This issue isn't on most people's radar screens, but it really would be nice if we emulated other countries and made different bills different sizes so that blind people could tell the difference between a $1 bill and a $20 bill. While we're at it, in fact, we can get rid of the $1 bill and replace it with a coin and scrap the penny, too. That's change I can believe in.
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Size Matters
21 May 2008 01:11 pm
Comments (70)
Sounds good, except the $1 coin. I don't want any coins banging around in my pockets.
It would be nice. Considering the myriad issues with with this country is faced, it also is trivial.
We have, as you know, tried to coin $1 currency many times. It has always failed to catch on. I always liked Susan B Anthonys. I still have quite a few. Wonder if they are worth much?
Clearly Matt is part of the fascist anti-small-wallet crowd.
Do we really need to follow the prissy Euros and get big wallets like them?
We full-blooded Americans like our wallets small, and won't stand for oversized money!
And it won't stop there. It's like a domino effect. First we have to change our wallets, then the wallets won't fit in our jean pockets so we have to get new jeans or worse get manpurses (ugh!).
Then we'll have to change every single ATM, every single coke machine with a dollar slot, it will never stop!
Please Matt, think harder about these things before you cough them up on your blog.
Why don't you spend your time working on cures for blindness instead if you're so concerned about it.
My husband used to go to the State Capitol complex in Harrisburg, PA for meetings and was a bit shocked one day to see a blind cashier working one of the registers in a cafeteria. He said that everyone he saw was very honest about the amount of money that they were handing to her so that she gave out proper change. A state employee that he was with said that she's been working there for years and everyone looks out for her to make sure that no one cheats her out of money.
I'm not sight-impaired but I would love it if I could reach into my wallet one-handed while holding my child with the other and be able to tell what bills I was pulling out.
If you're carring $4 around, would you rather have 4 bills in your wallet, or 4 coins in your pocket? I can't imagine preferring the coins, but maybe I'm weird.
And since no one seems capable of discussing this without bringing up the problem of tips for strippers, consider it brought up.
Clearly Matt is part of the fascist anti-small-wallet crowd.
Do we really need to follow the prissy Euros and get big wallets like them?
It's even worse than this. Matthew and his elitist liberal friends would have us all buy man purses manufactured in France by dirty gay frenchman! This switch to man-bags is simply step 1 in Matthew's homosexualization agenda.
Surely there are better approaches to fixing this than different sizes. Why not serrate one end with different patterns or punch small holes along one side or raised bumps (though the bumps make stacking less good, the holes would probably be better.)
Considering the myriad issues with with this country is faced, it also is trivial.
Right, and considering the myriad issues the whole world is faced with -- earthquakes in China, cylcones in Myanmar, a war in Iraq, political violence in Zimbabwe, I could of course go on -- pretty much every issue on the political radar screen in the US is trivial. We really should just stop trying to people's lives better in any way.
Clearly, it is unpatriotic to criticize American money.
We have, as you know, tried to coin $1 currency many times. It has always failed to catch on.
That will continue to happen so long as there are $1 paper bills.
Paper is more convenient and if there were simply a question of consumer preference, paper will always win out. I suspect that if you were to introduce a 25 cent paper note, the use of quarters would decline.
If the goal, however, is to have a dollar currency that can stay in circulation a long time, the obvious solution is to discontinue paper dollars in favor of coins.
Unfortunately, people are going to gripe and politicians get real nervous when their constituents get upset.
a blind cashier working one of the registers in a cafeteria. He said that everyone he saw was very honest
everyone....he....saw?
Because punching holes in paper currency wouldn't cut its already short lifespan even shorter.
Ridiculous comments like the ones above (save brent) are typical of the idiotic regressiveness that leave the USA saddled with the genuinely moronic imperial system of measurement.
Don't scrap the penny. Just make it worth a nickel.
The psychological benefit would outweigh the impact on inflation.
We have, as you know, tried to coin $1 currency many times. It has always failed to catch on.
