's useful to have a number of singles so I can leave a tip or buy something that I wouldn't bother with using a debit card. But I don't carry change for purchases, I'm not going to count out three dollars in quarters.
Besides, if you really hate it, just use your check-card for a nice, exact-change cashless transaction!
Sorry, but I feel kind of silly putting $1.05 on a debit card. Also, I'm the paranoid type - if we ever switch completely to a "cashless" society where most people use debit/check cards for transactions, I'm dead certain that banks will start charging per transaction or charge fees for the cards monthly - I don't want to depend that much on the bloodsuckers at the bank.
Attention "international visiters": if you don't like US money don't come to the US!
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't American money be designed with Americans in mind? Sure, maybe a few foreigners are confused by our whacky scheme of telling bills apart by the large numbers in the corners, but I bet more than a few are still confused by the exchange rate.
How's my typing? Call 1-800-eta-shut
After reading the article and some of the threads, I can't help but think of a HHGTG quote:
..."
"... were mostly concerned with the movements of little pieces of paper. Which is strange because, on the whole, it wasn't the little pieces of paper that were unhappy.
-RobHood
I'm not an anti-{insert OS} zealot. I just like blowing people's little minds.
Now let's compare this to the Palestinian Authority. Non Arabs in leadership roles of any kind - 0.0%. They are all Arabs. While we're on the subject, who runs Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Qatar, United Arab Emirates (let's think about that one), and Syria? Arab males, mostly un-elected dictators. Percentage of population that is not Muslim-Arab? Roughly zero. Who's racist? Don't believe everything you see on CNN.
Oh, and what about Zimbabwe? The black run government is stealing land owned by white farmers. Now they are facing a major famine, go figure. Let's see who else is guilty of racism to the degree you accuse Japan and Israel of...Rwanda, Bosnia (very few Serbs left), Croatia (again, very few Serbs left), Kosovo Albanians (yet again, very few Serbs left), Macedonian Albanians, gee, that's at least 2 strikes against Albanians that I'm aware of.
Methinks you need to get more informed of the way the world really looks.
best weak argument ever.
So for you color blind people please send me all your old worn out twenties, I'll send you special "new, colored" twenties...
Just shell out a few bucks for Monopoly, then visit the local Stop'N'Go, rather than having to go to the trouble of putting Dubya's face on a self-printed $200 bill.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
They are not originial nor do they help the discussion. it is karma whoring at it's worst!
It's very much still in business.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Yeah, while we've had different sizes and colour for different denominations for as long as I can remember, but we've only just recently switched to the plastic notes - something I'd been hopeing we'd do ever since when in Australia, someone handed me $20 and said 'here, if you can rip it, you can have it', naturally their $20 was quite safe. And not losing $20 because you were lame and left $20 in a pocket when you washed your jeans is cool :)
:)
Now if only I could buy a fold-up roadmap made out of that stuff. I don't think it'll happen tho as once the map makers start printing maps on that plastic, people would never have to replace their maps
It somewhat amazes me that the USA, suppost to be the most advanced nation, prints all their money the same colour and on paper (and the same size) - you'd have to leaf through your cash to see what money was in it.
Why, the American empire of course... "Shrub, I am your father!"
Nah.
Fuck the gubmint for real
even England no longer uses it
We only use it for the important stuff. Beer is still served in (20floz) pints.
What would Lemmy do?
You need a jolly fat chick with a huge hat.
Hitler's in the fridge.
The Oz mint makes polymer currency, complete with a hologram encrusted window, for Australia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Kuwait, Western Samoa, New Zealand and Romania.
The polymer sheeting is made from in a huge complex where balloons with about the same volume as a WWII aircraft carrier, or something, are blown out from melted polymer in a huge complex. I read a good article on the process in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend section about a year ago.
Here's some links
Oz Dept of Foriegn Affairs 'n Trade
Note Printing Australia
ABC News (the US ABC that is)
Another ABC page
Oz Reserve Bank currency page
Securency PTY LTD
Currency 'how are they made?' page
RBA Polymer page
OH MY GOD! I thought this wouldn't happen in my life time! You guys finally figured it out.... well, ok, ya go the reason wrong (thank god no one has impared vision in the states)... but ya finally caught-on.
Watch-out! The next thing you know, they'll figure-out that thumb-tacks are useful things!
Next time you have a spare US$20, try this handy test: insert in pants pocket; wash in regular laundry; dry. Voila! Unchanged (well, cleaner) $20 bill. But you already knew that.
