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/
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.
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.
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."
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
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