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The U.S. and the Dollar Bill First it was silver dollars. When I was a kid, silver dollars were a special gift. They were big and heavy and we were told “you are not to spend it – it’s special.” And you know what, I don’t recall ever handing one to a cashier to buy comic books or candy or a yo-yo, the things we bought as youngsters. To this day, I have a small pouch of silver dollars that my parents, grandparents, and others gave me many years ago. The Treasury department, realizing that no one was using these silver dollars (in later years, they became composite metal), except for gifts, discontinued them. But in classic bureaucratic style, they couldn’t leave well enough alone. So they developed the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. A monumental failure. Not to be discouraged, our government decided that the problem was the color of the coin, so they invented the gold-toned Sacagawea dollar coin. A failure of biblical proportion. But our leaders are not easily dissuaded. In 2005 congress voted 422-6 to approve production of a new dollar coin to honor our presidents. Four new coins would be issued each year beginning in 2007 (now). So far, the Mint has issued Washington, Adams, and Jefferson dollar coins. They are also gold toned. Have you gotten any of these coins as change in Walgreens? Me neither. Wait—it gets better. The coins aren’t doing as well as expected (Duh!), so the government has authorized a marketing campaign of $80 million dollars to get the public enthused about them. How is it that every major economy has figured this money thing out, and the U.S. is helpless? Dollar coins work in England, Canada, and the Euro is probably the best example. So what’s the magic of why it works elsewhere and not in the U.S? Pretty simple—no dollar bills in those other places. Take the Euro—a brand new currency developed just a few years ago by a whole bunch of countries banding together. They developed a new currency from scratch. Great minds from 9 nations came together to do this. Never for a minute did they consider small paper dollars (euros). All denominations under five dollars were in coin form. And it works just fine. Throughout Europe the one Euro and two Euro coins are in common use. Somehow the U.S. government just doesn’t get it. If they want a dollar coin to succeed, they HAVE TO DISCONTINUE THE DOLLAR BILL. And if they do that, they will save a ton of money, because the bills have a life of 18 months, and the coins last 30 years. Click here for Previous Article - "How We Got Screwed by the Weathermen " Home
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