I'm all for this. I almost never carry 1$ bills anymore, let alone any cash, but a few 1$ coins seem to be alot more useful for a variety of scenarios. I think they should have done this years ago.
How does everyone else feel about this? trade offs? problems? annoyances? etc.
Overall, dollar coins never come off as a big hit. Sure they would have some uses in a certain special circumstance. However, 1$ bills are still easier to carry and for the most part I think more people carry them over people who don't carry cash at all or favour a dollar coin.
As a semi-regular patron of the strip-club scene, dollar bills are invaluable. Ain't no stripper ho worth a five.
Seriously though, I was not a fan of the Sacagaweas. Bills for me are still useful. In fact, I'll regularly take out a set amount of cash to regulate my frivolous spending.
With a large segment of population going to Debit cards and the like why are we spending the money on another $1 coin. I guess the Treasury Department needs to spend funding money too.
$1 coins suck. They are heavy and annoying to tote around.
I used 1 pound coins in England for years and I absolutely hated the things. Keep the bills. They are lighter, more convenient, and we won't need to carry cash at all in just a few more years.
Well, speaking for a country with not only a 1$ coin, but a 2$ coin as well, I am a big fan of low denomination coins. I can remember when Canada had 2$ bills, and they were always faded, torn and generally worn out from high circulation. With coins you don't get that as much. At worst, worn out coins are just really dirty.
I don't think Canada has one dollar bills, only coins.
Higher denomination coins like the dollar could actually work now considering the price of a lot of vending machine items have gone up considerably since Sacajawea.
Credit based systems go along with a lot of fear over electronic medium as the sole tool for currency. What if the machine breaks down, or gets broken into? Heck, computers are not the most stable things in the world. This could screw up the finances of almost everyone if we go with a credit based currency only.
Speaking from experience, I like the $1 coin, so to all of you who said it wouldnt work, it has and still is working in Canada along with our $2 coin. Sometimes you get loaded down with change, but I'd rather search through a bunch of coins for a 1 or 2 dollar coin, than search through a bunch of bills looking for a $20.
Dollars are much easier to tote around than coins. Coins tend to make my wallet harder to stay closed and get uncomfortable from the bulges. I say stick with dollars.
Paper money has a major advantage over coinage in its portability. Sure, that one pound coin remark was a joke, but after a while, coinage really starts to weigh you down. It's much easier to carry around hundreds of sheets of paper rather than hundreds of coins.
The problem with switching everything to plastic and electronics is the security issue. What happens if there's a massive computer failure? Region-wide blackout? Is everybody's money just gone, now? Cash is physical. If I have a dollar in my hand, short of someone punching me and taking it, that dollar is mine. If I have a dollar in the electronic bank, all someone has to do is pull a few plugs and my money is gone. Having physical currency makes people feel secure. Many people keep their money in their houses rather than banks because they're worried about it being stolen. They think, "I can defend my money when it's under my pillow; I can't protect it at the bank."
At any given time, I have at least 5 $1 bills with me, because I can make money by trading 4 and $0.75 for a $5.
People so that at my school beacuse they'd rather have bills than the coins the change machine dispenses, and they're willing to pay $0.25 for that option.
I don't carry $1 coins because people aren't as likely to trade for those.
They're much heavier, and inconvenient. You can't sort your change in your pocket, so you have to pull out all your change and look through it yourself, but bills can easily be sorted and folded into your wallet, and they won't move out of order.
I think the reason they want a $1 coin is because all Bills cost exactly 4 cents to make, while all coins cost more (Pennies cost somewhere in the range of 10 cents to make). With a $1 coin, there is one more option as to what coin to make, which can help with their control of our economy.
That's why we don't just switch to electronic money. It takes nothing to produce. Additionally, it isn't as secure, can more easliy be counterfeited, and will be worthless, because it would be much more easliy available to everyone. When everyone has lots of money, inflation can get a lot worse.
In addition, an electronic money system would completely cut out banks, because you would need no common market for loans and savings. When the banks are cut out, there is no money multiplier system, which is an important part of Fiscal policy.
The Federal Reserve switching to electronic currency would reduce their control over the economy, so they're not likely to do that. The Federal Reserve would be pretty useless then, anyway, so the 12 Federal Reserve banks would have to close down. Lots of people would be out of a job, and there would be no advisors from those Fed banks to moitor and report the condition of the economy in the region they represent.
Basically, I think that $1 coins are unwanted but will keep happening, and Electronic currency will probably never happen.
Coins are clunky and less portable than paper money. The dollar coin will never work. It never has, and it never will.
Says the guy with "quarters" as his screen name. Srsly.
But on topic, I think a one dollar coin should be instituted and all $1 bills removed from circulation. Coins have a much much longer lifespan than paper money, and with the lifespan and cost factored in, the government would be spending much less to make currency if they went with a $1 coin.
However, Americans don't like change. I think a $1 coin would be the best route, however I don't think America would ever go for it. You need usage to make it work. The only way it would work would be for the government to force usage of the coin by removing dollar bills from circulation. That won't ever happen either, though.
Then again, I also think pennies should be taken out of use.
Coins don't weigh all that much. There's no reason to carry more than 4 singles, and a dollar coin weighs barely more than a quarter. It's not exactly a heavy load to carry four quarters in your pocket now is it?
NZ has $1 and $2 coins as well. It was strange to start using $1 bills again in the US. Overall I found the coins better to use. Recently most of our coins had a change in size and where shrunk. Many years ago the 1c and 2c coin were removed from circulation with the Swedish rounding system used for cash purchases. With the coin make over they also got rid of the 5c as well. I haven't been home since they got rid of it so I can't say how that change is going, but from what I hear there have been no real problems. So now we just have 10,20,50c and $1,$2 coins.
As to Roadblocks concern our mens entertainment establishments tend to use their own paper money like vouchers for transactions. Just go in and exchange your cash for something a little easier to place on the girls, problem solved. And as for the weight, they can use what ever size and alloys they like to mint the coin, after all it is really only a representation of its face value.
Over all I found I do prefer using the coins for the smaller denominations after going back to using the paper $1.
As I think it can be a hassle to have a wallet full of $1 bills, but it's better than having a pocket full of $1 coins.
I prefer opening my wallet and being able to immediately pull out any denomination I have readily sorted in my wallet, than to sift through a pocketfull of coins as I search for a $1 coin to use in a machine or any other use for legal tender.
My point is that Coins can't be kept organized, whereas bills can be easily.
If they want a $1 Coin so much, maybe they should try a $5 Coin (Or any higher denomination for that matter) for awhile, let people get used to it (It'll be rarer, so they won't complain about them weighing down pockets) and when they do get used to it, they'll be more open to a $1 coin.
A lot of people were arguing against credit based systems because of a lack of security. Well, coins are more secure, are they not? They're in your front pocket, so if someone steals your wallet (usually back pocket), you can "save" money.
Anyway, there's nothing unorganized about coins. Any time I have change, I keep quarters in one pocket and everything else in the other - because the quarters are really all you use. If there were dollar coins, I'd have dollar coins in one pocket, everything else in another. It makes them easy access.
I spent the summer in Europe and I liked the 1 euro and 2 euro coins. I also liked the idea that all the prices had the taxes already included and they were all pretty much even. That may have been because I was a tourist, but that seemed like an awsome system to me. and no offense to old Abe, but a penny, seriously, get rid of it, nothing costs a penny anymore.
