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<p>[QUOTE="Numbers, post: 642174, member: 11668"]Um...yes, let's do the math. The total is indeed almost 4 billion dollar coins, but that number is <i>tiny</i> compared to the number that would be needed if there were no more dollar bills.</p><p><br /></p><p>First of all, <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin/currcircvolume.txt" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin/currcircvolume.txt" rel="nofollow">according to the Fed</a>, there are currently some 9.5 billion $1 notes outstanding, in addition to probably a billion-plus of those dollar coins that are already out there in commerce rather than in FRB vaults or collectors' hoards.</p><p><br /></p><p>Next, note that when Canada replaced its $1 bill with a $1 coin, they found that they needed roughly three times as many of the coins as of the bills to meet demand. This is because coins circulate differently from bills: they sit idle in vending machine coin boxes, people's change jars, &c. for much longer periods of time than bills do, so it takes more coins than bills to do the same job.</p><p><br /></p><p>Therefore, we can estimate that the U.S. would need an initial supply of roughly 30 billion dollar coins, if no dollar bills existed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, the dollar bill is generally believed to have an average circulation life of roughly 18 months. So the dollar bill can't go out of production until we're already quite close to having 30 billion dollar coins on hand. It'd be utterly impossible to stop printing dollar bills and <i>then</i> get all those dollar coins ready in such a short time.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even if the Mint decided to devote substantially all of its excess production time to dollar coins, it'd take several years to produce the missing 25 billion or so. And in fact they're doing no such thing--almost every Presidential dollar has had a lower mintage than the previous one, since the previous ones aren't circulating as much as the Mint had hoped.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thus it's pretty clear that nobody's planning on killing off the dollar bill. If they were, you'd see the Mint churning out dollar coins as fast as it could, even despite the lack of present-day demand, and socking them away in the vaults by the billions against the day when people would suddenly have no choice but to use them. Instead, we see the Mint offering free shipping on boxes of dollar coins in order to <i>prevent</i> them from accumulating in the vaults.</p><p><br /></p><p>The $1 bill may well be discontinued someday, but that day will not come as a surprise. It'll take years of preparation that'll be obvious to everybody. And for that very reason, it'll require a deliberate firm decision by Congress or the Treasury or somebody--none of the current "let's promote the dollar coin while the dollar bill still exists" stuff is going to move us one iota in that direction.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Numbers, post: 642174, member: 11668"]Um...yes, let's do the math. The total is indeed almost 4 billion dollar coins, but that number is [I]tiny[/I] compared to the number that would be needed if there were no more dollar bills. First of all, [URL="http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin/currcircvolume.txt"]according to the Fed[/URL], there are currently some 9.5 billion $1 notes outstanding, in addition to probably a billion-plus of those dollar coins that are already out there in commerce rather than in FRB vaults or collectors' hoards. Next, note that when Canada replaced its $1 bill with a $1 coin, they found that they needed roughly three times as many of the coins as of the bills to meet demand. This is because coins circulate differently from bills: they sit idle in vending machine coin boxes, people's change jars, &c. for much longer periods of time than bills do, so it takes more coins than bills to do the same job. Therefore, we can estimate that the U.S. would need an initial supply of roughly 30 billion dollar coins, if no dollar bills existed. Now, the dollar bill is generally believed to have an average circulation life of roughly 18 months. So the dollar bill can't go out of production until we're already quite close to having 30 billion dollar coins on hand. It'd be utterly impossible to stop printing dollar bills and [I]then[/I] get all those dollar coins ready in such a short time. Even if the Mint decided to devote substantially all of its excess production time to dollar coins, it'd take several years to produce the missing 25 billion or so. And in fact they're doing no such thing--almost every Presidential dollar has had a lower mintage than the previous one, since the previous ones aren't circulating as much as the Mint had hoped. Thus it's pretty clear that nobody's planning on killing off the dollar bill. If they were, you'd see the Mint churning out dollar coins as fast as it could, even despite the lack of present-day demand, and socking them away in the vaults by the billions against the day when people would suddenly have no choice but to use them. Instead, we see the Mint offering free shipping on boxes of dollar coins in order to [I]prevent[/I] them from accumulating in the vaults. The $1 bill may well be discontinued someday, but that day will not come as a surprise. It'll take years of preparation that'll be obvious to everybody. And for that very reason, it'll require a deliberate firm decision by Congress or the Treasury or somebody--none of the current "let's promote the dollar coin while the dollar bill still exists" stuff is going to move us one iota in that direction.[/QUOTE]
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