Here's one way the government can cut back a little. Stop wasting money on things Americans clearly don't want to use:
Can George Washington and Thomas Jefferson succeed where Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea failed? The U.S. Mint is hoping America's presidents will win acceptance, finally, for the maligned dollar coin.
The public will get the chance to decide starting in February when the first of the new coins, bearing the image of the first president, is introduced.
Comments
One curious aspect to this....might this be another way to "wean" America from paper money altogether?
Ever since the gold standard was abandoned in 1933, all the former "major" coinage we used to carry such as gold coins in increments of $5, $10, $20, and yes, even the venerable "silver" dollar have become anachronistic relics from a simpler time, primarily serving as fodder for collectors. How many HALF-DOLLARS do you get as change these days?
((pop quiz...who used to be ON the face of the 1/2 dollar before 1964?))
With the mountains of taxdollars already spent on countermeasures to defeat counterfeiters, isn't America (subliminally) TRYING to convert to a "paperless money" society?
(try printing out a $5 COIN on your Lexmark color scanner/fax/printer, folks...ain't gonna happen...!)
Coins have a much greater longevity than any type of paper currency, and although they are much costlier to produce, wouldn't this be the interim step before we go totally over to the "Plastic Standard"?
I can see a time fast approaching where we have a combination debit-credit card/internet access card/photo ID/driver license/voter registration/ccw permit/library card/hunting license, etc...complete with DNA registration and thumb-print or retinal scan included.
It's not "sci-fi" any longer...
The tech (for such indentification) is here now...waiting to be applied with even much more of "you" encoded into them.
An intriguing premise indeed.
(or it could all be just another collecting gig like the state quarters...lol)
;)
B.G.
I do not think the coin dollars will work for the following reasons:
1)Paper money weighs less; sure one coin isn't that bad, but when you have 20 or 30 dollars worth in your pocket, and your pants are falling down, that's a different story.
2) Paper money doesn't jingle. That's why people don't carry too many coins now. They make too much noise, in an annoying tone. I don't intend to carry around a wind chime, why do I need more coins in my pants jingling with every little step I take?
3) Collectors. The Sacajawea dollar didn't work, despite attempts at opening up the vending machine market to accept them, in part, because of collectors. A lot of people went to stores to get them, but nobody spent them. Everybody wants to save the "new" coin for posterity (first pressings of coins are always worth a lot a hundred years later when few survive).
4) No, you can't print out a coin on your computer, but it is easier to make a good plaster mold and fill it with either molten metal, epoxy, or even molten solder. These can then be painted or shined to give the appropriate look. I don't expect this to happen with one dollar bills, but should there be 20 dollar coins and 50 dollar coins (to replace paper money). To weigh the advantages of paper money to coins (to counterfitting), it would be much more low tech to counterfit coins than paper. That means a lot more difficult to notice the difference,and trace. Once the mold is broken, there is no evidence.
Stick with paper money, in the long run, it will be better.
That would be Benjamin Franklin on the fifty cent piece.
Don't underestimate the forward thinking involved here. ;&)
It's clear the government thinks that one of these days the dollar is going to be pocket change -- the new penny, or quarter, fifty cent piece, whatever.
They are no doubt right, since they control such matters. Susan B. Anthony, therefore, was not so much a failure as a harbinger, a pioneer, again.
If we don't like 'em in heavy metals, maybe aluminum or titanium will become the new grist for coinage. I wonder how small a titanium-plated dollar would have to be not to be worth more melted down....? Like the penny, it might have to get smaller in time.