This is just weird:
Over at TPM, Ryan Reilly has an intriguing post about the interest of some tea partiers for a new circulating dollar coin because it supposedly will save the federal government money. This follows a story in the Huffington Post from a week ago about how Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) introduced a bill that would eliminate the dollar bill and substitute dollar coins.
Here’s some very personal and U.S. history about the dollar coin and why this is a terrible idea that is really nothing more than a corporate subsidy.
***In theory, a dollar coin absolutely saves taxpayers money compared to a dollar bill. When the golden dollar was released in early 2000, it cost the government about 12 cents to make and it was expected to last about 30 years before it had to be removed from circulation because of normal wear. Each dollar bill cost much less — about 4 cents — but most bills only remain in circulation for a short time because they deteriorate so quickly. That means that the savings over 30 years are significant: it cost 12 cents to have a dollar coin but 80 cents to have a dollar bill. So from a budget perspective, changing to a dollar coin makes a great deal of sense and having a bill instead could be included in the waste-fraud-and-abuse category that most taxpayers demand be cut.
But…and it’s a big but…rather than save money, a dollar coin actually costs the government and taxpayers a great deal if it’s not going to be used. The government will still have to manufacture bills to meet the demand and mint coins that few will ever use to meet the legislative mandate. Pure and simple…creating a new dollar coin will be the equivalent of building a new highway right next to one that already exists and is working just fine.
Read the whole piece. Personally, I just don’t understand some of the things that motivate these folks. As James Joyner notes, the only way to handle the transition effectively would be to ban paper dollars after a set period, forcing everyone to make the transition. But if the mint even though about that, we’d have another group of teahadists screaming about punishing job creators and the heavy hand of government. We’d spend months with irate elderly scooter drivers attending rallies with George Washington’s face super-imposed on tread on me flags.
Besides, who wants to walk around with pockets weighed down with dollar coins? When I lived in Germany, all I did with the damned mark pieces was throw them into a jar and then very now and then exchange them for paper.
Lojasmo
But we could simply eliminate the dollar bill.
John X.
I like dollar and two-dollar coins. They are dead useful. I especially like the different edges, which allow you to identify denominations in your pocket by touch.
As for the switch, you don’t have to ban anything. The government retires old and torn money from circulation as part of normal business. You simply start retiring dollars, and the supply will slowly dwindle.
In a couple decades, it’ll be like the old Kennedy dollar. You’ll still be able to pass them in the grocery story, and it’ll probably lead to a short trip down memory lane for you and the clerk.
Baud
Obama should endorse this idea. That’ll kill it.
beltane
These people are fetishists, that’s all. Some people get off on women’s shoes and other people get off on weird, obscure things with money. At least it’s not as gross as necrophilia.
arguingwithsignposts
Actually, planet money podcast did an episode about this issue several months ago. apparently, the mint has a whole warehouse full of sacejawea (forgive the spelling) coins sitting unused, and they’re required by law to mint them.
D Johnston
In the PRC, they have both one yuan notes and coins. Lately, I’ve noticed that the notes are getting ever more rare, to the point where I almost exclusively get change in the coins. I’m not sure if this is a government initiative or just a local quirk (people from other parts of the country still seem to have notes).
It’s not so bad, but I’d be lying if I said it weren’t inconvenient. Leaving the house means making sure I have enough coins, and making small purchases means fiddling around with a lot of change because I’d feel like a prick if I made someone break a huge bill on a can of soda.
justawriter
I do the same thing with quarters, dimes, nickels and those copper colored things. It’s how I save for gifts at the holidays. I find my pockets also get heavy from these coins, sometimes unpleasantly so. Is that a reason to return to fractional currency like we had about 150 years ago? Really, I don’t see why people think they just can’t spend these coins.
Judas Escargot
I want to put Ron Paul’s face on a $10,000 coin, made of aluminum.
Just to piss him off.
Suffern ACE
@arguingwithsignposts: Exactly. We have dollar coins. The mint has even replaced Sacagawea with a presidential series to get people to start using them. I thought the Susan B was a big dud. I like them, but the old Ike dollars made a better sound paying out of the slot machine.
MikeJ
No, just don’t print new bills. You can accept old bills, and when they get to bank just don’t give them back out. Sure, 20 years from now you’ll have some crank that uses one but so what?
Ban is not the word you want here.
Three-nineteen
Replace the dollar bills currently at all the banks with coins. Stop making dollar bills. When more dollar bills get to the banks from various businesses and people, exchange those for coins. We can do it right now with the Sacagawea coins – all we lack is the political will.
People will get used to them. Or they could use electronic money more – even some vending machines take debit cards now.
djpoopypants
Not sure about this idea.
Pro-coin argument – when I went to the pubs in the UK and spent loadsa money on overpriced alcohol – I woke up with about 20 dollars of pound coins in my pockets, which was a very pleasant surprise. WINNING!
Anti-coin argument – getting rid of dollar bills will radically and permanently change the stripclub industry. How do you slip a dollar coin into a stripper’s g-string?
Tough call…
John H.