Yes, I agree! Keep old benny but catch up with the rest of the world. It seems the world is going European style now, and I disagree about Americans Mocking us Canadians about how our military studies are behind theirs and We are going European and they're stuck dormant i their own little world!
~Entaundo
I have NO DIFFICULTY telling the difference between the different denominations of US currency. However, when I was in Europe, all the flipping colors on the currency just ran together for me, and I was using the corners of the bills just like in the US anyway...only it was harder because many currencies had the number in just one corner.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I used to be a cashier and after handling money all day you know what money is supposed to feel like. When someone hands you a counter fit it doesn't FEEL right, then you look at the bill funny, then you look at it carefully, then swipe it with that pen thingie. But it all starts with how the bill feels...and I like how our money feels.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Australian money pics here.
The colored bills were a big help when I was in Oz on vacation.
In Australia we moved about 15 years ago to plastic notes.
If you guys are changing your money anyway, why don't you go all the way, and get rid of the paper ones.
Plastic notes are almost impossible to counterfeit; They can be put through the wash without falling apart; they last years longer than paper notes, and you don't need to cut down a forest to make them.
It has always surprised me that the US, that is supposed to be among the most technological countries in the world, is still using basically the same technique to make its money that it did 100 years ago!
Given...The US is behind compared to other countries in counterfeiting measures. However is it merely coincidence that American currency is also one of the strongest and most universaly accepted in the world?
Think about it...let's assume for a momment that it was equaly easy to counterfiet all currency....would you be printing up pesos, francs, or US dollars?
There's a good chance that even with improved anti-counterfeiting measures, US currency would remain the most successfully counterfeited in the world simply due to it's liquidity.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
BXes, commissaries, and other retail outlets at military bases overseas haven't used pennies since at least the mid-80s...maybe earlier. When my parents returned from Germany in 2000, they had to start dealing with pennies again and didn't care much for them. There is a definition for rounding...if the price ends in 1, 2, 6, or 7, you round down, while if it ends in 3, 4, 8, or 9, you round up. In the long run, it all averages out. ACC sounds like some crank Naderite group that bashes anyone who has a dollar more than they do.
FWIW, it doesn't matter too much to me whether the penny stays or goes. I tend to get rid of them shortly after I get them, usually by throwing a few into the purchase to get quarters/nickels/dimes back and to see if I can confuse the minimum-wage clerk behind the counter ("The total is $2.87, so why did he give me $3.12?").
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Where are they circulating? I've never even seen one out here. Postal vending machines give out SBA dollars (which I get rid of ASAP...dollar coins as a replacement for bills are ghey), and I've seen more than a few $2 bills, but the new gold-colored dollar coins apparently haven't made their way westward.
(They could be worse...they could be like British £1 coins, which are about the size of two nickels stacked together. A small number of those will weigh your wallet down pretty badly.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Check out Australia's currency.
Of course, you pig Americans are so inbred and stubborn that you need proof that different sized and coloured notes would be an advantage.
Very well. Open your wallet. Spread the notes section open - just peek inside. Don't take any of the money out of your wallet - don't even pull the corners out to read the numbers. Just by looking at the notes, lying there in their sessile state, count how much you have in your wallet. Even better, locate one of the three $50 notes you have in your wallet, amongst the $5, two $20 and a stack of receipts - without leafing through the notes, trying to read the "50" in low light.
This is what my notes look like in my wallet.
It's much easier to count money in your wallet by looking at the coloured edges, than by fingering through and looking for the numbers. Especially in a crowd, where you don't necessarily want to take the notes out of the wallet for everyone to see.
Even better, it's practically impossible to confuse an Australian note with a shopping receipt or voucher. Coloured notes also aids the 40% of adults who are illiterate (you don't have to be able to read to know that a yellow Australian note is $50). Admittedly, Australian notes don't have Braille on them. That's cool - I might have to move to Canada just because of the cool currency :)
Change the colour of your money. It's about convenience, accessibility and security, not just aesthetics.
That's my opinion as well. Pennies are the things that can stop a runaway inflation. It takes .6 the worth of a penny to make one, so as long as you have a penny, the devaluation cannot happen as quickly as it would without them.
Sine, gov controls the value of money, they can print as many 100 dollar bills as they want (even to settle their own debts!), but if they're always required to be able to exchange that 100 dollar bill for 10,000 pennies, they won't be as eager to devaluate money as quickly.
