Obviously the big boys at the newspapers in this country have no need of ever trying to buy a sandwich in a company automat.
Due to the business downturn, and vastly improved productivity, fewer folks buy lunch or dinner at the company automat so fewer coins are needed. When employment rises more people will need to buy lunch or dinner and the demand for coins will increase.
Most of these automats continuously recycle the coins so this storage problem never happens. However, it's a derivative of the Great Obama Recession, not of stupidity at the Mint ~ although there is that too.
But, like the communists Russians, they will make them anyway because they were told to. What amazing government bureaucrats we have!
Our federal government is so nimble on its feet. This has been going on since 2005, and they’ve done nothing to correct their mistake?
It costs 30 cents to make a $1 coin, but the Fed purchases it for face value - and the U.S. Treasury pockets the difference.
At least with the coins, the parasites at the Fed aren’t pocketing the profit. I’ll take all coins.
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)
And just yesterday, I got on a bus here into NYC. There was a tourist group (from Australia, I think) waiting for the bus and asking questions. I saw one of them take a big bunch of those "dollar" coins (20 or more) out of his pocket.
ML/NJ
When the Reagan dollars come out, I will horde them.
Just because.
Is this a cha-ching! ping?
Drop the penny and possibly the nickel. There is nothing you can buy with a penny, and a dime is the lowest unit of measurement of a workers time that makes sense given the minimum wage. i.e., a minute at the minimum wage is a little less than a dime, so that's the lowest billable unit of time. By at least dropping the penny we free up a slot in the cash-register till.
Possibly add a $5 coin. I'm not real sure abou this, but folks I know in canuckistan seem to like it.
Drop the dollar bill. The velocity of a $1 bill is such that they wear out in months. It costs a lot of money to continually replace worn currency.
Add a $500 bill.
A $100 bill is the largest currently circulating bill. It's a laughably small amount of money in historical terms.
Maryland "Freak State" PING!