Let’s have a little perspective this is currency policy… Not monetary policy. The tea turds are basically right coins>bills in terms of cost effectiveness. Along those lines eliminate the penny too. But frankly this is smaller than small potatos. I’m sure the “debate” will be really interesting, but in reality this is turning politics into some sort of bizarre leisure activity.
John X.
The Right hated the Sacagawea coins. I remember a lot of bitching at how PC they were, and a lot of overweight, pasty white guys talking about how “ugly” she was.
Davis X. Machina
Kill the penny at the same time, and no one even needs to buy a new drawer for their cash registers.
RossInDetroit
@Suffern ACE:
The last substantial market for them was for use in video pr0n machines in peep shows. That tells you how long it’s been.
And I found that out from Harper’s, not at a pr0n shop.
Also they were too close in ‘feel’ to a quarter and were easy to mis-spend.
arguingwithsignposts
Funny how these types are all “Free market! Free market!” until the free market of citizens says they don’t want a bunch of coins jangling around in their pockets.
RSA
I like the idea of a dollar coin. I liked German mark coins (up to five mark coins–I still have a five mark bill that I use as a book mark) and I like Euro coins.
I suspect, though I haven’t checked, that with people now commonly using plastic for purchases over, say, $20, the amount of currency we carry around with us has gone done over the years. I don’t know if that would make coins more or less burdensome than bills.
Zifnab25
If we’re overhauling the money system, why even goof around. Issue everyone a pin number, a card swiper, and a government bank account. Then do it all electronic.
Miss Kitka's Comrade Wayne
My personal belief is that we should just go back to Shillings and Pence and fuck all this dollar nonsense.
Suffern ACE
@djpoopypants: Yeah. Something seems a little wrong with using Lincoln for that transaction. Move Lincoln to the hundred and put Franklin on the five. Not that that would be confusing for anyone.
@John X.: Yes they did. But this may be the last chance for a Reagan coin.
RossInDetroit
Yeah, sorry Abe but the cent has to go. We use a box of them as a doorstop because it’s cheaper than an actual doorstop. I use a dollar bill as a bookmark. Have you ever priced nicely printed bookmarks?
Canada has dollar and 2 dollar coins. They’re attractive and useful. I think Americans could get used to it. But they won’t want to.
jheartney
I agree, stop making any more greenbacks! Also, drop the penny at the same time. For cash transactions, round up from 5 and down from 4. (As I recall someone once did a mathematical proof that doing this consistently would be a wash for both buyers and sellers.)
If you do both at once, it works for retailers – they can start using the penny slot in their registers for the dollars.
And if any idiots protest it, tell them to get a life.
Derelict
I want the new dollar-denominated coins to have ONLY the faces of Republican presidents on them–Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush the Smarter, Bush the Dumber, and whoever follows Obama.
May as well make sure that credit resides exactly where it’s due.
General Stuck
They got dollar coins right now. In one of my hair brained schemes to tone down my personal spending and maybe save a little more, for several months I went to the bank and got maybe a hundred dollars worth of dollar coins, on the theory that it would be too cumbersome to carry many at one time, and so I would not buy shit I din’t need.
It worked some, I guess, but I quit it after a cashier at my local grocery one day asked, wtf was it was all these coins she had to handle whenever I showed up. And nobody else did that, blah blah blah. Plus, one day at Wally world, I had my sweat pants shorts on, and pockets loaded down with dollar coins, and the fuckers made my shorts fall to my feet, and me in my fruitolooms standing there with a stupid grin on my face. So I stopped doing that.
Spaghetti Lee
Yeah, I prefer carrying around bills to coins myself. I also think that if this was a Democratic idea, all the goldbugs would be screaming about big government soshalism and how it needs to stay out of their wallets. I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the penny, though.
RossInDetroit
Coins also make more sense for the visually impaired than US currency does. They’ve improved legibility with teh bill redesigns but you still can’t sort them by feel.
I got a Euro cent in change the other day and stashed it.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m actually a fan of the dollar coin. I hope that doesn’t make me a Republican!
What Canada did when they introduced the loonie (dollar coin) was simply to remove $1 bills from circulation once they would have been removed from circulation anyway. A transition of probably several years. And for that matter, if you have dollar bills and want to use them for a transaction, they are still legal tender.
Canada went through it all. Ooh, the coins are too heavy, they’ll rip a tear in my pocket. Ooh, if I leave a dollar coin as a tip, the waitress will be pissed off because she’ll think it’s a quarter. Ooh ooh ooh.
Here’s the key line in that article: “[A] dollar coin actually costs the government and taxpayers a great deal if it’s not going to be used.” For a long time, governmental and quasi-governmental vending machines (stamp kiosks at USPS facilities, public transit ticket dispensers, etc.) would give dollar coins in change but those same machines only accepted $1, $5, $10 and maybe $20 bills if you wanted to make a purchase. And the excuse was always some variation of, well, the dollar coins are too similar in size to the quarter, and the machines can’t tell the difference. HERE’S A HINT, job creators: design a coin that isn’t similar in size or shape to any other coin. And design a machine that’s smart enough to tell the difference, so people can actually start using the coins they get in change. Soon enough, store clerks and wait staff will be just fine with it.
(Also, too: I’m not one to delve into feminist conspiracy theory, much, but could it be that Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea on the US dollar coins caused some of our more, uh, misogynistic types to marginalize the whole idea?)
