Wasteful mandate is wasteful.
Leslie Paige, who represents watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, says the government should withdraw the dollar bill from the market and force Americans to use the coins.
"I think Americans will definitely embrace the dollar coin if they're just given the opportunity," she says.
Translation: "If you MAKE them use the coin, they'll use the coin."
Well, ****ing duh.
Here's my favorite part:Leslie Paige, who represents watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, says the government should withdraw the dollar bill from the market and force Americans to use the coins.
"I think Americans will definitely embrace the dollar coin if they're just given the opportunity," she says.
Translation: "If you MAKE them use the coin, they'll use the coin."
Well, ****ing duh.
I'm curious... how much does it cost to mint the dollar coin? If it cost more to mint that the dollar is worth, would she be advocation government waste?
I'm curious... how much does it cost to mint the dollar coin? If it cost more to mint that the dollar is worth, would she be advocation government waste?
Seigniorage:
Money-Saver Or Hidden Tax?
You may have heard that dollar coins are more cost-effective than dollar bills. Paige and other dollar-coin advocates point out that coins last longer than bills, and that's why they save money. A coin could last 30 years, but a new dollar bill will be ready for the shredder in less than four years.
But if moving exclusively to dollar coins would save money, the question is, whose money? Certainly, issuing the coins and having them circulate, rather than sit in vaults, would create a source of revenue for the government.
Whether taxpayers would benefit is another matter.
A Government Accountability Office study out this spring says that switching to a dollar coin "would provide a net benefit to the government" of about $5.5 billion over 30 years.
But it's not because coins are cheaper. The report says the government would not recover the cost of switching from bills to coins over that period.
Instead, the benefit to the government would come only from the profit it makes by manufacturing each coin for 30 cents and selling it to the public for a dollar.
When this profit, known as seigniorage, is factored out, switching to the dollar coin would actually cost taxpayers money over three decades, according to a Federal Reserve analysis of the GAO's figures. The cost works out to $3.4 billion.
The Fed's Louise Roseman wrote to the GAO that seigniorage should not be considered in an analysis of whether the switch would benefit the larger U.S. economy.
The reason, says Roseman, director of the Fed's Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems, is that seigniorage "is a revenue transfer from the private sector to the government."
So, in other words, a tax? The profit to the government predicted by the GAO assumes that the government would have to issue 1.5 dollar coins for every dollar bill removed from circulation. That's because people handle coins differently than they do bills.
I'll spend them and it will get them into circulation.
In all seriousness I actually didn't know they were putting out more dollar coins. Last one I saw was the Sacagawea coin.
Going back to fantasyland, I could so be like Scrooge McDuck. That would be sweet. I'd even wear the whole outfit. Tophat, cane, wearing spats barefoot, no pants.
Meh. We should get rid of bills altogether. Make all our currency coins. There'd by less robberies if robbers had to try to run off with a 50 lb sack or coins instead of just stuffing a wad of bills in their pocket.
Yeah... and we would have to walk around with a 50 pound sack of coins to buy anything.
Does it really matter what the hard currency is made of anymore?
The last time I used cash for anything, was to pay the DMV for my plate, because they are so archaic they don't take plastic, and I refuse to order checks, for a once in a blue moon thing.
They still make those?!
(and yet won't take a checkcard... figure that one out)
Would we?
Does it really matter what the hard currency is made of anymore?
The last time I used cash for anything, was to pay the DMV for my plate, because they are so archaic they don't take plastic, and I refuse to order checks, for a once in a blue moon thing.
Yes, we still need the bills. How else are you going to tip a stripper?
They should totally hire some company for some kind of job and pay them with a dumptruck full of these coins if they perform poorly. That'll at least get them into the circulation
That's what I do when I get a bogus traffic ticket or other bogus fine. I pay in pennies... "One hundred dollars you say... Ok boys bring em in...."
Would we?
Does it really matter what the hard currency is made of anymore?
The last time I used cash for anything, was to pay the DMV for my plate, because they are so archaic they don't take plastic, and I refuse to order checks, for a once in a blue moon thing.
Yes, we still need the bills. How else are you going to tip a stripper?
Two words "Coin Slot"