Notice that every runaway inflation in history was the result of "cheap" money; money that costs almost nothing to manufacture. Digital money is nearly 100% free, and may eventually feed an uncontrollable inflation (since you wouldn't even need the time and resources to print/distribute bills, and people won't be as bugged carrying crates load of money to buy groceries).
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.
I am an American, living in London and I have to say I think this comment is unfair.
The statement above implies that foreigners have a hard time because they are either stupid or lazy. Most of the comments supporting the status quo seem to have the same opinion. Along the lines of "I can easily read the number in the corner so what's the problem..."
First, foreigners are not stupid or lazy. Foreigners are used to paper currency that is a different size, so to go to America and not have those extra clues is confusing.
Second, the Americans here are claiming that having all the same size and color bills are fine, but turn that argument around. Imaging that every coin was the same size, shape, texture, as a quarter and the only way of telling a 1 penny coing from a 50 cent piece was by reading the number engraved on the front!
Most people would agree that being able to reach into their pocket for some change and pick out the correct coin by feel is a good thing. Why, when you apply that same prinicple to paper currency, is it suddenly a silly idea or unneeded?
Methinks some people just don't like change (pun intended).
Us "foreigners" also have trouble spelling differentiate. Is the US government going to address that problem ?
Let's see now.. It's green, so It must be a $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 or $1000. Boy oh boy, that narrows it down bigtime!
In a few years time, though, the idea of recognizing bills by color will be commonplace in the States.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
What the hell? What's the circulaton of this magazine like?
Why on earth should one government change its money so people not even PART of that country can use it better? If the US citizenship has no problem with the money, what do we care if others do? Besides, how _ignorant_ do you need to be in order to not read simple numerals? If you cant read english well enough to identify the numbers 1,5,10,20,50 and 100, then you shouldn't be handling our money.
"Stumble before you crawl"
According to a television documentary that I watched, the U.S. considered holographic foil-strips the last time we redesigned our currency. We rejected them because they did not stand up to rough treatment.
All new currency designs have to go through a set of tests (i.e. washing with laundry detergent, soaking in sweat-like chemicals) to determine how durable they are. One test, was to tightly roll up the bill, then stick it in a machine and crush it from the ends. If the bill was still usable after that, it passed the test. The holographic strips failed that test.
- different colours make them easier to identify.
- easier identification speeds up transactions and reduces the risk of errors.
- different colours make them harder to counterfeit since you have a much wider palette to match.
- Multiple colours gives more artistic freedom, making it possible to have scenes looking more realistic. I mean who ever saw a green horse or a green building!
- different sizes make them easier to use for the sight impared
- Better spread of denominations (the missing $2) means fewer pieces of paper to exchange, speeding up transactions, reducing the currency space consumption
- Missing high denomination coins ($1 and $2) means more equipement needed at vending machines since processing paper bill is required increasing costs thereby reducing the efficency of the currency system.
- Missing high denomination coins means increased expense for the treasury due to increased bill production compared to coins resulting in higher taxes to sustain the increased cost of a suboptimal system.
No wonder the US dollar is falling against most other important currencies!look carefully at the next subway token or any
other sort of token you get. The mistake is very
easy to make. It happened to me the first time i saw one.
"Weasling out of work is important to learn; it is what separates humans from animals. Except for weasels."
you idiots.. but why the hell change the color? I'm sick and damn tired of having to change my life to appease some foreigner.
I for one, don't look at number OR color.. I look at who is on the bill. Washington on a one, lincoln on a five, grant on a fifty, franklin on a 100, and so forth. What could be eaier than that.. PLUS don't forget the BIG FRICKIN NUMBERS!
Personally I don't even bother carrying around money anymore. I use my debit card, and at the end of the day after selecting to make my transaction either direct from my checking account by entering my pin, or indirectly with the CC logo and a signature I've successfully avoided having to handle a single dollar bill. Since I've started to use my debit card more and more I'm amazed at the number of locations that allow the client to make cash alternative transactions.
I hate all sigs, even this one.
How about Americans not giving a flying fuck what tourists think we should do with our fucking money.
We like our money the way it is and we dont give a shit that tourists are too fucking stupid to adjust for the one fucking week they spend here every other leap year.
Fuckyou you fucking fucker! And go fuck yourself while youre at it!
At last, no more $100 dollar tips for the washroom attendant.
/
Ade_
("The English guy who just tipped me a hun'erd!")