(Also, too, two. When I was a kid, we had lots of silver dollars kicking around. They were cool. Whatever happened to the coolness factor?)
Norwonk
For the past ten years or so, I’ve only really used money for parking. As soon as they replace the old parking meters with new ones that accept VISA, I won’t need actual currency at all.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Or basically what everybody else said in the previous 27 comments (when I began typing, I was going to be first!)
MikeJ
@RossInDetroit: That’s only an issue with US currency. Sensible places use different sizes for paper currency.
cathyx
If I had a dollar for every time they tried to do this…
SiubhanDuinne
@General Stuck:
General, I know this isn’t an open thread and I apologize for the OT, but gosh, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a picture of Charlie.
How do the kids put it? Just sayin’.
Arclite
Japan has not had a paper denomination lower than a $10 bill equiv for decades. Having $5 and $1 equiv coins was very convenient in Japan for all kinds of vending machines (one liter Asahi Dry cans!) and train ticket machines. Given how much value the dollar has lost over the decades, and given that a dollar now buys what a dime used to, it makes sense to make this transition.
On a side note, I took a business trip to Irvine last week with no cash in my wallet, and never had to use any. I did it all with plastic, so physical money is becoming less necessary (note this is not at all a call to abolish it).
RossInDetroit
We rarely spend coins except in vending machines and parking meters. last year I went through the house and emptied out a lot of drawers, bowls, bags, vases, etc that had collected coins for 10 years. We had to roll up $625 worth, which made me wish I had left them where they were.
The bank tellers were not amused.
SiubhanDuinne
And as long as I’ve gone OT: the Braves game is giving me palpitations.
Emdee
I echo what all the other people who agree with me said.
You don’t ban old currency, you just don’t issue any more and tell banks (i.e., “Federal Reserve customers”) not to give any out. The $500, $1000, and larger bills are still legal U.S. Tender, IIRC, but no one will give you one. You can spend one if you have it but you’ll never get it or a replacement back.
I was in Oz more than twenty years ago and everything under A$5 was a coin, and had been for years, and no one seemed to mind at all. I didn’t. (I also admired that their paper currency was sized differently for different denominations, and used different colors, both of which just make waaaay too much sense for us to adopt here.) Give the strippers an upgrade to $5 bills and boost the economy. Don’t spend hours per year trying to feed crinkled dollar bills into vending machines that take $1 coins easily and perfectly.
Eliminating the penny is a bigger problem due to the rounding and the prevalent pricing of “$9.99” and that we want sales tax rates to be lower so they’re going to be fractions of cents already, etc. Plus, to adapt a line of thinking from The West Wing all these years ago: Abraham Lincoln is on the penny. The president is from Illinois. Not gonna happen on his watch.
(Unless we mandate Lincoln on the majority of new dollar coins, despite already having a presidential $1 coin series, and then you have to oh crap now my head hurts.)
Calouste
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s a rule that US money must be as difficult to distinguish as possible. Raised nits on the notes to help the blind? Nope. Different colored notes? Nope. Different sized notes? Nope.
NonyNony
@Zifnab25:
MARK OF THE BEAST!!!! ARMAGEDDON!!! LOOK OUT FOR GOG AND MAGOG!!!! HERE COME THE FOUR HORSEMEN!!!! ARGLE-BARGLE BOO-YAH!!!!!!
(Actually I might be willing to pay good money to have Obama come out and endorse Zifnab’s idea above there. At the very least, the aneurisms it would create among the fundamentalist fringe might create some jobs for the medical profession…)
beltane
I grew up with the old NYC subway tokens, the ones with the “Y” open in the middle. They were pretty cool, and other coins always seemed boring in comparison.
One of my friends was Romanian and she used to use worthless Romanian coins in the turnstiles. Coins are fun in that way, which is probably why they moved on to Metro-cards.
malraux
Wait, who still uses non-electronic currency?
delphi_ote
The argument for moving to dollar coins is quite simple. It’s just one word, in fact.
Laundromat.
joes527
If we stop printing the bill, the coin will work (despite all the bitching from the “get off my lawn” crowd).
Otherwise not.
The article is unclear whether this current push is for widespread adoption of the existing coin, or a new coin. If someone is pushing for yet another dollar coin, then they clearly are trying to game the system. We have SEVERAL dollar coins, and the current one is perfectly serviceable.
The mint is currently flush with dollar coins, and the banks are actually sending them back. Any move to mint more coins before we stop printing bills is a transparent boondoggle. Follow the money to figure out what is really behind this. (no, not the coins, those are just going to be warehoused. follow the money that gets spent on minting new coins)
SiubhanDuinne
@RossInDetroit:
I paid for four weeks in Europe in 2007 just on saved coins of all denominations. If I get a rainy weekend sometime soon I’ll see if another trip is in the offing.
My bank tellers never object, but I always take the coin in during the least busy time for them (check your local branch to see when that is likely to be) and at a time when I am in no hurry at all and can afford several hours if necessary.
