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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Numbers, post: 3582881, member: 11668&quot;]Wow, that&#039;s a very high density of misunderstandings....&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie5" alt=":confused:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>When a bill is replaced by a coin, it takes a *larger* number of coins than bills in order to maintain circulation.&nbsp; This is because coins spend relatively longer times sitting in people&#039;s coin jars, vending machine hoppers, &amp;c. before getting back into active circulation.&nbsp; Other countries that replaced bills by coins found that the number of coins needed was anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times the number of bills previously in circulation.&nbsp; The U.S. would probably be on the low end of that range, as Canada was.&nbsp; Still, to replace the 12.4 billion $1 notes currently in circulation, we&#039;d likely need close to 20 billion $1 coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>The inventory of $1 coins in storage topped out at 1.44 billion in 2012, and is now down to 1.11 billion, because demand for $1 coins does exist and the Mint hasn&#039;t made any for circulation since 2011.&nbsp; At current rates, the whole stockpile will be gone in another couple of decades.&nbsp; It&#039;s not nearly as huge as it&#039;s sometimes made out to be.</p><p><br /></p><p>They don&#039;t &quot;overproduce&quot; $1 bills.&nbsp; If they did, the extras would just sit in Fed vaults instead of circulating, and the Fed would reduce its order for $1 bills next year to allow the excess inventory to draw down.&nbsp; I&#039;m not sure why people think that the amount of currency produced is selected randomly by clueless people.&nbsp; It&#039;s not like Congress sets the print order, y&#039;know.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>NOS has it right upthread.&nbsp; Twenty or thirty years ago, metals were cheap and the paper $1 had a short lifespan, and switching to a $1 coin would have made good sense.&nbsp; But since then, metals prices have gone higher and improvements in the Fed&#039;s currency-processing equipment have more than quadrupled the average life of the paper $1.&nbsp; A lot of people still seem to believe that the $1 coin is the more cost-effective choice, but that hasn&#039;t been true in almost a decade now; we passed the balance point in about 2011.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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