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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Numbers, post: 3583352, member: 11668&quot;]Latest data shows that about 29% of U.S. banknotes in circulation are $1&#039;s (12.4 billion out of 43.4 billion).&nbsp; Very few $1&#039;s, or other low denominations, end up overseas; that happens mostly to $100&#039;s.&nbsp; We&#039;re very happy to provide currency to other nations; what we get in return is an interest-free loan of something close to a trillion dollars.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for purchasing power, granted that $1 now has the purchasing power that a dime used to, but why does that imply that it ought to be a coin?&nbsp; I&#039;d be more inclined to conclude that, since people clearly prefer $1 notes to $1 coins for most purposes, maybe notes are just more convenient than coins.&nbsp; The only reason the dime of your childhood was a coin instead of a note was that it was silver, and people preferred silver to paper (until the denominations got high enough that the silver got too heavy).&nbsp; Now that our coins are base metal, we might as well replace them all with notes--or wait until inflation does that job for us!</p><p><br /></p><p>(Not entirely tongue-in-cheek, by the way--I&#039;d really like to see a 25c or 20c paper note issued.&nbsp; It might very well succeed in displacing the quarter, in the way that the $1 coin has largely failed to displace the $1 note.)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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