Failure Or Success? Presidential Dollars Are Not Circulating

It's good that there's bills instead of coins. Aside from the hassle of carrying a ton of coins, coins are much easier to counterfeit than bills are.




6. 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2. You end up with a ton of money in the cup holder in the car.




Exactly. It's cheaper to use the credit card and pay it off every month than it is to pay in cash at 99 percent of places.

They were actually struck with the hope that they might circulate in spite of the failure of every modern dollar coin doing so.

If $100 bills went away, couldn't the drug trade switch to precious metal, or even €500 Euro bills?

You could argue that it would increase fakes, but I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of drug deals involve counterfeit $100 bills.

If all coins and currency were stopped and only plastic credit or debit cards were used, imagine what drug dealers would have to do. They would really find it difficult to do business. Criminals that rob for cash too would be out of work. Yes there are still crimes done with plastic cards but lots of crimes would not be so easy.
And like I said. I get money back for using my cards. And at the end of the Month when I pay for the usage of that card, I not only get money back but when it is transferred to a savings account, 50% more is added free.
Why would I ever use cash again?

And while you may get 1% cash back, the merchant has to pay at least double that in transaction fees. The merchant may save a little money in labor costs by not having to count cash in the first place but probably not as much as they lose in fees. Paying in cash to a small business I like feels like doing them an extra favor.


They'd probably use those, apps, or some other digital service like the rest of us. The real question is what would poor/homeless people do, who don't or can't get a bank account in the first place? Or when you lose your wallet/phone and have no way to pay for anything until they're replaced? Or if there's a disaster and all electronic services are down completely? Cash will, and must, always have a place.

I use credit cards also to get 1.5% cash back, though I still use cash for small purchases. I think that the transition to a cashless society will lead to a decline in coin collecting if it has not already. There's just less of an emotional connection because people, young people in particular, are not using cash as much. This is the same thing that has happened with stamp collecting. Inexpensive long distance and email have virtually eliminated people getting personal letters in the mail. This is definitely progress, but the emotional connection with stamps is going away because of it. The biggest potential problem that I see with a cashless society is that it will allow the government to easily confiscate wealth when we lose the ability to pay the interest on our national debt. It's much easier for politicians to take the earnings of people than it is to reduce spending.

Back to small dollars, one of my cheap entertainments is to give SBA dollars to cashiers for small purchases. Many have never even seen a SBA dollar. They usually just stand there and stare like I'm an idiot for not having given them enough change. Often, they'll even repeat the total. I then tell them how much I gave them. If they don't get it at that point, I explain that the SBA dollar isn't a quarter. Most laugh and some are surprised, but nobody has ever gotten mad or argued.

Cash forces you to live within your means. I'm trying to ween off so much reliance on plastic. Unless a person pays off the balance in full each month the cashback is moot. And privacy is a real concern, not only tracked purchases but with those darn store loyalty cards stores force you to sign up to in order to get the advertised prices.