https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/why-do-us-coins-seem-to-be-in-short-supply-coin-shortage.htm
While there is an adequate overall amount of coins in the economy, the slowed pace of circulation has reduced available inventories in some areas of the country.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/17/why-you-cant-get-change-at-the-grocery-store-coin-shortage.html
There isn’t a lack of coins right now — rather, coins aren’t circulating like they normally do.
So this is the mainstream narrative.
I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the rest of you guys, but in this rare case I have no reason to believe in a different truth. Sure, some will say this is all part of the globalist agenda to eliminate cash slowly but surely, and usher in a new digital currency after the profit from the planned destruction of USD (and with it likely all other known fiat). One world currency, blah blah blah.
Personally I think it's ridiculous to assume that a one-world currency is even possible. There is no way the central bankers in say Russia and China would agree to use such a currency. The war against American imperialism via the Petrodollar has only intensified as the years go by, and we get more and more desperate to maintain worldwide dominance.
So we have a coin shortage? So what?
Exactly. Who cares? Coins are pointless anyway. Back in the day people used to actually care about money because they knew better.
Why would I ever want this worthless paper garbage?
Ironic how people today are saying this about crypto and not their own currency.
This is exactly why paper money was pegged to gold, so citizens would accept it as actual money. Now that the frog has been boiling slowly for over a century, and most people were born into a system that doesn't even have that peg, nobody cares. Money is worth money and nobody thinks about it.
Back to my point.
Dimes, Quarters, Half-dollars, and Silver-dollars all used to have silver in them. Have you ever wondered why these coins have ridges on the sides, while pennies and nickels are smooth? I never actually considered this fact until this year, and I had to put 2 and 2 together myself.
I read something about people who used to shave the sides of coins and then turn them back in for their full value. That's free silver shavings right there. Therefore, the obvious reason to include ridges on a silver coin is so anyone can look at the coin and see if it's been shaved smooth. Obviously this type of debasement is not profitable for pennies and nickels because silver is worth more, so we see smooth edges on those coins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement
Apparently there are two other kinds of coin debasement that I never even knew about until just now.
In the process of sweating, coins were placed in a bag and shaken. The bits of metal that had worn off the coins were recovered from the bottom of the bag. Sweating tended to wear the coin in a more natural way than clipping, and so was harder to detect.
LOL! Shake a bag of coins and collect your money at the bottom. Classic!
Plugging
If the coin was large, a hole could be punched out of the middle, and the face of the coin hammered to close up the hole.
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/coin-specifications
As we see today coins are made of much more valueless metals such as Zinc, Nickel, and Copper. So why do quarters and dimes still have ridges on them? Well, people would notice if they didn't and start asking questions. Nobody wants that.
When it really comes down to it coins are totally pointless today, we might as well get rid of them. The cost to make pennies and nickels is more than the value of the coin itself. And they say Bitcoin is a waste of resources! Yikes!
A lot of people make the argument that you can't get rid of coins because that would destroy the divisibility of money. In order for money to be money, it has to be divisible. But guess what? You used to be able to buy things with a single penny.
In fact, half pennies used to be a thing because one penny still wasn't small enough. We've had over 100 years to completely inflate USD. Every time a currency loses value, its divisibility increases. Getting rid of all coins wouldn't be any different than the divisibility we had back in the day.
If it takes a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread, guess what? Coins are kinda pointless (if you're going by their printed face value, which is obviously lower than their actual value). We might as well get rid of coins because they are already completely pointless and a waste of resources. And this is coming from someone who had a coin collection in middle school. I still have a dozen of those old Liberty Head silver dollars, and guess what? All of their value lies in their silver content even though they are 100-year-old antiques. Go figure.
Conclusion
Rather than rounding to the nearest penny, America could easily get away with simply rounding to the nearest quarter. Quarters are arguably the only coin that makes sense to keep printing these days. This doesn't hurt our divisibility. A quarter today is worth less than a penny 100 years ago. Sad, but true.