SiubhanDuinne
I just thought of another trick if you have hundreds of rolls of coins to deposit. Make up a rubber stamp from one of those cheap kits and stamp every wrapper with your account number. Alternatively, print out a bunch of labels with the account number and slap the labels on the wrappers. It’s a real time saver.
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Wrapper? Most banks want them loose so they can run them through the coin counter. Wrapping just slows things down.
SiubhanDuinne
@malraux: I am pretty much cash only. Some electronic but not all that much.
Yes, I am old.
General Stuck
@SiubhanDuinne:
You request, I deliver :-)
SiubhanDuinne
@MikeJ:
Seriously? Not in my experience. But it has been five years or so since I’ve taken a lot of coin to the bank; maybe they’ve changed policy. Good to know, and I will check in advance.
General Stuck
@General Stuck:
fixed second linky
John X.
My bank has installed one of those automatic coin sorters. It’s awesome – dump your coins and watch them sink in the holes – and unlike the ones in the grocery stores, they don’t charge for the service.
arguingwithsignposts
@SiubhanDuinne: There are also CoinStar machines at some stores that will do the counting for you for a small percentage. pretty good deal if you don’t want to waste time sorting.
ETA: I don’t mind paying a small fee for the sorting thing, but I live in the sticks where the banks (or at least my credit union) don’t have those fancy machines in their lobbies.
SiubhanDuinne
@General Stuck:
I am in your debt. LOVES me some Charlie! Those wise brown eyes just kill me every time.
Thank you, mon général.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: These coins are a great way to get travel points. (from the same planet money story) Travel Hackers, as they call themselves, will order like 1,000 of these coins on their credit cards (getting airline miles for the purchase) and get free delivery of the coins, which they then take to the bank and deposit to pay off the credit card. After a couple of months, they have enough points for a free airline ticket to wherever they want to go.
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts:
Oh, thanks, I know. But I actually enjoy the sorting and counting and wrapping process. It soothes me.
Bill E Pilgrim
Huh. I like Euro coins (ones and twos, then paper starts at five) and I’m so used to them now that I miss them when I’m in the US. My wallet there seems to be bulging after a few days with all of the single dollar notes.
Plus my pockets actually seem more full there, not less, with quarters and pennies and etc. Quarters are huge, and don’t get you very far, I keep a roll of them in my car for parking since you seem to have to pump half a roll in to get a couple hours.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@General Stuck: Charlie!!!! Thanks.
SiubhanDuinne
@Calouste:
Because raised nits, different colors and varying sizes would just be another damned government entitlement program, amirite?
Zam
As someone who gets paid mostly in cash the last thing I want is a shit ton of fucking coins to carry around. Paper makes sense because it is easily portable.
jl
Paper coins! Colored gold, to stand for gold!
Everyone will be happy.
When the superduperhyperultra inflation ruins us, because of DemobamaSerfdom, they will be easier to use as confetti for the end of the world as we know it party. With lots of booze.
Bloix
Today’s dollar has the buying power the quarter had in 1975. Today’s nickel is worth a 1975 penny. If we replaced the dollar with a coin and dumped the penny, the change in your pocket would be about the same value as the change people carried in 1975. Does anyone think that change as 1975 was overly burdensome?
In England, the smallest bill is worth about $7.50. In Canada, the smallest bill is work a bit over $5. Do you think the English and Canadians walk around with holes in their pockets from all that change?
MikeJ
Somebody please tell the Orioles that a song about “rape, murder” isn’t the right thing to play when it starts raining.
jwb
@NonyNony: Obama should come out against getting rid of the dollar bill, and then he should double down and say there’s no way that he endorse plastic money. No surer way that the teatards would leap at it.
On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of only plastic money. Too trackable. No good way to opt out of the surveillance economy.
Warren Terra
I like the Canadian Loonie and Toonie, but they have an advantage the Sacajawea lacked: they feel different from a quarter in your hand or pocket.
The Sacajawaea dollar was mandated to fit in the coin slots of existing vending machins, meaning that it couldn’t be significantly larger in diameter or thicker than a quarter. This, at least as much as sexist attitudes towards Sacajawea, meant that it couldn’t be very popular.
jwb
@John X.: My bank has these free machines, too, but they limit the amount—$100, I think—you can exchange each visit.
Bill E Pilgrim
@djpoopypants: During the Belle Epoque of the 1890s, Maxim’s, the legendary Paris nightclub, was famous for the rich customers tossing gold coins to the prostitutes, to the point where people described a busy night there being like a blizzard of gold flying through the air.
Years later in the 1930s or something they remodeled the place and when they tore out out the old velvet banquettes, found a veritable fortune in gold coins just from what had fallen down the between the cushions.
MikeJ
@djpoopypants:
Coin slot.
Darkrose
I loved the pound coins when I was in the UK. They fit into vending machines more easily, and they don’t get torn up as badly. And as someone who has to use a coin-op washer and dryer, two dollar coins are infinitely better than 8 quarters.
seabe
I support the idea, and it seems a lot of other people here do as well. Any time I’m in Europe, it’s just easier *shrug*
However, the other reason it’s easier is because they have a VAT and you’re not taxed on shit after you pay for it. So I’m not carrying around 5, 10, 20 cent Euro coins. It’s only 0.5, 1 and 2.
