June 29, 2011

Dollar Coins

In Israel, the smallest paper money is the 20 shekel bill.
My preference would have been easier to carry 10 and 5 and maybe even 1 shekel bills in my wallet, but that wasn't an option because Israel only offers those denominations in coin form.
However, by the end of my 10 days there, I'd adapted to using coins for everything up to 20 shekels and life as we know it hadn't ended.For years, it has bothered me that we still mint and distribute pennies in the US, since nobody cares about them or wants them, and they actually cost more to produce than they're worth.[http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennycost.asp]
The Snopes article does point out that each penny is transacted many more times, which greatly reduces the penny's per-use cost. I still maintain that nobody wants them and that rounding to the nickel would be almost-universally accepted, but that's just my opinion.

Anyway, when my friend Justin shared this NPR article about dollar coins that are being minted year after year and then never put into circulation, I was a bit, shall we say, perturbed. [http://t.co/MhX3oTT]
That is billions (with a B!) in tax-payer money that, if not put into circulation, is essentially being flushed down the toilet by Congress and the Federal Reserve. Either phase out the dollar bill and force us to use these coins (which we will certainly adapt to if there's no other choice) or stop minting them!

Ridiculous.

1 comment:

  1. This total has to be the accountant in you, however, I'm 100% agreeing with this. It's not enough that this country doesn't already have enough debt, so let's make $1.2 bil on coins and sit on them while we complete the whole presidentancy which then makes us sit on $2 bil, All while being completed on taxpayers dollars...cool idea. I'm with you it is time to rule out the dollar bill and stop minting on these, cause really how many people out there really just carry around a $1.00 bill now a days.

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