The next time you look at a dime and a nickel, remember how ridiculous these two coins are. Dimes have ridges on them even though they are made of 90% copper. Nickels are huge compared to dimes and have more than twice the nickel, which is worth more than twice copper. Up is down, down is up.
Nickel is also a wartime metal and increases in price during conflict.
So are we heading into a cashless society? Who knows. However, it was really weird when China was saying they needed to burn their money and the FED was saying they have no plans to get rid of cash due to the virus. Even the mainstream narrative of COVID admits that the virus can only survive a maximum of three days on certain materials (plastic).
It's lifespan on cash is likely more like one day because its structure gets busted by moisture and rough surfaces (which cash has). Therefore infected cash only needs to sit around for two days to automatically become virus free without any doctoring. Funny how the mainstream narrative can become so convoluted that it starts contradicting itself in the most simplest of terms.
Personally I believe that crypto is going to start taking over. Once enough people become crypto rich they are going to want to diversify into other types of money. I believe this will lead to the resurgence of gold and silver coins being minted privately.
We already did this with Steem!
Do we really think it ends here? This is free advertising and legitimate money in the form of actual precious metals. I envision a time of 3D-printing decentralized garage factories that are pumping out coins like this and whatever else for every network out there. Why not?
Having a silver Steem round is like having a tattoo with your ex-girlfriend's name on it :D
When it really comes down to it, crypto cannot exist without the Internet. What if the internet goes down? The wealthy are going to want precious metals on hand. If shit really hits the fan food, water, power, and shelter become the most valuable resources. Diversify accordingly.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm
The fed has to buy coins at face value from the treasury.
If I was the fed, I would quit buying them, too.
Here is their scrap values.
http://coinapps.com/base-metal/coin/calculator/
Yikes!
100 1982 and older pennies are worth 2.03usd today.
I have a big stack of those. Each penny is worth about double.
I keep trying to get rid of them, thinking of all the "Real Estate" value and cost of storing them, but then something makes me keep keeping them.
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Well, it is against the law to melt US coins, in the US.
If you take them to Mexico it shouldn't be a problem selling them for scrap copper.
With enough, maybe it pays for the trip.
Otherwise, I'd just hold them.
They are too heavy to be worth stealing, and those currently making the rules won't always be there.
I melt wax in on mine to keep the cigarette smokers out of them.
That definitely makes them too heavy, and too much work, to steal.
A trip to Mexico would be easy peasy for me as I can see Tijuana from my house, hadn't considered that...
But... I think I will keep them until the penny becomes obsolete. I have read articles about how getting rid of the penny would save the US Billions.
I hope we get a penny cutting president soon. I bet we have lots of penny pinching money leaks that would make our country more wealthy.
I think rounding to the nearest dime might make sense, who wants those heavy and annoying nickels? We’ve got about 50 pounds of change in our house from over the years lol. Where we live though cash is still an important part of the economy. It’s what allows many small businesses to survive, if they are smart enough to only count a fraction of their cash sales. What will be a turning point in the mentality of the region is if an iconic Italian pastry bakery stops saying cash only. They’ve been that way for decades, if they accept other payments it will be a huge culture shock, honestly.
indeed it does make way more sense to round to a base 10 division.
I have this sort of feeling that we will see a metal backed (digital) currency within our lifetimes. Extreme economic disaster would have to strike first and it's going to be nothing like people have been predicting - it never is! It's tricky to know how to leverage this transition, other than get out of numbers on a screen and paper. Silver/gold/platinum/copper, something with some weight to it.
I feel the same way. :-) I like to think of Steem as it was, not Steem as it currently is.
Luckily it's easier to melt down a coin than it is to remove a tattoo :D
A metal-backed digital currency eh? Unfortunately the only way that works is if the metal is secured and distributed in a decentralized way. Not gonna say that's impossible but it requires an infrastructure that doesn't exist yet. Decentralized reputation systems will be the most important thing going forward.
Decentralization is the future for a sustainable and free economic society, however the direction things usually go after an economic catastrophe is more centralized (for safety and stability, they will say), as in a single "world bank" with a single and massive metal backing in a single location (on full display).