So let’s make a deal, tea baggers: national carbon tax that’s price inclusive, and we eliminate dollar bills. :)
jheartney
Since the rounding business has come up (as it always does in these discussions), I took a couple of seconds to Google, and discovered this:
Snarki, child of Loki
If we get a $1 coin with Reagan on it, I think we should follow the Canadian example and call it a “loonie”.
Forget the $2 coin. Go for a $3 coin with Nixon on it.
danimal
There is hope that we can avoid a dystopian United States. If we can just make sure the dollar coin tea partiers and the dollar bill teahadis face off in a massive death match, perhaps the rest of us have a chance. 2nd Amendment remedies, baby!
MikeJ
@jheartney: Consumers aren’t afraid of getting gouged because they’ve worked out the math, consumers are afraid of getting gouged because they’ve seen capitalism in action.
Litlebritdifrnt2
@SiubhanDuinne:
My local SECU has a coin sorting machine in the lobby which charges nothing for you to lob a jar worth of coins in there and it then spits out a credit memo for you to deposit in the bank. Tellers love it.
Litlebritdifrnt2
Speaking of which what the F is up with gas stations charging $3.39.9 for gas? Is it $3.40 or not?
YoohooCthulhu
@djpoopypants: How do you slip a dollar coin into a stripper’s g-string?
Strippers get a raise when everyone switches to $5s.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Snarki, child of Loki:
They tried a Nixon coin, but it bombed.
Auldblackjack
Cole is right about getting rid of the paper bill to make it work, but I don’t think that’s the wingnuts’ motivation. Part 2 of the story will be putting St. Ronnie on the coins’ head for them. So all us DFHs must respond “Dollar coin? OK. But FDR is on the heads & Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on the tails” We can then be all bipartisanshippie and agree on Washington in the bitter end.
jeffreyw
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I see what you did there.
fleeting expletive
People sure are idiosyncratic in their currency preferences. Me, I’ll get maybe $200 at an ATM and anything under maybe 30 dollars, spend the cash on it. I track the larger expenditures by using the plastic. I fill an index card metal box with excess coins and then take the filled box to the coin-star machine. Not the quarters though, I’m on an apparently lifetime mission to amass a collection of 2 rolls each of all 50 states’ quarters for my elder granddaughter for her high school graduation, and she’s 11 already. It’s a rainy day activity, what can I say.
I’m fortunate to live where and how I live in that I don’t have to spend a lot of money all the time.
piratedan
more idiocy from our Az Wingnut delegation, yeah, lets use a 18th century solution to a 21st century problem….. It’s like trying to affix a new car door with elmers glue and rubber bands and calling it a solution tht ill last a lifetime….
Lojasmo
@Derelict:
Hillary?
PanAmerican
Amero!
Fwiffo
This actually makes sense, which is probably a case of a broken clock being right twice a day.
There’s a lot of misinformation out there about these coins. For one, they’re not gold, nor or they gold plated, as some articles claim. They’re copper with brass cladding. They’re also already being made. You can get them at the bank. You can order them from the mint, and they’ll even pay the shipping. So they’re not a new thing.
Also, your pockets wouldn’t be weighed down with them, any more than they’re weighed down with quarters. You don’t hear people clamoring for a quarter dollar bill because it doesn’t make any sense. Quarters are more convenient than quarter dollar bills. You’d get them in change, put them in your change jar, and when you need cash, you take your change jar to a coinstar or roll it up and take it to the bank. And most vending machines take the dollar coins – I know because I use them for bus fare. You’ve all tried and failed to get a vending machine to accept a worn dollar; coins are way more reliable.
Coins are also more hygienic. Dollar bills carry all kinds of germs. Copper and its alloys kill germs, sanitizing themselves within hours, and all our coins are made of copper alloys (even nickels are 75% copper).
Many other industrialized nations have successfully transitioned off of small denomination bills to coins. The Loonie and Twonie are a big success in Canada and everybody likes them.
It’s like switching to the metric system though. Even though it’s objectively better, if you give people a choice, they’ll be Luddites. Stop printing dollar bills, and in a couple years everyone will wonder what the big deal was. While you’re at it, get rid of the damn penny.
GregB
Tell the government to keep their filthy hands off of my dollar bills!
existential fish
Why can’t you just … stop making the dollar bill? It then goes the way of the two dollar bill eventually. You don’t have to ban anything. You keep collecting and destroying dollar bills per usual (as you do now) until one day there’s not enough and you stop. Sure some will float around but there’s still two dollar bills floating around and no has had to ban them.
Can someone explain that to me?
Note: the coin slot argument is still a good one.
Xenos
You know what we get when guys have to carry that much weight in coins?
Man purses. Reflect on that a bit, and see if you still support dollar coins. Imagine the fashion possibilities.
suzanne
That fuckwad Schweikert is my Congresscritter, despite over a thousand phone calls on his opponent’s behalf. SIGH.
SORRY.
Corner Stone
Who the fuck gives a stripper a dollar bill?
Mike G
The usgov should propose a dollar coin with Martin Luther King on it.
The teatards will stop agitating for it immediately.
tkogrumpy
What person of sound mind would buy something out of a vending machine?
