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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dr Kegg, post: 1288323, member: 23476&quot;]19Lyds,</p><p><br /></p><p>No, I don&#039;t believe that your post was a personal attack, but rather your opinion on the subject. I agree that my interpretation is different from yours, but there is substance to both arguments. While I believe that yours is flawed based upon your interpretation of the facts and how you think eliminating the dollar bill will pull the country out of a financial turmoil, you find fault in my arguments backed by articles I have read in Numismatic News and other coinage-related publications. Sure, some of them are biased, but they show that those sort of sentiments are out there among the American public. Since you decided to critique my post, I believe it is only fair to critique yours:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;A dollar coin is just as easy to &quot;use&quot; as a paper bill since most folks do not really care as long as the change received is correct and as long as its spendable at the next store they visit. Receiving a silver bullion slug that has a value of $30 just isn&#039;t the same as receiving a ten and a twenty.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for carrying lots of change? A fairly baseless argument intended to dupe folks that don&#039;t or won&#039;t give it some rational thought. NOBODY carries &quot;lot&#039;s of change&quot; and everybody will swap out change as soon as its convenient. This includes one dollar bills for fives or ten&#039;s. </p><p><br /></p><p>As for the &quot;wallet&quot;? For me its a non-issue since I carry a wallet for my identifying papers ONLY. I haven&#039;t carried bills in my wallet since losing it the first time. Bills go in the pocket along with the coins.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>This seems to reflect your personal choice rather than the idea that someone in Congress would make the choice for you. No one I know carries coinage in their pockets for a long period of time. Most will look at it, maybe go through it, and then either trade it in or place it in a jar in their house. This holds true for the dollar coin. You use it most days for tolls, but what about on average days for an average American. Would the coin be easier to use with its ability to more easily fall out of one&#039;s pocket, or get lost compared to a paper bill? I believe it would. </p><p><br /></p><p>You talk about swapping dollars for $5&#039;s and $10&#039;s. First off, you talk about change and then bills, so your argument lacks clarity in that respect. You assert that the majority of the American public simply deal with higher denominational bills, so there shouldn&#039;t be a dollar bill. In rebuttal, this argument contradicts your argument for an increase of dollar coins. You originally stated that no one carries lots of change around, yet this argument of &quot;cashing up&quot; would make the average person carry more dollar coins in order to achieve this. Additionally, while I believe that the value in the single American dollar has declined, it still has some purchasing power and people still use it.</p><p><br /></p><p>The wallet argument is once again a personal choice and most people I know carry either that or a money clip instead of having their money roll around loosely in their pockets. </p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Coins sitting in bank vaults has NOTHING to do with whether or not folks &quot;want&quot; or &quot;look&quot; for them and has EVERYTHING to do with what RETAILERS order for making change at the register. Folks could really care less and after a year or so, won&#039;t care at all. The thing they really care about is whether or not it will spend when they need to spend it. </p><p>Coins in bank vaults represents a choice and the elimination of the dollar bill eliminates the &quot;choice&quot;. True, most folks will &quot;choose&quot; the dollar bill over the coin but the coin is still a buck and 10 of them will still get you a ten dollar bill at any bank or store. Eliminate the choice AND save some money, then you eliminate the problems.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins sitting in bank vaults DO have a correlation to the wants and needs of the American public. Retailers will not order change when they know that the customers do not want it, the retailer will sit on it, or it will take up too much room for safekeeping. Dollar bills are stackable and do not have the weight of a bag of dollar coins. Retailers simply do not want to have to deal with the hassle. Additionally, retailers do not want to spend the extra effort in ordering new trays to hold money in registers, nor spend money or time training additional staff with dollar coins and what to look for.</p><p><br /></p><p>You state that most people will &quot;choose the dollar bill over the coin&quot;, so I believe that you validated my point that most Americans do not want to see it eliminated against their will. You forget that many coins that were forced upon the public for one reason or another faded into obscurity. If the dollar coin is forced on the public, the outcry will reverse the decision such as it did in minting the 2 cent, 3 cent and half dime denominations. Again, there has been talk in Congress in repealing the Presidential dollar Act, so I think that speaks for itself. <a href="http://vitter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&amp;ContentRecord_id=4850fb47-c4dd-2074-b4e9-80e5a92c55a2" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://vitter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&amp;ContentRecord_id=4850fb47-c4dd-2074-b4e9-80e5a92c55a2" rel="nofollow">http://vitter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&amp;ContentRecord_id=4850fb47-c4dd-2074-b4e9-80e5a92c55a2</a> an excerpt:&nbsp; “Even though many in Congress, including myself,&nbsp; hoped that dollar coins would eventually save taxpayers money, it’s turned out to be one of those unnecessary and, quite frankly, wasteful programs that we should eliminate,” Vitter said. “Banks and credit unions are increasingly returning the dollar coins to the Federal Reserve because people don’t want them and aren’t using them. So the most sensible thing to do is for Congress to quit spending taxpayer dollars producing and storing the unwanted coins.” This is one opinion out of many in Congress.</p><p><br /></p><p>Reason 3 I received from NPR based upon a statement that was received by the Mint <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138610663/dollar-coin-loophole-closes-for-frequent-fliers" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138610663/dollar-coin-loophole-closes-for-frequent-fliers" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138610663/dollar-coin-loophole-closes-for-frequent-fliers</a> </p><p>An excerpt: <span style="color: #666666"><font face="georgia">In a <a href="http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&amp;storeId=10001&amp;catalogId=10001&amp;identifier=8100" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&amp;storeId=10001&amp;catalogId=10001&amp;identifier=8100" rel="nofollow">statement</a> today, the Mint said:</font></span><blockquote><p><span style="color: #666666"><font face="arial">The Mint has determined that this policy change is prudent due to ongoing activity by individuals purchasing $1 coins with credit cards, accumulating frequent flyer miles, and then returning coins to local banks. Local banks, in turn, returned coins to the Federal Reserve. While not illegal, this activity was a clear abuse and misuse of the program.</font></span></p><p><span style="color: #666666"><font face="arial"><br /></font></span></p><p><br /></p></blockquote><p>I agree that #4 was simply an opinion based upon first-hand conversations I&#039;ve had with other coin enthusiasts, so that is the least valid of all my argument points.</p><p><br /></p><p>In summation, while I may be biased against the idea due to personal feelings on the subject, I believe that simply eliminating the dollar bill for Congressional blustering is an unwise decision. The American people should continue to have a choice in what type of dollar they use, whether coin or paper, and be able to keep that choice. The arguments I presented here clearly show that people choose the dollar bill over the coin. Eliminating the coin would save even more. It costs 15 cents to produce a dollar coin and around 2.7 cents for a bill. Eliminating the coin would save much more for the immediate future, which is all Congress really cares about anyway.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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