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John Paul
Valued Member
United States
116 Posts |
 Posted 03/11/2010 8:31 pm
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Hello,
I was looking at the currency production figures (get them here:http://www.moneyfactory.gov/uscurre...figures.html) and I noticed that in 2009, 2008 and 2006 more $100 bills were produced than $20 bills.
What are all these bills used for? When I see $100s it is on TV as part of something illegal, or the grand prize in a poker tournament. I know that some folks just pay cash for everything, but I assumed that many more $20 would be used.
Are these bill used for some sort of transactions between businesses or between banks? Do nations that have dollars as part of their foreign reserve like to keep some part of that as actual bills? Any insight is appreciated.
Thanks
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GO
Moderator
USA
5410 Posts |
Posted 03/11/2010 8:33 pm
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I have heard that there are more $100 US notes overseas then stateside. Never did find any facts to back that up though
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bobbyhelmet
Valued Member
United Kingdom
189 Posts |
Posted 03/11/2010 10:38 pm
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3/4s of $100 bills are outside of the US - they are used in countries with fluctuating currencies (Russia was a big user in the 90s and Africa is now) as the $ has generally been stable in the past. It means local wealth can be protected from these fluctuations and still easily converted back into the local currency when needed as $s are accepted worldwide.
The reason its all 100s is because its the largest available US note. The larger the note the better for storing and transporting etc. Surprisingly this has worked well for the US as initially they never expected the notes to get back home so it worked as a huge interest free loan.
More recently though with the Euro becoming known and trusted many people are now keeping 500 Euro notes ($684) instead.
The dollar has also in the past been the chosen currency for shady dealing throughout the world, again because everyone accepts it and it was stable.
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Edited by bobbyhelmet - 03/11/2010 10:41 pm |
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Halfwitty
Pillar Of The Community
United States
1523 Posts |
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Libertad
Valued Member
Canada
440 Posts |
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wd1040
Pillar Of The Community
United States
2880 Posts |
Posted 03/12/2010 12:45 am
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Yup, I think overseas is correct. When I went back to China this year and asked for dollars to bring back (to pay for tuition) all the notes were Series 2006 (Cabral-Paulsons). I commented that these new notes weren't even widely available yet in the states, and the teller commented "China's sending goods for America's paper. It's just how the word works."
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Sap
Moderator
Australia
5605 Posts |
Posted 03/12/2010 03:36 am
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Quote:
Are these bill used for some sort of transactions between businesses or between banks?
In this day and age, physical movement of bits of paper is avoided if possible. Most high-value above-board interbank and inter-business transactions are electronic.
Quote:
Do nations that have dollars as part of their foreign reserve like to keep some part of that as actual bills?
Some do, but most are content with electronic holdings. Most of the physical notes held by foreign governments would be held by governments unfriendly to the US, such as Libya, North Korea and Iran.
Dollarized economies (countries which have declared the US dollar to be their own currency) would need to acquire supplies of US notes for their own people, but they'd presumably need the same mix of notes the US itself uses, with a few local variations. Ecuador, for instance, hates your $1 note (they simply don't last long enough in circulation under equatorial conditions) and imports quantities of golden dollars to use instead.
Most of the actual physical $100 notes held overseas are in private, not foreign government hands. Besides the drug barons and organized criminals, ordinary wealthy foreigners and legitimate businesses often prefer to store at least some of their wealth in the form of physical US notes rather than their own country's notes, because they trust in the stability of the US dollar more than they do their own country's money... or their own country's banking system.
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It's easy to be a saint in paradise. - Captain Sisko, "Star Trek" |
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bobbyhelmet
Valued Member
United Kingdom
189 Posts |
Posted 03/12/2010 2:16 pm
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An excellent example of foreign use of US$s is in Zimbabwe.
Their inflation was 240,000% in 2009 - In real terms that meant that anything you bought today would cost double tomorrow. This hyper-inflation meant that the government had to keep issuing larger and larger notes.
Below is a Zimbabwean $100,000,000,000,000 note - It could only buy you a dozen eggs! At one point the size of the wad of notes needed to buy a loaf of bread was larger than the loaf itself!
If you had Zimbabwean money at this time it meant that every day that went by its value halved so most people converted all their cash into US$s. Even though its a very poor country they still have small number of super-rich who needed to do this. Workers would not work unless their bosses paid them in US$s so all the companies had to convert to US$s too. Eventually the country gave up on their own money and they only use US$s, £s, Euros, Rands and Pula now.
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needgames4lyfe
Valued Member
United States
323 Posts |
Posted 03/14/2010 5:48 pm
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Haha, I love the Zimbabwean $100,000,000,000,000 note. I wonder how much that costs?
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wd1040
Pillar Of The Community
United States
2880 Posts |
Posted 03/14/2010 6:42 pm
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I think average eBay price is around $5 shipped.
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karrlot
Valued Member
USA
490 Posts |
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