And by return, I actually mean do something we haven't done yet. And by gold standard, I mean the copper, zinc, manganese, and nickel standard.
I know... I know... everyone right now is consumed with the election and that's probably good. I'm a little bit on overload right now. I need a diversion for a few hours, so let me tell you about a painless way that you can help REDUCE OUR BUDGET DEFICIT.
Let's start with what it is. A "gold" $1 presidential coin. On the face is a former president (not living) and on the face and on the reverse side is Lady Liberty.
Details of the program are here:
US Mint $1 Coin Program
I got interested in this because one day I received a coin as change. I thought, oh my gosh, I NEVER see these. I should keep it! And when I looked it up online, I found out actually it's not really "rare" at all. The only thing rare about it is they don't get a lot of circulation.
That's when I learned something that was fascinating:
The argument for coins is simple: they last longer than paper money, a lot longer.
According to an estimate by the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Mint would save more than half a billion dollars per year if it didn’t have to collect, shred, re-print, and distribute paper $1 bills.
faux news
I apologize for using that particular source, but it lays out the numbers pretty well. This is a way our nation can save money, can reduce the use of resources, and it's completely painless. Dollar bills last about 21 months, while a dollar coin lasts 20 to 30 years. The coin costs about 16 cents to make vs 6 for the bill, but the coins don't have to be continually replaced and redistributed. So what stops it the coin from seeing adoption? If you are like me, you don't see the coins day to day, so there's no chance to use them.
Another fun fact... the coins come in rolls of $25 each. They are a little shorter than rolls of other coins. When I get the rolls, I think they are referred to as "unmixed" because they have the president stamped on the outside. Today I picked up two more rolls of Johnny Tyler from my credit union.
My goal is to do my part to get these coins into circulation. This means using them in the right way. If I pay my electric bill in coins, the electric company is just going to deposit it into a bank and the coins just made a round trip. That's not going to work.
Instead my goal is to spend them in places that run high volumes of cash transactions. I think this runs the best chance of the dollars being given out as change and then put into real circulation. So I think of places like:
*fast food restaurants
*corner stores
*farmers markets
These are places I'm likely to be and to spend money anyway. It's not a huge degree of effort to pay in coins when the amount is less than $10. And then those coins stand a pretty good chance of being distributed out to another customer as change.
So I want to start a movement. We can reduce our deficit by transitioning away from paper dollars and into coins. The only way this can happen is if someone, somewhere creates "demand" for these coins. Demand could be created if the government terminated the dollar bill, but I don't think that's realistic right now. It would be much easier to create the demand at the consumer level to show that yes, there are people willing and able to use coins instead of bills.
In that vein, if you spend money you are most likely capable of participating in this campaign. Creating demand for the coins is as simple as asking for them from your credit union. You are using a credit union and not a bank, right? Well, if you still have a bank, they probably have the coins too.
Next time you are there, ask and maybe pick up a roll. Then spend a few dollars here and there in places where the coins will be actively used. That's really all it takes, multiplied by a few hundred thousand people. Once the coins become more common in circulation, I think it would reach critical mass. The existing supply and circulation of these coins would create new demand. And every time a coin is used instead of a dollar, our nation saves money.
It's much less destructive than the catfood commission. So tell your friends. Let's spend a dollar to save 500 million! Now back to your regularly scheduled election slugfest...