The United States Treasury did n’t print any $ 10 bills last twelvemonth . lurid , but true . It ’s because we use less and less cash every year . Which does n’t mean we ’re going to be a cashless society anytime presently . That ’s big .
A story in the New York Times reveals some fascinating data about the business of print money . In addition to not print up any Modern $ 10 bills , the Treasury printed fewer $ 5 broadsheet in 2010 than in any other twelvemonth over the last three 10 . Dollar bills now circulate much longer than ever before , an average of 40 months . Thanks to better printing , scanning , and processing technology , today the Treasury only replace 21 percent of currency returned to it by banks , down from 46 percent in 1989 . In unforesightful : we ’re using less cash and obtain onto it longer .
And then there ’s Ben Franklin .
The $ 100 banker’s bill is more democratic than ever , all over the world . In 2010 , the Treasury print more C - notes than dollar sign - buck bills ( y’ all ) . It ’s hive up everywhere currentness is unstable , and the government attain a tidy gain on it to iron boot . As the New York Times note :
This is very profitable for the United States . up-to-dateness is printed by the Treasury and make out by the Federal Reserve . The primal bank give the Treasury for the cost of product – about 10 centime a note – then exchanges the note at face value for securities that pay sake . The more money it make out , the more interestingness it earns . And each year the Fed returns to the Treasury a gold rush called a seigniorage payment , which last twelvemonth exceeded $ 20 billion .
All of which is to say , the Dollar is n’t going anywhere anytime shortly . And that make me very felicitous .
I know that Dollars permit me make anon. transaction . I ’m not at all sell on virtual currencies that assure to do the same . BitCoin , for example , is a joke . I tend to buy into Adam Cohen ’s description of it on Quora :
Bitcoin is a ludicrously bad idea . It is a cozenage . A Scam . It is not a currency . The economical assumptions underpinning the Bitcoin ecosystem are laughable , and ignore C of years of accumulate understanding of how currency form with each other .
I bonk that Dollars allow me buy whatever I want , pretty much anywhere . While the Times cites some instance of places that do n’t take cash ( and I do bump into that on airplanes quite a bit ) for the most part your U.S. Dollars are good all over the world . They take them in Canada , Cuba , Laos and London too . Unlike the yard of Vietnamese Dong and Laotian Kip I ’ve got leftover that I basically ca n’t use anywhere outside of those countries .
one dollar bill are great in case of an parking brake . I inhabit in San Francisco , where the Big One is basically a certainty . Can you venture what ’s in my temblor kit ? It ’s not a BitCoin or a a Visa card . In a catastrophe state of affairs , I want something in my handwriting . I need something that ’s easy to convert into goods and services if all the spark are out and there ’s no net connexion to be find .
Look , I ’m eager to use all kinds of next - genesis payment technology . Smart companies like Square and Google and PayPal are all working on ways to permit me ante up for something without hand over John Cash , or whipping out my credit card . That ’s great ! particularly since I ’m often running deep .
But the dollar sign is my older firm . And I ’m beaming to see it ’s not pass aywhere anytime soon .
John Cash
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