Economist calls for return of $500 bill

https://www.coinworld.com/news/pape...ls-for-the-return-of-the-500-dollar-note.html

While, as a collector, I'd like to see this happen (and also bring back the $1000 AND phase out the $1 in the same act), I just don't see this happening any time soon, if at all.

 

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I agree we need $500 and $1000 back. It's a pain carrying around all these hundreds.

 

Isn't the author completely ignoring the impact that this will have on counterfeiting?

 

But-but-but high-denomination bills are used entirely by black-marketeers and money launderers! If you're using cash in a transaction over $100, what are you trying to hide?

 

Nixon made the $100 the highest note, in an effort to deter drug smugglers.
That worked out well.
The 500 and 1000's were still in circulation at face value. And they were always on Let's Make a Deal. Monty would fan out all these huge bills.
Last coin show I went to, there must have been a million dollars in 500's and 1000's in the room. When I asked my old LCS (over 10 years ago) if he had any large bills, he said : No. They are all on EBay. But all these dealers at the show had them for sale.

 

I can’t see this happening.

They just finished phasing out the €500 in Europe.

 

Perhaps some people just like to go to a coin show and make some lawful purchases without leaving a paper trail out there for others to take advantage of. The fact that some people may wish to, as the writer puts it, "hide" what they are doing from the increased possibility of later having their accounts compromised, means they have a very good and lawful reason for using cash.

 

A million dollars in $10,000 bills, which were later sold individually. He should have held out. I think he got 30 or 40K apiece, (3-4M) and these same bills were reselling for 90,000 and 100,000.

 

Ah, so tax evasion.

(Wishing once again for a functional <sarcasm> tag...)

 

LOL! I had a financial planner tell me once that I should NOT buy anything from the US Mint, but confine any purchases to sellers who will allow the buy to remain anonymous... plausible, but. The Mint, he argued, offered an avenue to the government to identify individuals who were purposefully hiding wealth.

I am among those that think the paper dollar should be phased out. That part of the OP's post offers the most benefit to taxpayers who foot the bill for the expense of printing so many paper bills.

 

The biggest hindrance to this is the general public's resistance to change (this has been discussed ad infinitum in other threads). People will not switch to a dollar coin unless banks start giving them out in place of dollars and banks won't do this because people don't ask for them. As long as the paper bill is an option, a dollar coin will not work.

HOWEVER, the re-issuance of large bills ($500 and $1000) would likely be welcomed by those who prefer to carry cash and would not meet with much resistance. I'm not saying it will ever happen but from a public acceptance perspective, large bills would be more likely than the demise of the $1. Thus my original statement that a good path to get rid of the $1 would be to bundle it in any legislation to allow large bills. Kill the proverbial two birds with one stone.

 

I'm against phasing out the $1 bill. Putting 5s in a G-string could get expensive quick.

 

Nothing. Who wants to make the banking systems cut on every purchase mandatory?

 

Um, that would be "the banking systems". And they have much better lobbying and PR departments than we do.

 

too funny

 

That's what $2 are for!!!

 

The European Union has both a 200 and a 500 Euro note,though the latter is being phased out. When I am on one of my big coin buying expeditions I like the larger denominations as it makes it easier to pay for expensive coins. It would be nice if the U.S. did have a note that was a higher denomination than the $100. However I would be surprised if they did so.

 

Sadly(?) that's no longer true. If we'd replaced the paper $1 with a $1 coin back in the '80s or '90s, we would have saved a lot of money; and if we'd done it in the '00s we would have saved a little. But thanks to increasing metals prices and (even more so) improved processing equipment at the Fed which has extended the life of paper bills, we actually passed the break-even point sometime around 2011: the paper $1 is now more cost-effective than a switch to a $1 coin.

Predictably, the politicians from copper-producing states haven't stopped promoting the "savings" from switching to $1 coins, though....

 

Right, the €500 note will not be part of the second series. (€5 to €50 have already been updated, €100 and €200 will follow in early 2019.) And at some point in the future, the first generation will not be legal tender any more.

It seems naive to me to believe that criminal activities could be limited by doing away with such high denominations. Then again, I do not use those high value notes anyway, so why would I care. Switzerland, by the way, even has a 1,000 fr note - worth about 1,000 US dollars. And that denomination will also be part of the new series ...

Christian

 

Link to original article is below. Main arguments are that a cashless economy depends too much on fragile electronic and communications infrastructure. And the computers that run it are too easily hacked. Puerto Rico had to revert to cash after the recent hurricane. Those who didn't have cash were left out unless they could barter for goods and services.

Link: https://theconversation.com/in-defe...g-back-the-500-note-and-other-big-bills-85880

Cal