NPR - Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants. Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007. And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate. The pile of idle coins, which so far cost $300 million to manufacture, could double by the time the program ends in 2016, the Federal Reserve told Congress last year. So, there are now about 1.2 billion dollar-coin "assets" chilling in Federal Reserve vaults, unloved and bearing no interest. By the time the presidential coin series finishes, and there are coins honoring all past presidents, there could be 2 billion... "Destroy them," he said. "People will not accept these coins. Nobody in America wants to use them. As long as they have a paper currency, they will use that." Of using coins to save money, Weatherford says that in an era of electronic financial transactions, "the argument is about 50 years too late. Coins have rapidly become less and less important in our society — like paper money itself is becoming less and less important."
So, the US government, in all their wisdom, thought that not only will people want to continue to carry around money, but we'd want the convenience of a pocket full of coins jangling around in our pockets.
Come on, this is America, we're better than this! Dollar coins are for weirdo Canadians.
And who carries cash anymore anyway? I have cash on me 1x per week, the night I'm going out to the bar, that's it. The rest of the week I have whatever was leftover from my bar tab. And that's just paper bills, the only people coins are helping is the homeless, people would be constantly emptying their pockets and ashtrays with these useless and annoying dollar coins hanging around.
Seriously guys, what the hell are you thinking? Cut this shit out right now. We've got credit cards so small they fit on key chains, the guy from Twitter inventing a new device to allow payments made and received from your cell phone, and the US Government still thinks people want to go back to carrying around gold scheckels like Scrooge McDuck? Are you insane?
I'm just glad we're at least not in the middle of a financial recession. I mean could you imagine the political fallout if the people found out the government was literally spending 100's of millions of dollars to press billions of dollars worth of gold coins that are just sitting in a vault unused, never to see the light of day? That would be a nightmare and a real slap in the face...oh wait a minute!
