New US Dollar Coins - What's the problem?

All true, but we’ll get them all, “failure” or not.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Let me “ax” you a “quession”, Sully. When you buy something for 7 dollars and change, and hand the clerk a ten, how do you “put away” your change of $2.XX? Of you’re like me, the 2 singles get wadded into the same pocket as the coins, and never see my wallet again. Clearly that makes them a “coin denomination”. It’s pretty simple and rational, see?

 

I know you were asking Sully, but at least for me, the singles go in my wallet with the rest of my bills. Change goes in my pocket until I get home and it goes in the jar after I look at 'em, then they're rolled for deposit periodically.

 

It’s really depends, and I do see the use for a coin, but I don’t see a massive need and I don’t see a huge issue with the system we have now. Biggest issue I see with a change over is size. We’ve had three different size changes over the past 47ish years. All of them still legal tender. The issue comes with cash processing. Three very different coins means three different orders of bags and rolls etc. These aren’t problems that are impossible to overcome (this new dollar series is about American Innovation right?) but why?

 

There are several studies showing how much money can be saved by the switch.

In the broad context of the US Economy they're all small potatoes. And there are other studies which say the first set are flawed.

No mater what you believe, you make certain assumptions about the patterns of circulation. These are based somewhere between historical (might or might not be true today) and fictional (or those repeated so many times they are accepted without question, whether true or not).

Knock on history: If there really is going to be a meaningful switch away from cash, it might not save anything, anyway. Or it might drastically alter the lifetime of paper money.

An illustrative example of when patterns change are Buffalo vs. Jefferson Nickels. We've all seen dateless Buffs, but almost slick Jeffs are rare. Why? It might be that during the time of issuance, the nickel was the work horse of the economy - street car, bus, subway rides, the automat, etc. but as prices moved up during and after the war, the nickel was used less...

The oft asked question of "What does it cost to mint a coin" / "Why is the surcharge on <issue> so high?" is an example. The mint has many fixed costs. And many variable costs.

Were the mint to stop making silver medals and commemoratives, they would have no need to purchase and store silver. But they still would have valuable assets and need to protect those. So stopping silver production wouldn't reduce costs by much if anything. Etc.

Pile 100s of fixed costs like that and you begin to see why you can cook the costs anyway you want.

 

Oh I can see why it cost more then face, I just don’t see a value over face.

 

Three size changes? There was the Ike to the small size dollar, What were the other two? (copper to plated zinc was a weight change not a size change)

 

Only one size change.

 

The SBA, Sac and Pres dollars are all the same size and weight.
26.5 mm 8.1 grams.

 

Not sure where I got 3 from, maybe I’m thinking ahead too far?

 

...and they ALSO have identical electrical “signatures” too. SBA’s and all the “yaller” ones work side by side in the same vending machines.

 

A check

 

If you really want to make the dollar coin circulate, this is how you do it - once again, follow the Canadians. Make a usable dollar coin (not too big, not too small, and different from the quarter). Stop printing dollar bills and print more $2 bills.

Ta-da!!!

 

Canada also stopped printing the $2.

 

Of course Canada's dollar coin and ours are just about IDENTICAL in size. The fact that Canadians manage to successfully use theirs and we somehow can't really doesn't speak well of us.

 

I keep a couple bux in my pocket...otherwise no big-mack for me.

 

Japan currently issues up to 500 Yen coins. At current rate of exchange this is $5. 100 Yen coins ($1) are very common. The smallest bank notes seem to start at 1000 Yen ($10). Other nations seen to be able to do it: why not the US?

 

Same answer already given about 100000 times over...the dollar bill is in circulation still!!!

 

When I was a kid a dollar could buy almost 4 gallons of gas ($12 now).
And 20 Hershey bars (larger than the current bars at .69) $13.80.
So since a dollar is worth less than a dime (by comparison), we could EASILY get rid of 1 and 2 dollar bills, bring the 1+ billion dollar coins out of storage and make a nice $5 coin.
BUT THAT MAKES TOO MUCH PRACTICAL SENSE.
Oh yeah and stop making pennies, that's ridiculous.

 

woof