That will continue to happen so long as there are $1 paper bills.
Paper is more convenient and if there were simply a question of consumer preference, paper will always win out. I suspect that if you were to introduce a 25 cent paper note, the use of quarters would decline.
If the goal, however, is to have a dollar currency that can stay in circulation a long time, the obvious solution is to discontinue paper dollars in favor of coins.
Unfortunately, people are going to gripe and politicians get real nervous when their constituents get upset.
"everyone....he....saw?"
That was a very unintentional pun. I was referring to my husband, not the cashier.
Re: the problem of tips for strippers
Coinslots?
a blind cashier working one of the registers in a cafeteria. He said that everyone he saw was very honest
everyone....he....saw?
I think those concerned about tips for strippers should use $2 bills.
It will be interesting if we finally make some progress on improving our currency because of a lawsuit involving accessibility for the hearing-impaired. Prove that equal access benefits us all or proof that you can only get things done when the government has the cover of, "our hands are tied! the courts have ruled against us!"
While we're at it, in fact, we can get rid of the $1 bill and replace it with a coin and scrap the penny, too. That's change I can believe in.
But not change you can Xerox...
No $1 coin. The Anthony dollar and the Sagagawea (sp?) dollar didn't catch on.
This is one of those ideas that sounds good but sucks. For awhile, for public transport, I was using $1 coins. They suck. They're heavy, they bounce around, you can't put them in your wallet so they fall out, etc. They're just awful. No.
While we're at it, in fact, we can get rid of the $1 bill and replace it with a coin and scrap the penny, too. That's change I can believe in.
But not change you can Xerox...
"a blind cashier working one of the registers in a cafeteria. He said that everyone he saw was very honest"
everyone....he....saw?
"It would be nice. Considering the myriad issues with with this country is faced, it also is trivial."
It's also trivial to fix. So what's your problem?
"Clearly Matt is part of the fascist anti-small-wallet crowd."
Given that opening sentence, I thought for sure that comment was going to be ironic. But, no, to my amazement it was earnest. Oh, the horror of replacing vending machines!
The concern trolling at the end ("why don't you spend your time working on cures for blindness instead if you're so concerned about it") just adds icing to the cake of the comment's absurdity and moral bankruptcy.
How hard would it be to give every blind person a little scanner for their wallets that would chirp once for a single, twice for a five, etc.? Can't be hard to design, can it -- it wouldn't have to scan very much of the edge of any bill, and wouldn't have to be very sophisticated. Seems that would be much cheaper than retrofitting all the machines that handle currency.
We have, as you know, tried to coin $1 currency many times. It has always failed to catch on.
That will continue to happen so long as there are $1 paper bills.
Paper is more convenient and if there were simply a question of consumer preference, paper will always win out. I suspect that if you were to introduce a 25 cent paper note, the use of quarters would decline.
If the goal, however, is to have a dollar currency that can stay in circulation a long time, the obvious solution is to discontinue paper dollars in favor of coins.
Unfortunately, people are going to gripe and politicians get real nervous when their constituents get upset.
Thank you for all your support sighted people.
Good to know a few of you think equality for the visually impaired is trivial. I suggest the next time you pay cash somewhere you just close your eyes reach into your wallet or purse and give the cashier whatever selection of bills you think is appropriate for the transaction. I am sure they will give you the correct change if you overpay.
"If you're carring $4 around, would you rather have 4 bills in your wallet, or 4 coins in your pocket? I can't imagine preferring the coins, but maybe I'm weird."
After being to Europe where there are coins in 1 and 2 denominations, I prefer the coins. It is nice when paying for a soda, so just pull out a couple of coins instead of always reaching for your wallet.
The reason why I used to think change in the pocket sucked was because it was worthless. Once it became worth something, it was kind of nice to use it all. Not to mention that I also used the smaller coins up more often as well because they were already in hand.
One problem with the recent dollar coins is that they're too similar in size, shape, thickness to the quarter. I like the English pound -- the coin has a small diameter, but it's much thicker than other coins.
