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Treasury Goes High-Tech With Redesigned $100 Bills
Hugh Pickens writes "AP reports that as part of an effort to stay ahead of counterfeiters, the Department of the Treasury has designed a high-tech makeover of the $100 bill with a disappearing Liberty Bell in an inkwell and a bright blue security ribbon composed of thousands of tiny lenses that magnify objects in mysterious ways. The new blue security ribbon will give a 3-D effect to the micro-images that the thousands of lenses will be magnifying. Tilt the note back and forth and you will see tiny bells on the ribbon change to 100s as they move. Tilt the note side to side and the images will move up and down."
The idea behind making it hard to reproduce federal reserve notes is to keep counterfeiters from robbing us by expanding the money supply, but the Fed does exactly that on a scale that no independent counterfeiter could even imagine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Free Competition in Currency Act and Federal Reserve Transparency Act are good places to start. Talk to your congressman today and ask them to sober up.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
Funny how the process of counterfeiting -- injecting paper money into the economy with nothing of actual value to back it up -- is exactly the same as what government does to cause inflation. The result? The criminal (er, government) holds more money, at the expense of everybody else whose dollars are now worth less.
Of course, when you're at the top of the pyramid, your actions are sacred rather than criminal.
...that mimics the virtue it symbolises.
The security feature is that they cost more to make than their face value.
There's really no excuse for this. The bills should have different color and size to help the visually impaired. There's no good reason not to. Sure, don't change the $1 due to bill readers. I suppose there are $5/$10/$20 readers, though usually at the post office (and hence easy to change from the government's perspective). But really -- why not mix up the $50 and $100 so that they're easier for those with disabilities to use. It'd at least be a step in the right direction.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
We already have plastic money. We call them credit cards.
Probably not. In quantities large enough to be worth the risk of Hard Federal Time(tm) coins are heavy and bulky. Plus, fabricating metal objects on any substantial scale is generally more of a pain in the ass, and is rather more visible, than printing paper.
My(admittedly layman's) understanding, is that hundreds, to the degree they are counterfeited at all, are mostly the domain of Real Serious Actors(North Korea always seems to be on the list of suspects). Most domestic and/or fairly small-time operators are banging out twenties or smaller; because those are much easier to disseminate without attracting suspicion(counterfeit currency is worse than useless if you can't find a good way to spend it, or sell it to someobody who can, since merely producing or knowingly possessing is illegal; but it is only valuable if spent). Even if they are 100% authentic, most places will give you a seriously suspicious look if you show up with a brick of hundreds. No bored retail drone is even going to bother with a second glance if you pay your tab in a busy, dimly-lit bar with a reasonably plausible twenty or two.
So you do not have to have your own credit card swiping machine and an account with a processor to sell something on craigslist.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
The US Treasury Department is testing polymer bank notes, but there are concerns that the American public will reject a plastic Greenback.
Are they serious? Americans wouldn't like more durable plastic money because it's not American paper money? I've never lived in a world with paper money, and whenever I go overseas I always notice that paper money is flimsy and often torn, not to mention in the tropics it's sweaty. Plastic money is the way to go.
All older bills are valid until they wear out. In other words; this is a pointless exercise unless they set an expiry date for older bills.
The US "rejects" changes to its currency because it never pushes changes properly. The dollar coin being one example. How do you get people to switch from dollar bills to dollar coins? By not printing dollar bills any more and taking them out of circulation when they go through clearing. Eventually everyone switches whether they want to or not. As a further incentive you pass legislation that makes old currency non-legal tender after some reasonable point, after which people must exchange it at a central bank.
If the situation with dollars sounds pathetic, that's because it is. European countries are far more adept at switching notes than the US, so adept in fact that most of Europe switched entirely from one entire currency to another in the space of a few months. Not only does it mean currency can more readily introduce anti counterfeiting measures but can also include more features for blind & sight impaired people too such as coloured notes & size differences in coinage.
Report to Econ 101 please.
The damage from counterfeiting is inflation. Therefore, counterfeiting is a crime whose damage is divided among all individuals who are holding cash, or who are holding dollar-denominated assets at a fixed interest rate.
That the damage to each victim is very small is a secondary issue that perhaps could be considered at sentencing time.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
It's usually places like parking garages and gas stations that don't want to take them. But fifties seem to be more commonly accepted these days. Even the automated pay stations at the BWI parking garage will take fifties.
So you propose that the United States should move more quickly on major changes to health, financial, and economic systems? That when making $1T changes 14 months of debate is too long?
Me, I'm happy that big changes take some debate. I'm not always happy with the outcome, but I welcome the debate.
Yeah I don't buy the 'but think of the machines!' argument against changing the design of the US currency. Dozens upon dozens of other developed countries have changed currencies in the last 20 years. Australia switched from paper 100/50/20/10/5/2/1 dollar bills to polymer 100/50/20/10/5 dollar bills and $1 and $2 coins during the 90s. I don't remember any problems occurring with vending machines etc. A bunch of countries now license the Australian technology to print their own polymer money ... and they too had no major problems. If you do it over a couple of years and just let banks take the 'old' bills out of circulation when they get them, the transition is easy.
Not to mention half of Europe which not only changed currency designs, but the actual currency (to the Euro) virtually overnight.
Every time I visit the US I remember anew how much the USD bills suck. All the same size. All the same colour. Which means if you have a wad of them in your wallet you have to flick through them looking at the numbers to find the denomination you need. Not to mention the general flimsiness of how they feel (and it also seems they are extremely dirty!). Your coins are fine ... but the bills drive foreigners who aren't used to them insane.
Actually the whole situation is analogous to the common arguments against America switching to metric that you hear - "but we'll have to re-engineer machines, we'll have to re-make road signs, we'll have to change our computer systems". That's all true ... but other countries didn't seem to have any major disruptions when they did this (including other developed, industralised countries). So I'm pretty sure the US could manage it, with its huge economic resources and can-do attitude towards things (in general!).
The damage from counterfeiting is inflation. Therefore, counterfeiting is a crime whose damage is divided among all individuals who are holding cash, or who are holding dollar-denominated assets at a fixed interest rate.
That the damage to each victim is very small is a secondary issue that perhaps could be considered at sentencing time.
Which is why HR1206 and S604 are essential beginnings to end the reign of the largest counterfeiter and thief of American wealth, The Federal Reserve.
Being a spelling & grammar Nazi is a sign you do not poses the intelligence to contribute to the conversation
Nobody gets hurt, there's no violence involved.
Counterfeiting reduces the trust people have in the money.
Counterfeiting? I thought it was government.
There's no place like
Yeah! The way you can instantly see how much money you have without having to riffle through is so fucking annoying! Also those bloody blind bastards complaining that they can't use paper bills without relying on the cashier to provide correct change. Sons of bitches.
They are "worth" the political might of the United States. By accepting the bills, you are betting on the future political power of the USA. Similarly, if you accept gold coins, you are betting on the future trade value of gold.
Any currency -- any at all -- is nothing more than a communal expectation of continued value. It's fine for people to think that (say) gold will retain its value better than (say) the USA, but it's hogwash to claim that one value is "real" and the other is not.
I think you are partly wrong about this - the US government LOVES people hoarding $100 notes overseas. The $100 represents a loan given to the US government from another party, a loan that will almost certainly never have to be repaid. The US wins. Plus, it counts as good advertising - the dollar is more likely to keep its "reserve currency" status when it is the secondary or even primary currency in many countries around the world. So long as people believe the dollar is valuable, it remains valuable.