Joel
Why not do like Australia and go plastic/durables for the bills.
I don’t understand the fascination with coins. Let’s kill 2 of them (penny, nickel) and just go with dollars and ten cent denominations. This would basically set the minimum currency value back to mid-1940s levels.
MattR
@tkogrumpy: One stuck at a hotel in the middle of nowhere at 10 pm.
suzanne
@delphi_ote:
The laundromat by me uses cards.
I actually LIKE the dollar coins. I’ve heard they’re way more hygienic. In the minus column, however, they’ll have way less blow on the edges.
I really like some of the two-tone Euro coins. Some of the coins with sides or holes in the middle are great, too. I’d like some really great graphic designers to do new coins. Make the currency as beautiful as our stamps.
Bill E Pilgrim
@piratedan: The Euro was created just a few years ago and includes no bills for anything under denominations of 5.
Since this is proposed by a Republican from Arizona it’s likely from some insane right wing gold standard motivation, but claiming that one or two dollar coins are 18th century and paper notes are 21st century is pretty hard to back up.
The 21st century solutions of course are plastic and smartphones that you pass over a sensor and so on, but in the meantime I find that one and two Euro coins are a lot more functional than having single bills, and infinitely better than having to carry *!^$#ing quarters around. 20 cent Euro coins become fairly meaningless when you have one and twos.
It’s funny reading about everyone taking piles of change to machines to deposit; I make a habit of doing the opposite, going into post offices where you can put in a twenty and get a couple of handfuls of coins, because the smallest thing you’ll get from an ATM is a ten, if even that, and waiting for a waiter to come over to make change is like wasting time in a stasis booth, except that you keep aging.
Bill E Pilgrim
@tkogrumpy:
Anyone who doesn’t want to buy train or subway tickets from an actual person with the long lines and etc.
Oh you’re thinking food. Yeah, yuck.
Ziggy
No to lightbulbs, yes to dollar coins.
I’ll never understand the teabaggers.
Martin
@Mike G: Oh, no – Cesar Chavez.
But put me down for replacing the bill with the dollar coin – and nuking the penny in the same move. You can’t add a coin – cash registers aren’t set up for an extra coin. And reprogramming everything for .05 as the minimum unit of currency would be great for jobs.
No extra coins to carry (because the max 4 pennies you used to carry get replaced with max 4 dollars) so that’s a wash. One less bill to deal with, and a bit less change for everyone to have to make, and many of those vending machines that take bills (which suck) can instead just take coins.
Martin
@Litlebritdifrnt2:
I don’t know – do you buy it in exact gallons or in fractions? If you’re buying it in fractions, then you’re already dealing with fractions of pennies and having to round at the end.
You don’t see that pricing generally because in most cases you buy in discrete quantities. It’s not like you can buy 1/3 of a box of Cheerios, but you can definitely buy 1/3 of a gallon of gas.
binzinerator
@Fwiffo: I dislike the US dollar coins, the shape not the concept. Love the 1 euro coins. Hate the US dollar coins. Too close to a quarter. They should’ve made it more like the proportions of the 1 euro coin, smaller than most coinage inthe denomination, but unmistakeably thicker. Heft tells you its got value. You can tell easily by feel, not so with either the sacagawea or the anthony coin. They feel way too close to quarters.
Two things to make a dollar coin successful. Dont replace paper dollars as they wear out, and make a truly size and weight distinctive dollar coin. Color means squat. Edge shape is secondary — too hard to discern in a pocket if its a smooth diameter, knurled edge or has 8 sides. Proportion is everything. Fat little chunky-feeling round disc? You got one euro with out looking.
BTW, copper pennies are mostly not copper; modern pennies are copper clad, around a core of zinc or some such metal IIRC. You can take my word, or you can google it, or you can twist one apart with pliers and see for yourself. Copper coinage made mostly of copper, because of copper prices in the last few decades, is now more valuable as copper metal than the denomination it represents.
piratedan
@Bill E Pilgrim: considering everything is moving in the direction of plastic cards and electronic records, the idea of currency could very well need to be rethought altogether. Quit embracing your inner luddite :-)
Bill Arnold
@Zifnab25:
Better would be a laser tattoo, a tattoo-code reader, and a government bank account.
Bill E Pilgrim
@piratedan: Oh don’t misunderstand, I’m not proposing either metal or paper instead of digital, just that if we’re going to still have physical money for the time being (and we are) then replacing the single paper dollar bill with coins would actually bring us into the 21st century, by any measure, not the opposite.
I entirely agree (and could have sworn I said so) that everything is going to plastic and chips and etc.
I am a strange mixture, but no Luddite tendencies in terms of technology at all, just in terms of crass ugly commercialism, billboards flashing at you and fast food and so on. I would probably hate living in Tokyo for example. Living in the center of a medieval city on the other hand, but with ATMs and robot trains to get to the airport — pure heaven.
binzinerator
@Ziggy: It’s all about the hippie-punching multiplier. You can punch at least 100 times as many hippies by being against energy efficient lightbulbs as you can by being against (literally) filthy paper lucre.
Also, hippies are dirty and so is paper money. What more rationale does a principled nutbagger need?
Villago Delenda Est
DING DING DING DING DING!