And I like the idea to make the penny worth a nickel. In other words, create a New Dollar that's worth five times the current one. The dollar, as our basic currency unit, has become too small in value.
We have, as you know, tried to coin $1 currency many times. It has always failed to catch on.
That will continue to happen so long as there are $1 paper bills.
Paper is more convenient and if there were simply a question of consumer preference, paper will always win out. I suspect that if you were to introduce a 25 cent paper note, the use of quarters would decline.
If the goal, however, is to have a dollar currency that can stay in circulation a long time, the obvious solution is to discontinue paper dollars in favor of coins.
Unfortunately, people are going to gripe and politicians get real nervous when their constituents get upset.
Yes to the $1 coin, and scrap the $1 bill, cold turkey. People will get used to it pretty quickly.
The coins are actually cheaper in the long run for the U.S. gov't because they last so much longer. Also, they'll work better with vending machines.
As to the strippers, I did read an article that there has been a surge in demand in the past few years for $2 bills, all of which can be attributed to strip clubs.
If you're carring $4 around, would you rather have 4 bills in your wallet, or 4 coins in your pocket? I can't imagine preferring the coins, but maybe I'm weird.
I can. Coinage transactions in the US are one-way. You pay with notes, you receive coins, you chuck them in a jar at the end of the day. Perhaps you use them in vending machines or the laundromat or parking meters, but there's a social discomfort towards paying people with coins, not least because the lowest coin in common circulation is the quarter.
When I open my wallet, I want to be spending real money, not fifty-euro-cent notes. (Low-value paper money is something you mostly find in third-world countries.) When I'm buying a magazine or a cup of coffee, I'd like to use the change in my pocket. The $1 bill is designed to make you feel like you have money in your wallet, when in fact you have $7.
Replacing the dollar bill with a $2 bill would go a long way to supporting the dollar coin. Refusing to do that and leaving the dollar bill in circulation makes replacement impossible.
The other problem is that the coins themselves are the wrong size, but they refuse to change that because some machines are still designed to use them as is. Coloring them differently was a good step, but its the size that needs to change. Of all of the coins I have ever used, the £1 UK coin is my favorite by far. I wouldn't mind seeing an American version.
As for scrapping the penny, I've been saying that we should double its value for years now. Everyone thinks I'm crazy.
Canadians these days prefer the loonie to the dollar bill. The switch was so successful that they swapped the $2 bill for the 'twonie'. Now we don't use any bill smaller than a five.
The secret to a successful switch is to withdraw the bill at the same time as you introduce the coin. That's needed to overcome inertia. After a few years, people prefer the coins as being more easily handled and carried, and more conveniently used in vending machines (no more idiot optical bill scanners that reject your dollar).
I spent six years working in the U.S., and it was a continual irritation to me to have a thick wad of bills in my pocket that added up to only $13. I also didn't like having to pull out the whole wad of bills just to find a single so I could buy a drink.
Easier said than done. Millions of machines nationwide designed to receive and dispense bills would have to at least be retrofitted if not replaced.
retrofitting ATMs alone would run into the billions and if they had to be replaced it would be tens of billions.
I've always admired the Euro method as being more logical than ours, but then, they've mostly given up their proud currencies.
And, if memory serves, our Mother Country, which has kept the noble pound sterling, also has all its paper denominations in the same size.
All that said, put me in the "I don't much care" camp as to size of our bills. As long as they are safe from counterfeiters and everyone will accept them as legal tender (exceptions including taxicab drivers from uninhabitable corners of the globe...)
As for the $1 coin, the Anthony flopped because a) it was too close in size and heft the a quarter, b) as mentioned above, paper dollars remained in circulation.
Ditto for the Sacagawea dollar coin, which is still in "circulation" but which you won't see more than once or twice a year. Perhaps its failure may be tied to nobody knowing who she was, or being able to spell her name without looking it up (yes, I did. That's why God gave us Google.)
