Quote:
Why doesn't the U.S.A. have poly notes?
Several reasons. Two big ones:
- Because Australia owns the patents to the most successful polymer substrate system currently in use. Cotton-linen banknotes are an all-American production.
- Because there are political vested interests in US banknote paper manufacture. One of the major obstacles to scrapping the paper $1 note has always been objections from the congressmen representing the area where the paper is manufactured, who fear job losses in their electorates if banknote paper usage is reduced.
Quote:
Other countries have them, how do they hold up?,do they get used in those countries? Just wondering.
As a resident of the first country to switch to an all-polymer banknote system, I can attest they are certainly used here. We don't have a choice, it's use polymer or use nothing. The old paper notes disappeared completely within a couple of years of the introduction of polymer.
Polymer has advantages: it lasts longer in circulation, is more counterfeit-resistant, and can adapt better to new improvements in anti-counterfeit technologies.
Polymer has disadvantages, too. As with all plastics, banknote polymer becomes more brittle with age. While being harder to tear, it is more vulnerable to breakage. And, as with all plastics, it has a strong "memory" - it doesn't fold up very easily, but if you do manage to put a sharp crease or fold in a polymer banknote, it will forever after wish to remain in that folded state. This makes counting, sorting and handling bulk amounts of banknotes more difficult, because they don't "stack" neatly.
Back when polymer notes were introduced, everyone complained about how difficult and different using the new money was. The only people who still complain about it now are the bank tellers, shopkeepers and other people who need to handle large volumes of cash. Which leads me to the third key reason why America will be slow to adopt polymer: it has already been proven, with the repeated failure of adoption of a $1 coin, that any change to the monetary system that the banks do not approve of will never succeed. And bankers would hate switching to polymer notes.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 07/25/2011 08:28 am