Actually, this habit worked out rather well for me. A buddy in my unit was getting ready to PCS back to the states, and had this HUGE jar filled with German coins. He had intended to take it down to the bank and exchange them all for paper, then convert the paper marks to dollars, but he ran out of time…and gave me the jar.
There had to be about 250 marks, minimum, in coin there, and my arcade time in town was covered for a solid three months. Took a while to deal with all the 50 pfennig and below pieces, but I did roll them up and turn them in.
Arundel
Ugh, why are they all such a bunch of dumb fucking crunts set on putting us back to the 19th century, if not before?
And, WHAT in the hell would crap like this do to help us with our real problems in the here and now? WHO in the hell dreams up crap like this? Where do they find the time to dream up crap about non-issues like this?
MariedeGournay
@General Stuck: You win the awesome prize for making me laugh after a long day.
Fwiffo
@binzinerator: I’m aware that pennies are zinc, but they’re still copper on the surface, which is the part where the handy disinfecting properties of copper actually matter. I don’t often touch the inside of a penny.
KCinDC
@Warren Terra, the Anthony, Sacagawea, and presidential dollar coins are all the same diameter as the Canadian loonie: 26.5 mm. They are a little thicker: 2 mm rather than 1.75 mm.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned that the presidential dollars will reach Reagan in 2016, when wingnuts will no doubt start going for dollar coins in a big way.
C.S.Strowbridge
@Lojasmo:
Exactly. Don’t make both bills and coins. Get rid of the bills at the same time you introduce the coins.
You need to make sure the dollar coin looks different from the quarter as well, which was a problem last time.
binzinerator
@Fwiffo: I read that a brass door knob disinfects itself in 12 hours. Brass, as I learned in my highschool metal shop class, being an alloy of copper. Ive always wondered why hospitals like stainless steel (Iirc actually a low carbon iron-nickel alloy) over brass, like for door knobs. My theory is brass (and especially copper) metalwork takes work to look like it is clean. IOW it tarnishishes and shows fingerprints if not cleaned regurarly. Stainless never tells. Brass, what you dont clean it eventually shows.
You know, silverware is no longer silver. Its stainless steel. I wonder if historically if there were big advantages to having the metalware you eat off of self-sterilizing overnight if, say, you dont have a sterilize cycle on the dishwasher that isnt going to be invented for another century or two. And I dont see why those same benefits are useless today. But silverware, real silver silverware, must be polished. Or it shows where you havent been paying attention to it. Which brings me back to my musings on why door knobs in hospitals are typically stainless steel.
I honestly dont care if pennies are clad or 70%. I just know they arent 70% anymore.
Now Capt. Pedantic (Honorary, Ret.) will turn in for the night. Good night, peaceful slumbers to you.
Ruckus
As a merchant, NO dollar coins. Also no pennies. I already round up to avoid using pennies as much as possible when making change. The vast majority of my customers use plastic, although more are using cash since the
depressionrecession started. Still a small number. I only use coins when buying lunch or at the laundromat. And for doing the wash I use the change machine there. I carry no coins for change, haven’t for years and it has never been a problem. If I’m going to carry other bills what is the problem with the dollar bill?Ruckus
@Arundel:
Exactly.
People, it’s all money. The only thing coins are convenient for is machines. And the better ones now take most all bills and stuff in the machines costs a dollar so what’s the issue?
Tradition?
I use electronic for almost everything and can think of only of one place in my life where I need coin. Even when I traveled over half the year for work I never carried coin. Always having to remove it, put it in the bowl to hand to the TSA person, put it back in my pocket. What a waste.
Jebediah
@General Stuck:
Love that doggie – if he ever wants to take a vacation in So Cal he can stay for free, long as he wants. Long walks and plenty of treats, no charge.
Triassic Sands
I do. I love both Loonies and Twonies and will take any American dollar coin any time it’s offered.
If something as harmless as switching to dollar coins (and I think it would be a good idea to produce a $2 coin as well) can save money (every federal dollar is important these days) then not supporting the switch is crazy.
Americans are such whiners.
Metric system? Noooooooooooooooooo. It’s too hard.
Dollar coin? Nooooooooooooooooooo. They’re too heavy.
Universal health care? Nooooooooooooooooo. It makes too much sense.
Physician assisted suicide? Noooooooooooooooooo. They’ll kill all the handicapped and elderly people.
Kat
Can’t remember where I read this, but…
The US currently has $4 billion worth of Sacagawea one-dollar coins in storage. The annual storage costs are eye-popping — tens of millions.
When I read this, I thought, hey, $4 billion in stimulus would be a heck of a lot better than what we’ve got right now. Just ship them all out to our local banks, and give them away in $250 lots to anyone who pledges to spend them within two days.
I’d immediately lug my $250 in dollar coins to my favorite grocery store.
magurakurin
reading about people whining about how horrible their life would become if they couldn’t have dollar bills makes me glad to know I’m an ex-patriot American of many years.
sheesh. What a bunch of cry baby dingalings. A dollar ain’t worth shit, it doesn’t deserve a bill. Quarters are the most useless pieces of steel going; you need four of them just to make a goddamn phone call over there anymore. Nix the damn quarters and replace them with a reasonable 50 cent piece, stop printing dollars and replace them with a reasonable dollar coin(choose one of the many that have been minted for years and still are minted) and get over it already.