Rather than be bothered by the size of our currency, the better approach is to use none: go electronic; use bank debits for everyday expenses.
And since no one seems capable of discussing this without bringing up the problem of tips for strippers, consider it brought up.
The strip club prints up its own funny money, and customers buy that to give to the strippers.
Easier said than done. Millions of machines nationwide designed to receive and dispense bills would have to at least be retrofitted if not replaced.
retrofitting ATMs alone would run into the billions and if they had to be replaced it would be tens of billions.
Having had this discussion many times, I am not sure there is much point. But I would note it always strikes me as strange that the paper dollar proponents are not also agitating for paper quarters, dimes, and so on.
By the way, I believe the current $1 bill was designed in 1963. My inflation calculator says $1 in 2008 is worth a rocking 14 cents in 1963 terms. I believe the first $1 note of this size was issued in 1929. $1 in 2008 is worth about 8 cents in 1929 terms.
So, in other words, people clinging to the paper dollar in 2008 are in fact holding onto today's equivalent of paper dimes (in terms of actual monetary value).
Yeah, the sucker customers. The clubs charge like a 15% fee for their funny money, and they're not giving any of that to the girls.
So I'm told.
I like the idea of a dollar coin, but the US has not done a very good job of execution. When the UK phased out ₤1 notes, a new coin was devised to replace it. Maybe they had seen the various failures over here, but the ₤1 coin is a fat heavy little thing that you will not mistake for any other coin. I have had a number of $1 coins and recall spending exactly one as $1 ... the rest were (it would seem) used as if they were quarters. The current "gold" color being used is absurd, unless the Treasury is staffed with people who can detect color with their fingertips (and seem to assume this is a quality everyone has). The ₤1 coin is attractive so we can let the Treasury folks get going on designing a national bus token and maybe get the Brits who devised their coin to work over here. The Sacagaweia dollar is good, but the "thinness" of the coin leaves a lot to be desired. I assume many vending machines could not accept it, but surely this was encountered in the UK.
Millions of machines nationwide designed to receive and dispense bills would have to at least be retrofitted if not replaced.
This is absolutely no reason to stop progress. Look at the upsides. Many new machines could be made cheaper since they could leave out the dollar bill scanner altogether. Those that did have bill scanners could dispense more expensive items since putting in a $5 bill for a $2 item would cause the machine to merely give 3 dollar coins in change, rather than 12 quarters. That opens up a whole new world of more expensive items to vending machines.
Don't get caught up in the power of inertia.
"Paper is more convenient and if there were simply a question of consumer preference, paper will always win out."
What is familiar is the consumer preference, it has nothing to do with convenience. I would hate having a 25-cent paper note, my wallet fills up with $1 bills too much anyways.
I've always admired the Euro method as being more logical than ours, but then, they've mostly given up their proud currencies.
And, if memory serves, our Mother Country, which has kept the noble pound sterling, also has all its paper denominations in the same size.
All that said, put me in the "I don't much care" camp as to size of our bills. As long as they are safe from counterfeiters and everyone will accept them as legal tender (exceptions including taxicab drivers from uninhabitable corners of the globe...)
As for the $1 coin, the Anthony flopped because a) it was too close in size and heft the a quarter, b) as mentioned above, paper dollars remained in circulation.
Ditto for the Sacagawea dollar coin, which is still in "circulation" but which you won't see more than once or twice a year. Perhaps its failure may be tied to nobody knowing who she was, or being able to spell her name without looking it up (yes, I did. That's why God gave us Google.)
Rather than be bothered by the size of our currency, the better approach is to use none: go electronic; use bank debits for everyday expenses.
It's not trivial. There are a lot of blind people who would benefit from a change in currency design. And we actually spend more money than the currency and coins are worth minting pennies and printing dollar bills. Plus, the reason we keep these things isn't some high mindedness about tradition but very effective rent-seeking lobbying by the industries that benefit from currency production and coinage.
It's a pretty significant form of corporate welfare and wasteful government spending, actually.
