Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Burton Strauss III, post: 3151823, member: 59677&quot;]There are several studies showing how much money can be saved by the switch.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the broad context of the US Economy they&#039;re all small potatoes. And there are other studies which say the first set are flawed.</p><p><br /></p><p>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).</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>An illustrative example of when patterns change are Buffalo vs. Jefferson Nickels. We&#039;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...</p><p><br /></p><p>The oft asked question of &quot;What does it cost to mint a coin&quot; / &quot;Why is the surcharge on &lt;issue&gt; so high?&quot; is an example. The mint has many fixed costs. And many variable costs.</p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;t reduce costs by much if anything. Etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>Pile 100s of fixed costs like that and you begin to see why you can cook the costs anyway you want.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in