Getting rid of the dollar bill

[xiphias]

Congress is once again considering getting rid of the one-dollar bill, and it's about time. Our coinage is ridiculous at this point. We really ought to get rid of the dollar bill, the penny, and the nickel.

When we came up with our currency, the penny was the smallest coin we chose to have. And its buying power was about what a quarter is today. So, originally, we thought that the smallest amount of money that it was worth considering was a quarter. We'd do fine getting rid of everything below the quarter. This is what the cafeteria at Lis's work does; this is what the restaurant I used to work at did. And we did fine. There is no reason to deal with pennies, nickels, or even dimes.

(Why do we still have pennies? Because of the zinc lobby. Seriously. Pennies are mostly zinc, and the zinc lobby doesn't want to give up their major market.)

Now, down to dollar coins. Let's discuss video games.

The first video game shipped to bars and so forth was "Pong", in 1972 which cost 25 cents a play. That was the price point of pinball games at that point, too. The buying power of a quarter in 1972 was about $1.38 in today's money.

So, if coin-operated video games (which DO still exist, to an extent) cost a dollar a play, it'd still be a deal. And, for that, we'd need dollar coins.

The only argument I've ever heard in favor of dollar bills is that you can stuff them into strippers' garter belts. However, the dollar being stuffed into a strippers' garter belt was already a thing by the early Seventies -- and the buying power of a dollar then was similar to the buying power of a five today, which means that it is high time that strippers started getting paid in fives instead of singles. Just sayin'.

Comments

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I use deuces.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Word. If I ever get to go to a strip club I wouldn't bring anything less than fives -- they work hard!

(Also, I agree with the rest.)

[jazzfish]

One of the awesome things about Canada is the $1 and $2 coins. Unlike certain countries with their Susan B Anthony dollars, we did it right: the loonie (so named for the bird on the back) is a little bigger than a quarter and sort of a dull brass color, and the toonie (by extension from "loonie" although they missed a trick not calling it a "doubloon") is slightly larger than that and two-tone, so they're easily distinguishable from a) existing coins and b) each other.

Also we just now got rid of the penny, too. I'll let you know how that goes.

[redbird]

How much time have you spent in Canada in the last few years? I'm torn between liking the $1 and $2 coins, and the irritation at how fast my pocket gets heavy if I don't pay a lot more attention to how I'm paying for stuff than I'm used to. But that might be avoided by keeping $2 bills and encouraging their use: with no singles, there'd be an available space in most cash drawers.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I frequently accumulate more than a few one dollar bills in my wallet. Coins would add a lot of bulk and weight.

I'd assumed that pennies, at least, were retained because of sales taxes.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Americans fear change.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

I'm all for getting rid of the penny, but not so sure about the dimes and the dollar bill. Many vending machines take dollar bills but not dollar coins. To change them all over to coins only could be quite expensive, and result in the vending machine companies raising prices. Not everyone can afford to pay more. Some people who buy food from vending machines are buying the only food they get. Not only that, but I've had a handfull of dollar coins to drag around, and the weight is not negligible. The damage they do to pockets is really annoying.

If we eliminate the nickel and the penny at the same time, you can bet that prices will be rounded up to the nearest dime. That might not be a problem for many people, but there are plenty of folks for whom a difference of ten cents could be the difference between affording a needed item and not being able to afford it. The same goes for dollar bills. I doubt that many business are simply going to start handling a lot of dollar coins. They're much more likely to round everything up to the next five dollars.

[zachkessin.livejournal.com]

actually there used to be a half cent coin, but it went away sometime in the 19th century.

Here in Israel the smallest bill we have is the 20Shekel (about $4) it seems to work out mostly ok. Planet money did some reporting on this and it seems that getting rid of the dollar bill wouldn't really save much if any money.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

When I got to the strip club (don't judge me) I cash out my bills into a stack of fives. I never give less than five, and I usually give ten at a time.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

All of the work vending machines where I work were changed to only accept dollar bills about 6-9 months ago. All prices where changed to $1 for everything. You can not use coins in those vending machines anymore, only $1 bills. I've seen this change in other places as well: vending machines switched to accept paper money only and no coins, and prices raised to the nearest dollar amount. I have a bad feeling eliminating the $1 bill and going to a $1 coin is going to backfire.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I care about 5 and 10 cent differentials in price, while I and I pay for things using nickels and dimes to make exact change frequently. Whether or not the penny is rounding error doesn't matter to me,
but I don't want to round the price of everything up to the nearest quarter even if there's nothing I can buy by itself for 5 cents anymore. And I'm pretty sure I've bought things for 10 cents in recent memory.

Dollar bill and penny, sure. But please don't make the minimum price resolution of anything a quarter.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I just parked at a metered spot in Somerville this evening. I slid my credit card in and paid two bucks for two hours.

My point is that we're rapidly running out of places that don't accept plastic. We can easily kill off every coin under the dime, and the $1 and $2 bill; I'll hardly notice.

Remind me to trade in my buckets of loose change first...

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

I'm with Bill. I don't carry cash if I can help it. And I've rejected carrying coins for years. I either give them to the kids or toss them in a plastic jar. Plastic works everywhere I go (which may be limited, compared to some of you). Coffee; groceries; gasoline; Walmart; Lowes; Fast Food; Black Angus, etc.; just swipe your card.

I do carry some coins now however, the "gold" coins because I like to give them away to kids. I'm 68 and the smiles are worth the buck. I always talk to the parents first and 9 time out of 10, they are not aware that the U.S. Gov has the Presidential, First Spouse, and Sacajawea series. I have to explain that they are not real gold; that they are not worth saving because there are millions out there; let the kid spend it! :o)

I recently heard that the Mint is considering dropping these series, as people are not using them.

If you put twenty five dollars worth in your pocket, it is a load, by weight.

As for the "gold" color, once a coin has been in human hands, it turns dull, somewhat like a penny; that brownish, copperish color.

So, for me (for what that's worth), I could get buy on credits in place of actual cash. Plastic is almost like that anyway. Write a check and hand it to the cashier at walmart. They scan it and hand it back to you. "Paper" is on it's way out. How long it will take is unpredictable. As for coins, even parking meters in some cities, now take plastic...

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Three things strike me about this discussion in general. One is that the argument that debit cards are taking over anyway has value only to those who have enough money to maintain a bank account. The second is that the impact on those who are living close to the bone has nothing to do with what the buying power of a dollar or dime was when the nation was founded and everything to do with the effect on their cost of living in the present. The third is that the one thing we all seem to agree upon is that it's time for the penny to go. Common ground!