And since no one seems capable of discussing this without bringing up the problem of tips for strippers, consider it brought up.
The strip club prints up its own funny money, and customers buy that to give to the strippers.
Yeah, the awkwardness of using paper money for gambling at table games hasn't managed to throttle the casino business.
The reason why I used to think change in the pocket sucked was because it was worthless. Once it became worth something, it was kind of nice to use it all
When traveling in Germany 5 years ago, it was awesome to use the 2 euro coin to purchase beers. My friends and I began referring to these as "beer tokens." Unfortunately, American bars rarely have beers for sale costing less than several dollars, unless it is a special promotional night.
"And, if memory serves, our Mother Country, which has kept the noble pound sterling, also has all its paper denominations in the same size."
Nope. All the UK notes in circulation are differently sized depending on value, with the size increasing according to value.
"retrofitting ATMs alone would run into the billions and if they had to be replaced it would be tens of billions."
Not really. ATMS are not designed for one specific market and can take a range of note sizes.
They cant get rid of the penny. If they do, then it will be totally impossible to convince them to come up with a 9/10 cent piece so I could properly pay for gasoline.
Easier said than done. Millions of machines nationwide designed to receive and dispense bills would have to at least be retrofitted if not replaced.
As someone above noted, new machines become cheaper to manufacture because they don't need to include optical bill scanners; it also eliminates the consumer quandary of paying for a Coke with a $5 and getting $3.75 in quarters as change.
But really, the key point is that machines got changed over in Europe and Canada without vending machine companies going bust. The transition isn't overnight, it happens over a couple years as banks take bills in and hand out coins to merchants. That gives the vending machine companies time to phase in replacements that avoids a large one-time cost. As I recall, there was even a period of a few years in Canada where dollar bill machines still existed even though no dollars were in circulation--those machines were simply allowed to finish their lifespan and be replaced with a dollar coin accepting unit.
Progress isn't free, but it's usually worth it in the long run.
Also, dollar coins last longer than dollar bills, so are cheaper to provide as money.
retrofitting ATMs alone would run into the billions and if they had to be replaced it would be tens of billions.
Why would ATMs have to be refitted? They dispense 20s, maybe 5s. You don't deposit singles into ATMs, you spend them.
One side benefit to dollar coins is that your coin jar becomes an incremental savings account. Many Canadians empty theirs annually and buy a new TV or couch. Throwing a dollar or two in every day adds up.
Anyone who complains about this issue being trivial is invited to walk around with a blind person for a day to find out exactly how trivial that is.
Secondly, one of the reasons behind the death of the dollar coin is the paper lobby-- the lobby that makes the paper for US dollar bills, that is. The Treasury was forbidden to advertise or publicize the coin in any way that would make the coin seem superior-- like talking about how much the government would save if people switched over.
Also let's note that vending machines are reprogrammed every time currency is changed, including those fancy state quarters everyone seems to love so much. Somehow the economy has not collapsed.
It seems to me that any of the other ways of making a bill distinguishable by touch would be preferable to different sizes. (Textured strips . . . braille bumps . . . notches . . . heavier paper for larger bills.) Just because the Europeans do it by size doesn't mean it's the only way.
The 500 Euro note, while extremely sexy, is just ridiculously unwieldy and impractical.
This was discussed on MetaFilter the other day. A few points to keep in mind:
* Every country in Europe switched their currencies entirely just a few years ago, and the sky didn't fall;
* many, many countries have currency that is usable by the blind; many made the transition recently without undergoing economic collapse;
* no one has provided, as far as I can tell, any cite for the actual cost that would be associated with this switch except worst-case armchair speculation of "millions or billions of dollars."
This would not be hard to accomplish. If we'd started in 2002, when the Bush administration started fighting this, we'd practically be done by now, as the average life of a dollar bill is only 21 months. As the MetaFilter thread points out, US currency has already been radically redesigned several times in the last few decades; it is merely obstinacy that keeps us from implementing a simple solution that would make life for the blind a little easier, and which sighted people wouldn't even notice a few weeks after implementation.
