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Get rid of the dollar bill, and use the dollar coin.
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<p>[QUOTE="Numbers, post: 1330772, member: 11668"]Try 4.8 cents in 2010, 5.5 cents in 2011. See Table 2 of <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/2011newcurrency.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/2011newcurrency.htm" rel="nofollow">this Federal Reserve budget document</a>. Clicking back a few years, the 2008 rate was 4.7 cents. The figures you're quoting appear to be the average costs for *all* denominations of currency, including the higher-denomination bills with more expensive security features.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, the latest production cost of a dollar coin, from the <a href="http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2010AnnualReport.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2010AnnualReport.pdf" rel="nofollow">Mint's 2010 annual report</a> (huge PDF file, see page 29) is 31.6 cents--and that's probably gone up a few cents in 2011 with rising metal prices.</p><p><br /></p><p>So a dollar coin costs six to eight times as much as a dollar bill, not the same amount as a dollar bill.</p><p><br /></p><p>Meanwhile, the latest estimates of dollar bill lifespan are about 40 months, as compared to 30 years for the dollar coin. So the coin lasts about nine times as long as the bill, not 15 times.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thus the dollar coin has only a very slight edge over the dollar bill in cost-effectiveness (nine times the lifespan for about seven times the cost). The savings obtained by switching from bills to coins wouldn't be enough to cover the startup costs of minting tens of billions of dollar coins. (That huge stockpile of unwanted dollar coins the Fed is sitting on? It's not even a tenth of the number we'd need if there were no dollar bills.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Canada and other countries switched from bills to coins in the '80s and '90s, when metals prices were lower and the switch made more sense from a cost-benefit standpoint. Probably we should've done it then too. But since we didn't do it then, it'd be fairly silly for us to do it now, when it no longer makes economic sense.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Numbers, post: 1330772, member: 11668"]Try 4.8 cents in 2010, 5.5 cents in 2011. See Table 2 of [URL="http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/foia/2011newcurrency.htm"]this Federal Reserve budget document[/URL]. Clicking back a few years, the 2008 rate was 4.7 cents. The figures you're quoting appear to be the average costs for *all* denominations of currency, including the higher-denomination bills with more expensive security features. On the other hand, the latest production cost of a dollar coin, from the [URL="http://www.usmint.gov/downloads/about/annual_report/2010AnnualReport.pdf"]Mint's 2010 annual report[/URL] (huge PDF file, see page 29) is 31.6 cents--and that's probably gone up a few cents in 2011 with rising metal prices. So a dollar coin costs six to eight times as much as a dollar bill, not the same amount as a dollar bill. Meanwhile, the latest estimates of dollar bill lifespan are about 40 months, as compared to 30 years for the dollar coin. So the coin lasts about nine times as long as the bill, not 15 times. Thus the dollar coin has only a very slight edge over the dollar bill in cost-effectiveness (nine times the lifespan for about seven times the cost). The savings obtained by switching from bills to coins wouldn't be enough to cover the startup costs of minting tens of billions of dollar coins. (That huge stockpile of unwanted dollar coins the Fed is sitting on? It's not even a tenth of the number we'd need if there were no dollar bills.) Canada and other countries switched from bills to coins in the '80s and '90s, when metals prices were lower and the switch made more sense from a cost-benefit standpoint. Probably we should've done it then too. But since we didn't do it then, it'd be fairly silly for us to do it now, when it no longer makes economic sense.[/QUOTE]
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Get rid of the dollar bill, and use the dollar coin.
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