Oh and also, too. Use the damn things. Teach fucking cashiers how to do math and not get panicy when people pay with change. Carry a tiny little leather pouch for your coins and use the fuckers when you buy shit. It really is no big deal.
Halcyon
@Auldblackjack:
Pfft. The opening bid is William Tecumseh Sherman on the head with Savannah and a Christmas bow on the back. Then we bid down to FDR in bipartisan comity (and then complain about it anyway). Haven’t you learned anything from the Tea Party?
25 cent coins
Lojasmo you are right…..
Montarvillois
Canada replaced the one dollar bill with a one dollar coin in 1987. Can’t recall any serious controversy over the replacement.
Geoduck
@Xenos:
If I ever meet the macho idiot who decided that “men can’t carry purses”, I’ll punch him in the snoot. They’re useful.
And put me in the pro-coin camp.
WereBear
@jheartney: Math doesn’t lie. I agree.
However, I KNOW there would be a platoon of whiners dead-certain they are getting ripped off with every transaction that rounded up, and paying no attention to the ones that round down.
They don’t believe in math.
Answerman
As Montarvillois and others have said above, Canada leads the way in the coin dollar (“looney”) and two-dollar coin (“twoney”) following the national duck (the loon) and the national character (loonie) hence the U.S. might have a dollar coin called The Bushy?…any other suggestions from you Americanos?
:)
brendancalling
speak for yourself cole. I’m in canada frequently enough and find the $1.00 and $2.00 coins quite convenient.
here in Philly, we’ve largely switched from individual parking metersto kiosks that give you a dashboard ticket,depending on how much you put in. Feeding crumply rumply dollar bills into the slot is an exercise in frustration: coins would make those easier too.
Surly Duff
@djpoopypants:
Making it rain in the strip club would become potentially more dangerous.
bjacques
The Amero, with Ronald Reagan on it. You’re welcome.
Sort of on the subject, I used to collect coins in high school. I still have them somewhere, and when I checked the market I was blown away by how much collecting has changed in 30 years. There are like 20 different grades of “uncirculated,” and coins in any lower grade are barely worth more than the silver or gold in them. Also, Chinese fakes of common older silver coins, including old dollars, have been turning up at least since last year.
Fargus
Just ran some quick numbers on a few scenarios. I ran the weight on every amount of change from 1 cent up to $10 using the current (US) system, where bills weigh 1 gram, and the rest are the following:
Penny: 2.5
Nickel: 5
Dime: 2.268
Quarter: 5.67
Dollar Coin: 8.1
Notional Two Dollar Coin: 8.5
I got that 8.5 gram weight for the two dollar coin by just making it have roughly the same proportion to the one dollar coin as Canada’s toonie has to its loonie.
Basically, on average, adding dollar coins with no other changes adds weight on average. This much is clear. Adding two dollar coins in addition to one dollar coins mitigates this. Eliminating pennies reduces weight across the board, and then adding dollar coins to that system increases weight, and adding two dollar coins mitigates this.
If we were to adopt a system wherein we eliminated the penny and nickel (and rounded to the nearest 10 cents; I could have played it where we also round to 25 and 75 cents, since quarters are in play, but for these purposes I didn’t), and adopted $1 and $2 coins, and kept $5 and $10 bills, the average weight of change from 1 cent up to $10 is less than 1 gram heavier than our current baseline. That’s less than half the weight of a dime. The weight issue, if we handle it correctly, is really a non-issue.
Loonesta
I have the feeling that this will not ever work. Why? 2 words & an initial: Susan B. Anthony. 1979 – 1981. Anyone else remember that Carter-Reagan-era dollar coin? It was just slightly larger than a quarter. I had cashiers giving me the surliest stinkeye while refusing to accept them as legitimate legal tender. Despite plenty of advance publicity, most people didn’t know what they were and believed that I was trying to pass off some counterfeit scrip. I also think people really dislike carrying around coins. Most wallets don’t feature a “coin purse”.
sherparick
The Arizona representative who introduced this bill comes from a district, and state, with a large number of copper and zinc mines. Copper and zinc would be used to produce the dollar coins. Why was this bill introduced? Follow the money.
Bruce Bartlett discusses his own experience when the Clinton administration and the Gingrich congress tried to replace the dollar bill with a dollar coin. Basically, banks hated it because it cost them a lot more money to handle bills.
MTiffany
Seriously? Another fucking coin for the elderly to fuss with at the grocery checkout? Really?
mere mortal
I assume the idea behind this legislation resides in the difference between how coinage and federal reserve notes are dealt with between Treasury and the Fed.
I believe that paper currency is printed then given to the Fed, with the Fed reimbursing for production costs.
My understanding is that coinage is minted then bought by the Fed at its face value.
This distinction was the entire basis of the idea during the debt ceiling fiasco of coining a $12 trillion platinum coin and deposit it at the Fed, national debt goes away.
Mjaum
You still use paper bills enough that this is even an issue? Norwegian financial institutions are fronting a move towards almost completely giving up physical cash.