This issue may seem trivial to some people, but it drives me nuts. Why so muck knee-jerk opposition to something so eminently sensible?
I think different sized bills is a good idea. Not only would it help blind people, but it would also help fight counterfeiters.
From a recent news story: "While the Government is worrying about making money accessible for everyone, the Secret Service is just trying to make sure its real.
Officials say more and more counterfeit bills are being printed on real money. Counterfeiters bleach five dollar bills and reprint them as $100 dollar bills. The fake money looks real, and isn't detected by some machines because it is real currency paper."
If the $5 bill was a different size than the $100 bill, counterfeiters couldn't bleach them and pass them off as a higher denominaton.
This was discussed on MetaFilter the other day. A few points to keep in mind:
* Every country in Europe switched their currencies entirely just a few years ago, and the sky didn't fall;
* many, many countries have currency that is usable by the blind; many made the transition recently without undergoing economic collapse;
* no one has provided, as far as I can tell, any cite for the actual cost that would be associated with this switch except worst-case armchair speculation of "millions or billions of dollars."
This would not be hard to accomplish. If we'd started in 2002, when the Bush administration started fighting this, we'd practically be done by now, as the average life of a dollar bill is only 21 months. As the MetaFilter thread points out, US currency has already been radically redesigned several times in the last few decades; it is merely obstinacy that keeps us from implementing a simple solution that would make life for the blind a little easier, and which sighted people wouldn't even notice a few weeks after implementation.
This issue may seem trivial to some people, but it drives me nuts. Why so muck knee-jerk opposition to something so eminently sensible?
Actually, an Australian once told me that he loved having money in different sizes, because it was easier to tell how much money you had when you were drunk!
if memory serves, our Mother Country, which has kept the noble pound sterling, also has all its paper denominations in the same size.
Your memory may have lost its tip on account of poor service: the notes, starting with the £5, go up in size as they go up in value.
(As for vending machine companies, they coped with the pound coin in Britain -- you'll never find a bill reader on a Coke machine in the UK or Eurozone -- and the resizing of the 5p and 10p and 50p.)
But it's going to take a decision like this to change things: doing it because it's sensible, as opposed to legally compelled, is never going to get past the copper and zinc lobby (useless penny) the Crane company (currency paper), the vending machine lobby and the cash register lobby.
I thought we were all supposed to have bar codes tattooed onto or foreheads by now?
Different size money will impacts a good deal of infrastructure. That makes it hard to change.
As for the $1 note vs coin. I disagree. Having traveled in Euro-lands and Japan, I always have a heavy load of coins in my pocket. $1 are light and easy to wade up in my pocket. I like that over metal disks.
I suppose the overal cost would be lower for the US Treasury to use $1 coins exclusively since the coins last so much longer, but that is only a hunch since I do not know the $ coin production and handling costs.
No, no $1 coins please, at least not in place of the $1 bill. I already carry enough crap in my pockets, don't need more weight pulling my pants down!
Aesthetically, when a street violinist has his instrument case gleeming with one and two Euro coins, it looks really neat. And I am sure that the artist does not mind the extra weight. Besides, who would give 2 dollars to a musician in USA?
I was wondering why "we were all supposed to have bar codes tattooed onto our foreheads " -- perhaps with a tattoo of a regular customers, say "Tootsie's" you would get a discount on beer?
One thing about our illogical system of coins and bills is that is bespokes not of intelligent design but tradition. Surely, it would be safer for a fiedler to play somewhere else than on a roof...
Having traveled in Euro-lands and Japan, I always have a heavy load of coins in my pocket.
When you're in Japan and Euro-land, do you buy things with those coins? Or do you just continue the American habit of thinking that coins are what you get in return for purchases, to be dumped into a jar at the end of the day?
As I have suggested before in another thread... scrap the dime, the paper dollar, the $10 bill. Replace with a dollar coin (Eisenhower-size dollar).
