Posted on 03/23/2012 12:47:05 PM PDT by Ron C.
Capitol Hill lawmakers want to change the color of money amid growing concerns about the federal deficit and the constant pressure for Washington to live within its means.
The House and Senate each have introduced legislation that would replace the dollar bill with a $1 coin.
“Change can be difficult,” Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said. “But doing things as we’ve always done has contributed to our debt. We've got to latch on to any reasonable handhold we can find to climb out of this hole.”
This is not the first time Washington has considered eliminating the paper dollar, which became part of the U.S. currency during the Lincoln administration in the early 1860s.
The Government Accountability Office has examined the issue five times over the past two decades as a way to help reduce government spending, each time concluding the switch would save from roughly $200 million to $500 million, said Enzi.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What these morons ought to do is the following 2 things:
1) Lop a zero off of the currency, so that the coins and bills that we use will actually be worth something. Leave the coins as is - whoever owns them will reap a windfall. Exchange the bills by a certain date (say 6 months down the line). All contracts MUST be adjusted.
2) Simultaneously, stop spending money we don’t have - thus the newer value of the currency will stay stable.
As things are, pre-’65 silver coinage is worth over 23 times its face value. That gallon of gas that cost a quarter in 1964 can now be bought for LESS than the value of a 1964 quarter. Pre-’82 pennies are worth about 2.5 cents each, just for the copper value, and even the “Zincolns” made from mid-’82 through the present cost more than $0.01 to manufacture and distribute (the melt value of the zinc and copper in a newer cent is worth about 0.54 cents). The melt value of a nickel is about 5.4 cents, but it costs nearly 10 cents to manufacure. We can keep the pennies, nickels, etc., as well as the dollar bills, if one zero is dropped from the currency (sort of a reverse split) - that will simultaneously reduce the costs of new coinage (there won’t be any) and restore confidence in the value of the currency. A side benefit will be to bring a lot of money out of shoe boxes and into the economy (and perhaps raise some tax revenue at the same time), and also to put a serious crimp in the wealth of the drug gangs. But none of this works without a simultaneous change in our annual debt - it must be reduced to zero or damned near it.
No it doesn't. You don't have surplus if you have a deficit. What that idiot is saying is simple - they declare a surplus when 'allocated' money can't be, or isn't spent on what it was allocated for - yet Congress can't EVER return allocate funds to the treasury - that would be pure heresy to politicians - so they find a way to spend it to benefit some of their supporters!
Well, you KNOW that none of that would ever happen. The outrage of the public would be beyond any prior measure.
Indeed. I am of an age where I remember our coinage having real worth because it was made of metal with worth. And our currency was "certificates" for coinage of real worth. Even then, the older folks preferred using coin, including silver dollars...because it was "money".
And I also remember not only seeing photos and newsreels of people pushing around wheelbarrows of cash to purchase a loaf of bread, but also talking with people who were there! I fear soon we will be those people.
This is all because those D.C. jackasses prefer buying votes with our sweat rather than obeying the Constitution, the highest law of the land.
America is overdue for an enema!
Well, you've just guilted me into picking up a penny that has been sitting between a couple pieces of equipment in my office for the past week.
It’s time once again to trot out my currency and coinage reform proposal.
Given that there has been ample inflation on the order of 10 since the last change, and we have an excessive array of confusing coins and low-value currency, it is time for a practical simplification.
First, denominations need to proceed in a proportional way without large value ratios or crowded ratios. The classic 1-5-10-50-100... progression with ratios of 2.0-5.0 is ideal as a minimum, with denominations of 2, 20, etc. being optional for important valuations.
Second, we want to avoid coins of such low value that they are more trouble than they are worth. Economic waste occurs with the extra time wasted dealing with needlessly small coins. A dime is worth less than a minute of labor at minimum wages, and no currency transaction requires anything smaller than this denomination. The penny and the half-cent served well as the smallest denominations when their values were that of today’s dime. (Note to any economic imbeciles: electronic transactions are often conducted in smaller units than our smallest coin, and that cash registers have been “rounding” - without bias up or down - to the nearest small coin for sales tax purposes for generations. Google “sales tax rounding” if you have doubts and read a few articles).
Third, we want to set the coin/currency transition at a practical level that avoids our wallets being overstuffed with small bills, or our pockets with too many coins. Coins should be suitable for purchases like a magazine, a coffee, a lunch, or a brief cab ride.
Fourth, the ratio between the largest and smallest coin should be limited to a practical factor. Consider that the economy functions effectively with coins at 0.05, 0.10, and 0.25, with pennies treated as trash, and larger coins generally not used. That is a factor of 5 between the largest and smallest coin. A factor of 10-50 may be ideal, and a factor of 100 (as in actual current coinage) is excessive.
Fifth, we need bills of adequately high value for large cash purchases (consider the largest Euro note has a value of about 6.5 times that of the largest US note.)
Sixth, coins should be sized approximately proportional to their value for ease of recognition and use.
The proposal:
Coins:
$0.10 (slightly smaller than the current dime)
$0.50 (slightly smaller than the current nickel, larger than the penny)
$1.00 (slightly smaller than the current quarter dollar, larger than the nickel)
$5.00 (slightly smaller than the current half-dollar) Or it could be set at $2 to avoid overlap with a $5 note.
Currency Notes:
$5 (optional)
$10
$20 (optional)
$50
$100
$500
Our current 6 coins are replaced with 4.
Our current 7 notes are replaced with 4-6.
If you want to talk about making coins out of silver or gold, I’m even more enthusiastic:
$1000 gold coin (1 oz)
$500 gold coin (1/2 oz)
$100 gold coin (1/10 oz)
$20 silver coin (1 oz)
$10 silver coin (1/2 oz)
$2 silver coin (1/10 oz)
$1 copper or base metal coin (1/2 oz)
$0.50 copper or base metal coin (1/4 oz)
$0.10 copper or base metal coin (1/10 oz)
Yes it is... but I'm beginning to think that it just might be that 'enema' will only come at the hand of the Creator Himself.
““The People” reject the dollar coin or the merchants reject it?”
I suppose they’re one and the same, but I rarely see merchants using the dang things either. They seem like more of an inconvienience that clutter up the till - like $2.00 bills - they try and push them off as change.
The people on the thread pointing out that the government will have to pull paper dollars to get us to use dollar coins are correct. Forcing us is the only way.
It’ll never happen - very far too much public opposition and shock to the monetary system as we have known it.
a P.S. - more likely the world will see a ‘cashless’ system that runs completely without any kind of money.
Very rarely have they really tried to reign in government spending. :\
BTDT and it didn’t work. What makes them think it’ll work this time? The country is in crisis and this is all they can do?
LOL! Double! Try five times, unless they aslo try to circulate the ton of $2 bills in the vaults.
How is this a priority for anyone right now??
I feel guilty, but I like the dollar coins.
The Canadians have loonies and toonies. We could have onesies and twosies. My only problem with the whole thing is I can’t stick one to my forehead to be picked off by certain young ladies with the proper appendages.
LOL!! Jiggle and Jingle at the same time!
LOL - long as we don't have threesies - we all know they're 'phony.' (But, what the hay, they're all already getting that way.)
Damned good question, especially with 'trillions' being spent by BHO on whatever squirrel-hole Obama wants to stuff it down - with nary a peep from the stinkin' media whores.
Airport TSA Agents getting rich one coin at a time.
A dollar buys what a quarter did in 1971. It's silly to carry a stack of them around. Instead of whining about such a silly thing, Americans should be telling the Fed to stop inflating the dollar.
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