While I was trying to go to sleep today I was bothered with a thought that wouldn't go away. I would like everybody's opinion on this.

I was wondering what the results would be if the government issued a statement saying that the penny is now worth a dollar, the dollar worth a hundred dollars, and so on.

I realize there would be a few problems, such as the pricing of things that are currently less than a dollar since there is no denomination less than a penny. This could be solved one of several ways, such as adding a new denomination valued at less than a penny (we've had half pennies before in America) or we could just round everything up to a penny. There are probably a few other solutions that I haven't thought of.

Would this solve any problems the US Economy is currently experiencing? Would this create more problems? Or would this even make any real difference aside from giving us smaller numbers? Please contribute any thoughts you may have on this.

What exactly would this accomplish? OK, you used to have $10, now you have $1,000. What used to cost $10 will now cost $1,000, except that we'll have a lot of annoying rounding to deal with because we won't have cents anymore.

Similar things happened in various countries when they switched to the Euro. A lot of absolute numbers changed, but relative values didn't exactly change just because your 6.56 francs are now a single euro.

Complete F*ing anarchy and a hell of a lot of "priced right or get it free" scams cropping up.

Now go to bed and dream of code-sheep.

Changing the currency would have no real affect, although it would cause quite a few deaths in the ensuing riots we'd see from people who were cheated out of their money in the confusion.

The US economy's problems stem from the fact that our economy is based on credit, and specifically on the ability to always borrow against unrealized capital. Think of it as a faucet/drain model where the bathtub is your wealth. As long as the drain is partially clogged, and the faucet keeps bringing fresh water in, the level rises, and you can scoop out bits of it to fill your sink or your toilet. If the drain clears (inflation), or the faucet supply slows down (production drops), each scoop now lowers the level of the water (wealth).

We've been taking a large number of very big bucket-sized scoops out of our tub for many years, and the faucet has finally started to slow down… but everything ELSE depends on those scoops getting passed around.

I'm not sure why you think everything would be so confusing and crazy; Euroland didn't burn with violins in the background during the switch to the Euro.

Everyone would now fall into high tax brackets. Winned. GG middle class.

I personally think we should just get rid of the penny, nickel, and dime. It's a waste of space and time. Mark everything that was below $0.25 up to 0.25 and then go from there. You only worry about one type of coin, everyone cashes in all their old coins to banks/governments (i just took three change bowls to the bank the other day and had almost $100 in it), and things are much easier to add/subtract currency. Government stops having to print three different types of coins (pennies are no longer made from copper because it's too expensive) saves money that way plus can melt/recycle the the old coins into something else. This could be done in phases without much hoopla.

Win/Win.

If you completely eliminated cents, you would get somewhat complicated situations arising from dealing with interest at banks, for example. Perhaps you would not eliminate cents entirely, merely the coins, and then make sure that things you purchase are rounded.

Of course, without cents, people couldn't play fun games like pricing things at X minus one cent, to make people think they're paying a fair bit less than X. :rolleyes:

I think that on occasion the Treasury has to issue stern warnings
about melting down coins…I read relatively recently the currency
was so devalued that even with cheap components there was a coin or
two worth slightly more as metal than as legal tender.

Dunno if the cost of scrapping tons of coins is worth the slim
margins and potential federal prison time.

However, there HAS been a big problem in some cities with people
stealing manhole covers to sell em for scrap. Other stuff too,
like public and cemetery monuments/plaques. This crazy economy,
I'll tellya.




No, seems to have gone smoother than I'd have imagined. I do
remember some jokey comments in French news about retirees
panicking because exchanging the gold Napoleons hoarded in
their mattresses would now expose them to the very tax liabilities
they'd hoped to avoid in the first place.

Old people. lol.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Yea, just round after interest had been calculated. If interest came to $1000.03 cents, just round it to $1000 or $1000.25

But I think it would make things much simpler and with less coins to mess with. Who uses pennies anyways besides taking them in bulk to a bank?

I don't even carry cash on me anymore. Straight Debit Card.

This is a sort of behaviour which I find absolutely baffling. Had you not considered using your change to buy things in shops? When I accumulate (say) 50 pence in change I use it to buy something that costs 50p (like a newspaper, say). That way I never build up more than a few coins at a time.

Igabod, I must confess I am entirely at a loss to understand how you think changing the name of a cent and calling it a dollar instead would actually help anything. Would do you expect this to achieve?

In the case of the * -> Euro conversion, you were going from several distinct systems to a new one. Annoying perhaps, but it was a clear transition. New printed money, new coins, new value scale.