Coins = penny, nickel, quarter, dollar.
Bills = five, twenty, hundred (go ahead and make them three different sizes).
No more "boutique" coinage.
A simplified currency system, and it could be accomplished with ease.
No, no $1 coins please, at least not in place of the $1 bill. I already carry enough crap in my pockets, don't need more weight pulling my pants down!
You do realize you could exchange five of them for one $5 bill?
don't scrap the penny ... i have a better idea!
all pennies should escheat to the state.
granted this is a regressive additional value-added-tax on any purchase, but the maximum amount it can possibly be is 4c per purchase, so it hardly matters. no one actually has any need for pennies.
this would be a simple, straightforward tax that would hurt no one and generate -- i don't know -- but i am guessing hundreds of millions of dollars if not over a billion to the treasury per year. how many financial transactions are consummated in a year?
it works easily: let's say i buy something worth $1.63. i pay $2, receive 35c in change and the additional 2 pennies get kicked back to the government.
if the pennies were no longer negotiable currency, i.e. if you couldn't actually use them to pay for anything, there would be no incentive for the store to not kick the pennies back.
at the end of the week/month the pennies could be picked up/returned to the treasury which could either than retire them (in return for larger, negotiable currency) or reissue them, either way generating significant revenue.
Just to clarify: I'm not criticising George if he's habituated to accumulate change.
I'm just saying that Americans are used to dealing with coins as the byproduct of a purchase rather than its instrument. I've encountered Americans on extended stays in the UK who complained that their money was being used up fast. They also had jangling pockets. When they counted up their change, it came to £20-30, money that a habituated Brit would be spending on small purchases.
(Similarly, non-Americans in the US have to unlearn habits when they realise that it's nigh-on impossible to pay a human being for a small purchase in coins.)
"When traveling in Germany 5 years ago, it was awesome to use the 2 euro coin to purchase beers. My friends and I began referring to these as "beer tokens." Unfortunately, American bars rarely have beers for sale costing less than several dollars, unless it is a special promotional night."
This is an important point...the convenience of dollar coins is directly correlated with how easy it is to buy anything with them. In Canada, where I lived for four years, so I had time to get used to the idea, I was always annoyed to buy some small thing with a tenner, and get back some enormous stack of coins, and then have to carry the whole stack around if I wanted to buy anthing, because, frankly, how many things can you get for a buck? You can't even get a coffee for a buck, and with sales tax, 99 cent crap is alwazs a dollar five or six or so.
On the other hand, here in the Czech Republic, where they have the rough equivalent of one and two dollar coins (or so they were before the dollar tanked in the fall), you can actually buy a lot of shit with just one coin because of lower prices. I can toss out one coin and get lunch or a pack of smokes or five tram rides. I happen to think this is great, but it would not be the same experience at home. I'd sooner we replaced the five dollar bill with a coin than the one.
Having said all that, it is obviously disgraceful that we haven't figured out a way to accommodate the blind.
Bills could be differentiated by cutting corners. They would continue to work in current machines, and could be printed exactly the same way they are now on exactly the same paper. Unlike holes or serrations, it would not affect the durability of the bill.
There are seven ways you could arrange the cut or uncut corners without the possibility of symmetry causing confusion. Making the lowest denomination bill with all four corners cut eliminates the possibility of an alteration being done to fool the blind into accepting bills of lower value.
So,
Eliminate the 1&2, replaced by coins
$5 4 corners cut
$10 3 corners cut
$20 2 corners on long side cut
$50 2 corners on short side cut
$100 2 diagonally opposed corners cut
$500 1 corner cut
$1000 no corners cut
Problem solved with minimal cost or impact to the sighted.
Scrapping the paper dollar is too little too late. We should get rid of the dime and smaller coins, with coinage running from quarters up through $20, and bills starting at $20 and going up to $1000.
Comments closed June 04, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
It would be nice. Considering the myriad issues with with this country is faced, it also is trivial.
Posted by Miande | May 21, 2008 1:27 PM