Slashdot Mirror
Is It Time For the US To Ditch the Dollar Bill?
coondoggie writes "It seems well past time that the U.S. ditch its $1 bill — considering such a move could save the country somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion. But there is much resistance, or perhaps a lack of real consideration of the issue from most people. Watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office this week testified before a Congressional hearing on the topic, and said dollar coins could save $4.4 billion over 30 years (PDF), or an average of about $146 million per year."
Not gonna happen; we still have pennies, for chrissakes!
Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
That will just bump the tips up to higher denominations.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
With dollar coins?
Wait, they're saying we can save potentially billions of dollars, by simply changing our expectations and habits in a very slight and non-destructive fashion? Unless we can declare war on it as some kind of abstract ideological concept, nobody's going to go for that. This is America, dude, where we turn off the lights when we leave the bathroom to save the environment while we let petroleum producers dump thousands of tonnes of oil into the water because they half-assed the construction and bypassed most of the safety procedures. We come in peace, ignore the Predator drones.
The only sensible way to do this is to shove it down the average person's throat with them screaming bloody murder... only to find out a few years later that they actually like it better the new way. It's how things have always been done here. Don't ask me why, I don't know whether it's human nature, or there's something in the water that makes people this resistant to beneficial change, but will happily make useless changes to everything...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That's all there is to this comment. I throw away pennies. The only coins I save are quarters, and I only do that out of frustration. I don't carry a coin pouch. Seriously.
According to Wolfram Alpha, $1 in 1950 had the approximate purchasing power of $9.54 today. So the dollar is the new dime. Pop quiz: did it make sense to print ten-cent notes in 1950? (Hint: no) Then why retain the $1 bill today?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Sweet!!!
You mean we'd get an immediate price drop for the usual $1.25+ it costs in the machines nowdays?!?!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It doesn't matter if anybody wants them or not, the solution is simple. Start making one dollar coins. Stop making one dollar bills. Very quickly, your entire economy has switched.
That's what happened in Canada. What, you think there wasn't resistance when we eliminated our one dollar bill or two dollar bill (which was far more commonly used than in the US)? Of course there was. And it didn't matter, because people didn't get a choice. The government decided they wanted to save money, so they did. It's not an election-level issue, so they could do that sort of thing.
The only reason that the dollar coin has not succeeded in the US is because the US government doesn't know how to do such transitions.
You have this backward. €1 and €2 are coins because of inflation, not the other way around. You shouldn't think twice about spending €1 on something because it isn't much money.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
We have a government where powerful politicians can openly claim that significant scientific theories are "lies from the pit of hell", and that came up with the TSA and Gitmo. They're inefficient and slow on purpose, do you really want these people to be able to take significant actions quickly and efficiently?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Getting rid of $1 bills isn't despotism, it's pragmatism.
Should the US start printing 25-cent bills? 10-cent bills? More choice is better, right?
At a certain point, you have to realize that having unlimited choices is just silly. A $1 coin functions just as well in an economy as a $1 bill (and lasts longer, thus costing society less). If you don't like increasing amounts of change, do what most Americans do and use credit or debit cards.
As a side effect, use cash, save those increasing piles of change and you can put hundreds of dollars into your savings account every year just by rolling it all up.
But this isn't one of those decisions. Removing the $1 bill saves the people money. It doesn't particularly help the government at all. So how is this despotism?
From what I've heard, vending machine manufacturers and operators hate dollar bills. Those scanners are easily faked out, but also have a high false-negative rate, get jammed with damaged bills, frustrate customers whose bills aren't new enough, etc. Vendors only started adding them to machines because they didn't want people to have to feed half a dozen (or more) coins into a machine to get a Pepsi.
A one-time conversion to accept $5 and $1 coins would result in much less hassle for the vending machine folks, because coin-counting devices are fairly difficult to fake out (you can't produce counterfeit metal quarters with a computer and inkjet printer) and much more reliable.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
if you hadn't noticed, there's a particularly loud virulent strain of "oppose all common sense progress as evil" in the USA
i know such stubborn blockheadedness isn't unique to the USA. but they seem more powerful here. how do other countries quash this loud ignorant sort?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually it was a problem since it created an increasing barrier of entry to people who wanted to use any sort of resource to do anything. The golden rule was that whoever had the gold made the rules. In that sort of system "startups" are impossible without an old money patron. The shift away from such things over the last few centuries resulted in modern society instead of static feudalism.
No, it causes deflation.
Gold is basically fixed in quantity. Mining has little effect on the overall supply.
As the economy grows and the money supply is fixed, the value of money increases.
This shifts wealth to those people who hold cash, a non-productive asset.
This increase real interest rates, deterring investments in productive assets.
It is a horrible, horrible thing.
See “A Monetary History of the United States “ by Milton Friedman