Moving from the penny as the base to the dollar, within the same currency system, is far more confusing. If pennies are now worth a dollar, the printed values on currency will be wrong. If the transition isn't instant (and I'm sure you folks in Europe know how long it too various places to STOP using local currency), there would be lots of opportunity for fraud.

Looking in my (mostly empty) wallet, I see a $5 bill and 2 $1 bills. Do those suddenly become $700? Woot! Oh wait, now a bottle of soda costs $150. What if I drive across town to Joe's bar? He thinks this is crap and charges the same prices he's always charged, and only honors the values printed on the money. So, a drink there says it's $5.25. If I hand him a $5 bill, I just paid $500 for a drink! If I try to hand him a nickel, he can refuse to serve me since the money itself says it's worth 5 cents.

Now, printing and minting an entirely NEW currency would eliminate the confusion, but then what do you do with all the old stuff? Now my soda costs $2, because it's no longer possible to make change below the $1 coin, and they certainly aren't going to LOWER prices and suck up the loss.

I do agree with tphegley. Cash is an antiquated concept, and is only useful for those individuals who are trying to hide from "The Man" by not having bank accounts, etc. I've said before, I'd be happy if I could walk into a store, grab something off the shelf, and walk out and have the door scanner tell me it just charged me $5.75 for the bag of chips and soda I'm carrying.

It's easier to save up small change and forget about it. Consider it a form of savings. If I decide to start putting up $50 out of every paycheck in the bank, should I have just instead decided to go buy something for $50 at a shop instead every week? Numerous people I know, including myself, accumulate a lot of change and then cash it in on "rainy days" as it were. There's been times my brother or my parents have more or less been out of money for the week, cashed in their change and got anywhere between $50 and $200 which then got them by the rest of the week… got them gas, food, or whatever. Had they spent all that change as they accumulated it, that change wouldn't have been there when they needed it. I'm baffled by your being baffled, truth be told.



I'm curious about this, too.

It'd be like asking what would happen if we started calling apples oranges and vice versa, or added a new number to represent "zero" and pushed all of the other numbers forward.

The only affect I see happening from any of it is confusion. Anytime the dollar fluctuates, the prices of everything do as well. In fact, the "dollar" is really such an abstract, changing term and value, we see it valued differently all the time.

:mad:
I tell ya, Dikurivatives have spoiled an entire generation of spelling for "effect" vs. "affect".


It's also pretty annoying to have to remember to bring the change with you, to have it bulging in already too-full pockets and wallets full of other stuff, etc. I try to use change when I can, but anything less than quarters is rather irritating to me. I have a cup at my desk that I throw change in, and occasionally I'll take some out if I know in advance that I'll need it, but that's fairly rare. I far prefer bills over coins, and I far prefer plastic over bills.

Basically coins are just a nuisance to me, in almost every possible sense. I'm not convinced we should get rid of that granularity in our currency, but having to carry them around seems useless to me.

Guilty! :redface: (not in this particular case, but elsewhere)



I actually would support doing the opposite…. making coins the HIGH denominations, and using paper for the lowest. I mean, it costs more to mint coins than to print money (or it should!), and since coins are less convenient to cart around, you'd probably rather have a reminder that you have $500 in your pocket as opposed to some random amount of "worthless" change.

When I'm dictator, I'll probably make everything below the $20 mark paper, and have coins for everything above. A nickel seems about the right size for $20, perhaps a quarter for $50, and the old half-dollar for $100. Do we really NEED physical currency larger than that? I would guess very few people spend more than $500 with cash, unless they're buying something illegal.

For the record, I think I've seen a $1000 bill two times in my life. Alas, neither instance had me involved in the transaction either. :(

I do see your point Quix, but that I think is quite a bit more change then just taking out some coin currency. You have to completely exchange EVERYTHING almost. Plus, why would I want 1 cent bills of paper? One hundred of those would most likely be more annoying then 100 pennies.

If you were dictator, I might have to find a new country! :biggrin:

I don't relish the idea of losing a few hundred dollars out of my pocket if there's a hole in it… and us guys have moved away from the "purse" idea. Unless you're trying to tell us something here… :P

I'd think paper money would cost more to make, considering all that goes into it. With coins, you just throw some melted crap into a pot and drop it into molds.

0bamagabe will "solve" the problem of fractional dollar pricing with hyperinflation through printing currency.
Problem is, coins will be worth more than their face value. The penny already is.

I thought we'd all agreed to be nice and stop trolling about things like politics. Unless this is another of your jokes that isn't actually a joke. :wink:

Flagged under Section D-1: Failure to quote what or who you are responding too, D-2: Unreasonable use of "we", Section B: Before screaming troll…, and Section A-4: It is possible to ignore someone.