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New High Tech $100 Bills Start To Circulate Today
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "New $100 bills made their debut today in the U.S. They include high tech features designed to make it easier for the public to authenticate but more difficult for counterfeiters to replicate. Those measures include a blue, 3-D security ribbon, as well as color-shifting ink that changes from copper to green when the note is tilted (PDF). That ink can be found on a large '100' on the back of the bill, on one of the '100's' on the front, and on a new image of an ink well that's also on the front. 'The $100 is the highest value denomination that we issue, and it circulates broadly around the world,' says Michael Lambert, assistant director for cash at the Federal Reserve Board. 'Therefore, we took the necessary time to develop advanced security features that are easy for the public to use in everyday transactions, but difficult for counterfeiters to replicate.' The bill was originally due to reach banks in 2011, but three years ago the Federal Reserve announced that a problem with the currency's new security measures was causing the bills to crease during printing, which left blank spaces on the bills. This led the Feds to shred more than 30 million of the bills in 2012. The image of Benjamin Franklin will be the same as on the current bill, but like all the other newly designed currencies, it will no longer be surrounded by an dark oval. Except for the $1 and $2 bill, all U.S. paper currency has been redesigned in the last 10 years to combat counterfeiting."
And yet they can't do such basic things as, say, change the sizes of the notes so that vision impaired people can tell the difference between a one dollar and ten dollar bill just by checking its length. (Have a look at the Australian notes for an example: each note is seven millimeters longer than the preceding one by value.)
They'd also do well by dropping the one and two dollar bills, replacing them with coins; the currency has devalued so much, it's not worth keeping the low value notes as notes. You could also make a case for ditching the penny, to boot.
But hey, what would I know ...
So why would I bother trying to counterfeit the newer more difficult bills instead of just doing the older easier ones since they remain legal tender?
...the United States still has the world's fugliest currency.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The only way to make currency impossible to counterfeit is to not have fiat currency in the first place, which means the people would choose something real to be money, I am talking about gold, and you can't really counterfeit that.
Care to place a wager on that?
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
Is it me, or does it have a bluish tinge now that makes it easier to tell that it's a different denomination?
Most countries already use different colored bills to help distinguish one denomination from another (and to aid in quickly determining how much cash on hand you have by a quick glance). Only in the US do I have to manually count out every bill to make sure a $5 didn't sneak in with the $1s and so on.
Of course, perhaps it's time to go beyond linen/cotton/paper based bills and move to plastic (polymer) based ones...
There are something like 3 million of them in circulation, and new ones are still being printed periodically. But many people, like yourself, have never actually encountered one.
(I've heard anecdotes of people trying to spend one being accused of counterfeiting, because the cashier had never seen one and assumed that it was a fraud).
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
The banks that don't have them in stock will almost always be willing to include a brick of $2 bills in their next currency order to the Fed if you agree to take all 1000 of them. It takes me about a year to go through a brick just using them for small cash purchases.
Money is like a strapless evening dress on a 70 year old: It's held up by the collective belief that anything is better than having to see it drop.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It was never backed by gold. It was always backed only by promises. There was not enough gold to pay back if every dollar was brought in for a gold payout.
Learn to love Alaska
no, the Federal Funds Rate is currently 0.25% and for overnight loans. very short term so does not have the explosive inflationary effect you seem to imagine.
The only stuff in the universe that cannot be counterfeited is energy.
I propose a new currency based on the kWh. Instead of slips of paper or plastic credit cards, people will use rechargeable batteries and actually transfer units of work between each other.
At first there will be extremely rapid inflation as people set up solar collectors and other such stuff, but eventually nearly every inch of the earth will be dedicated to collecting energy. Things like tax credits and welfare can be eliminated as every man, woman, and child will be able to collect or generate at least some energy (the government could give out stationary bikes that collect energy), which will act as a base negative tax rate.
With so much energy then available, what would our standard of living be?
"It has had value since humans placed value on things."
Correction: it has been GIVEN value since humans placed value on things. You can't eat gold, right? you can't shelter with gold, right?
Now, think of it. Gold has value because people gave it value. This means that other things can have value as long as people gives value to them. Pretty papers with a portrait of a famous dead guy, for instance.
No, you could go to any Federally Charted bank and get Silver Dollars (which at that time were in fact silver).
You didn't need a truckload, you could do it bill by bill. Only after 1968 did they abrogate the promise
of silver. This was preceded by a years notice, and was sort of a big deal at the time.
I distinctly remember many people gathering silver certificates and turning them in for silver granules.
This they thought was a hedge against inflation. Shortly after 1968, the price of silver crashed, and many sold at a loss.
By 78, silver had doubled from its 68 price, and by 88, it had risen ten fold.
It was only the bills marked Hawaii and North Africa that cold be canceled upon invasion.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It has had value since humans placed value on things.
Ah, good, at least you understand where value comes from (and thus fundamentally agree with the person you were responding to), rather than believing in magical fairy tales like "intrinsic value" or such nonsense...
At least it has intrinsic value...
...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Iran has been circulating these new $100s since last week.