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
Actually when I was in Australia, the lowest denomination they had was 5 cents, but prices aren't always divisible by 5, in grocery stores for example. When last digit of your groceries bill is 1 or 2 cents, it gets rounded to 0 cent, for 3, 4, 6 and 7 you pay 5 cents, and for 8 and 9 it gets rounded up. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but I'm guessing that the laws of statistics would say that the end result is close to a balanced zero..
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Everyone seems to be concerned with rounding up or down, and that's all well and good if we were to phase out the penny and thus we'd have to round while it was being phased out. However, once the penny is gone every price should end in 0 or 5 (to do otherwise makes no sense as the lowest monetary denomination would be 5). So a company has no incentive to round down then, and everything will technically be rounded up - anything currently ending in 1, 2, 3, 4 would go to 5 and everything 6, 7, 8, 9 would go to 0 (10). Therefore the consumer never wins, and I personally do see that as problematic. FWIW.
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
I'm dead certain that banks will start charging per transaction or charge fees for the cards monthly
They already do that. I get a monthly fee for having a debit card and businesses are charged a fee for every debit or credit transaction and when they deposit a check. Surprisingly, the most costly form of payment for a business to accept from customers is cash. It has to be counted at the end of the day, an armored car company has to be paid for regular pick up/drop off, dishonest clerks can easily steal it, dumb ones can easily give out the wrong amount, etc.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
For the same reasons that the Euro was floated at a rate to settle very near 1 Euro = 1 Dollar, I predict the new dollar colours will be matched to Euro colours.
Then they can merge the two currencies with ease, when the EU merges with NAFTA.
For heaven sakes, when your currency is that inflated, why not issue banknotes with the amount of money written in expotential form?
Like 5e+6 instead of 5,000,000.
Could be a problem in a country that doesn't exactly have the world's best education system, though.
And how familiar are they with the money? I could probably make a fake 20 euro and give it to someone that's unfamiliar with it, but it would be harder to pass it off to someone in Europe who handles it everyday. Also, if I tried to pay someone here in Euros, I'd be told to come back with some real money.
Sure, our paper money is all the same color, regardless of denomination. Our coins don't have numbers on them to denote value.
To some foreigners, this might be confusing. But to that I say so what? If Americans didn't like the money and wanted it changed, I'd be all for that. If this is just about appeasing foreigners who don't live here and don't pay the taxes here, to hell with that.
Maybe they use different colors for differnt denominations because people in many other parts of the world (not all, but many) have higher illiteracy rates. If you don't know the difference between "Twenty" and "Fifty" you can tell the difference between purple and green.
I'm sorry, if you can't learn to read or speak our language, get the fuck out.
I don't go to France or Mexico and demand that they do things our way. I can't speak Spanish, so I'll never go to Mexico city. I can speak French, so one day I might go to Paris, but if I do, I won't demand that they call a Poisson Rouge a Goldfish, just because I do.
When in Rome...
I still cringe when I think of the American idiot in a small shop off the Marktplatz in Heidelberg. To the very German shopkeeper: "Do you all take real money here, or just those dootchmark things?"
With stupid shit like that happening, small wonder you fucking yanks like to plaster your luggage with Canadian flags! It's a pity you give yourselves away for the assholes you are when you produce that ridiculous looking money of yours! When are you going to clue in that coloured money, with different sizes for each value of bill, doesn't make it play money?
>> Exchange rate is only part of the issue. It turns out that, in Vancouver, Canada, my $1CAN will buy about the same as your $1US bill will buy in Los Angeles.
>> I noticed that effect when I went out to buy film (I use film like some people use toilet paper). The prices for film are the same in the States and Canada ($7 for a 36 roll)... In other words I get about a 30% discount by stocking up at home, after the exchange rate is figured in.
You wipe your ass with film? Does it hurt much?
This is an A HREF
Do you often have trouble telling the difference between paper and plastic? Australian bills are made of plastic.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
'nuff said.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I use TD Bank. I've noticed that some branches hand out fifties, while many do not. My perception is that BC branches are more likely to give out fifties than eastern branches, and also more recent branches usually don't keep fifties.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Great, now how are low budget movies going to fake a stack of 50 orange colored hundred dollar bills when all they can afford is 50 blue one dollar bills?
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
For the most part there is no wood (ie trees) in our currency in the U.S. The recipie for the paper is motly cotton. Cotton is most definately an easily renewable resource.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people