Maybe it's my imagination running, but if everyone could visit or see their gold (of which everyone would own a share), it would lend great confidence in the world currency. The data may be decentralized (block chain), but the financial backing and regulation would be a totalitarian economy in nature. That means it would come with a price - if you don't get on board with whatever the controllers require (carbon neutral, accepting of sexual depravity, etc) they can suspend your credits at any time.
Under normal conditions, this system would fail completely, but I think an idolatrous world religion will be built surrounding this, merging pseudo-religion, pseudo-science and pseudo-economy into a single new way of life. Religious fanatics (Uber-Karens) will be the "decentralized" enforcers and regulators.
We may not see this economy functioning in our life-times, but we're watching the stage being set up to usher it in.
lol, mecha Karens
The way I see it is that there's no reason why Bitcoin wouldn't be that currency. The establishment has the means to co-opt Bitcoin into the dirt. Pegging a digital currency to precious metals is a waste of time and actually makes the currency worth less, because the centralization increases for no reason. There's really no reason to do it imo. The elite can continue ruling without going back to the gold standard; there's a very good reason they abandoned it in the first place.
My imagined scenario seems highly unlikely in our current paradigm. Money is a conceptual thing and psychology plays a huge role determining currency value, gold backed or fiat, decentralized or centralized. If they can get into our heads, anything is possible for them. They create a new paradigm, a #newnormal. The last few months has illustrated how skilled they are getting into people's skulls, and this is just the beginning.
I sure on this. We have a store. And this is a much common problem during this pandemic. Since slow circulation during many lockdowns.
All that, and lead.
Tus comentarios son cierto, como ejemplo Venezuela todos los dias el dinero pierde valor, un ejemplo ayer nuestra moneda estaba 350 mil bolívares, por un dolar, hoy en la tarde cerro 362 mil bolívares, consecuencia de una hiperinflacion que no han encontrado, la formula para salir de ella.
A three percent loss in one day is a quite unacceptable outcome for a fiat currency.
Unfortunately it is my country's sanctions that create a foundation for this to happen.
Apologies.
No te preocupes, nos queda es aguantar y buscar ingresos de diferentes formas para enfrentar esta crisis, saludos desde Venezuela, estaré pendiente de tus post siguientes.
I'd hate to see cash go. There has to be a degree of anonymity and uncensorability to financial transactions. Fortunately, Germans will never accept cashless society, which means it will never be a thing EU wide.
The privacy any physical nature of cash is the only thing that gives it an edge compared to crypto. Gonna be surprised if any developed nation can actually get rid of it fully.
Crypto does not work if you misplace your cell phone. Or if your Internet connection is not there.
Sweden is probably closest. But even Sweden maintains readiness to go back to cash during crisis. I try to use cash on a weekly basis just to support the infrastructure.
That was really intresting
I collect silver coins, the more worthless fiat becomes, the more valuable silver is
Viruses cannot survive on anything, they are not alive!
I think eventually, whether it be physical money or digital money, sooner or later people will rather just barter with each other for goods and services and leave any kind of financial payment out of it. Sure there will be trust issues but I see happening more between close net groups than with strangers. Althought I'm sure that will happen as well.
It happens now and more than we think it does.
Birthday parties and presents is simply an exchange of wealth, one gives clothes, entertainment, and a space, the other gives a gift.
A few weeks ago my sister in law cut everyone in my families hair, this last weekend I made dozens of cookies for her and her girls.
My parents feed my children every Sunday and my husband tends their garden.
It is nice and I hope my trade economy can keep growing.
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You just need larger face value coins ($2 and 5$) and phase out the small ones. Inflation always devalues coins and most countries simply issue higher value coins. It always amazes me the US has a 1$ note; but I guess it comes with the tipping culture and low wages. Breaking currency into $ and cents is something that was never going to age well also (eventually cents are worth nothing unless you revalue the $ every 50 years). I think currencies like the Yen which have a single unit are more practical.