[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

This is probably happening everywhere, but don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to report on anything of any importance. The government changed the currency supposedly to prevent counterfeiting. Sure has worked well, hasn't it? Liars. The real reason is to be able to print more money without it being too obvious due to the different designs of currency floating around.

[scottteng]

One of the ladies at my bank was telling me they have found a lot of phonies too including one $20 I got from a tenant. The strangest find was a counterfeit $1 bill, I mean why bother?

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Well, hell! The currency being printed by the Treasury is worthless! What’s the big deal?

[Tupelo]

At the rate the government is printing ‘money’, it will not be too long until the counterfeit bills are worth more then the ‘real’ thing.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

They say that the North Korean “super hundreds” are actually more precisely engraved than actual U.S. currency.

[Gunslingr3]

The government changed the currency supposedly to prevent counterfeiting. Sure has worked well, hasn't it? Liars. The real reason is to be able to print more money without it being too obvious due to the different designs of currency floating around.

There is no logic in that statement.

How would new designs hide the volume in existence?

Most of the recent changes where done because the North Koreans were making very, very good fakes of the previous incarnation. The newer versions have additional security measures to help detect fraudulent notes.

Also, the Federal Reserve doesn't 'print' every dollar they create. Not even a majority. Most of the paper FRNs are actually overseas.

[SeminoleCounty]

There are a number of countries that use US Dollars as national currency...Ecuador and El Salvador come to mind. Both countries are also big in drug trade and illegal aliens. Probably are printing them, too

Also, don’t go overseas with $100 bills looking to exchange for local currency... many places will not take them

[Patriot95]

Just like the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

http://mises.org/daily/3663
Here’s an interesting read from a professor’s lecture on the subject. The parallels between Rome and the United States are amazing.

[Thane_Banquo]

I hear Ben Bernanke is now printing $85 billion in Monopoly money every month and giving it to Goldman Sachs.

[0.E.O]

Local sources tell me this: Counterfeit bills turned in to the Fed used to number 1-2 per YEAR.

Local sources are wrong. The Federal Reserve banks intercept tens of millions of dollars in counterfeit bills every year. And while that may sound like a lot there is between $800 and $900 billion in circulation at any given time.

[AntiScumbag]

Local sources tell me this: Counterfeit bills turned in to the Fed used to number 1-2 per YEAR. At this date (April 12, 2013 - Friday), the count turned in to the Fed was already at 10 and we are only at April 15, 2013.

You can't possibly be serious.

First, counterfeits are reported and turned over to the SECRET SERVICE (part of the Treasury Dept,) not the Fed.

Second, the value of domestic currency in circulation is about 300 billion. If it was all 100s that would be about 3 billion notes, but 100s only account for about 1/3rd of currency. The total number of notes in domestic circulation is about 10 billion, mostly 20s, 50s and 100s, each being about 1/3rd of the total.

Treasury estimates about 1 in 10,000 notes is counterfeit, so that's about 1 MILLION counterfeits currently circulating.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/other/20061025a.htm http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/the-value-of-united-states-currency-in-circulation/

Now tell us all again how you think that one or two counterfeit notes of any denomination PER YEAR are discovered when there are a million or so circulating, and TENS OF THOUSANDS (perhaps more than a hundred thousand) of counterfeit notes are turned in every year.

Nobody is this stupid. And your "sources" are at least as totally full of it as you are.

[lowbridge]

Probably printed in Iran by the iranian government, and smuggled in over the Mexican border.

[Rebelbase]

I was in a store a while back and the guy in front of me at the register tried to use a bogus $100 to by $5 worth of goods.

The manager took one look at it, handed it back to him and said “you’ve got to be kidding”.

[RegulatorCountry]

The economy is not good, everything is going up but pay and being in the graphics industry I've heard for years that copier technology has gotten to the point that it apparently enables some fairly convincing “replicas” as far as small-time domestic counterfeiters, which has led to the anti-counterfeiting “strip” in the bills themselves and those pens they use to test large bills, whatever they are.

Then, there are the various, very sophisticated, large scale counterfeiting efforts of certain foreign governments. On top of that, look at the frequency of changes to the physical appearance of paper bills intended to foil counterfeiting.

Add that all up, and it's difficult to avoid concluding that there is more in circulation, without even needing actual physical evidence of it. I don't doubt that your anecdotal experience is reflective of an increase overall as a result.