A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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the dollar bill with a dollar coin. All the while they have warehouses piled high with sacks of brand new, never circulated, dollar coins with Sacagawea on them. (Not to mention the stacks and stacks of dollar coins with President's faces on them ... and others.) You remember Sacagawea... the Shoshone Indian woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition. Boy that was a bust! But it gets worse. Funny thing was -- we men told Congress they could issue all the dollar coins they
wanted, but we simply would not use them and there'd be the added expense of storage for the cussed things. They went ahead, issued the coin, every one rushed out and got one coin each as a collector's item -- and that was it. Millions of them never made it into circulation because there was zero demand for them. All those vending machines made to take dollar coins instead of dollar bills, or smaller denomination coins, just sat idle. The government just kept pumping the things out at Treasury and now the taxpayers have to pay the tab to store the cussed things.
Oh, that was not the first dumb dollar coin move, either. There was the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin minted from 1979–1981, and again in 1999. In my opinion, the coin
was just plain butt-ugly and, as it turns out, it was the most unpopular coin in US history. Last I heard, there are salt mines stacked with bags of the "Susies" also being stored at taxpayers expense. “Given the substantial, growing inventory of $1 coins, it is clear that the minting of hundreds of millions of additional $1 coins over the next several years is not necessary and is not an effective use of taxpayer dollars,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal S. Wolin said in announcing a halt to dollar coin production in 2011. Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/08/17/3461896/small-change-lawmakers-push-dollar.html#storylink=cpy
Here's the thing: The government knows so much better what is good for us "peons" that they are considering taking all dollar bills out of circulation and replacing them with those hated dollar coins. That'll show us, huh? No, I am not kidding!
It hasn't been that long ago that the NFM (Non-Fox Media) was making fun of a few state legislators who had introduced legislation in their respective state legislatures for their states to print the state's own legal tender! Maybe they were on to something, what?
Now, I kind of like ole John Adams, primarily because he was an irascible ole cuss and
hell on wheels when he had decided on a course of action. I am drawn to that type of personality. BUT. I don't like ole John enough to carry metal slugs -- with his, or any other person's, image impressed upon them -- as dead weight in my pants' pockets! And the day is well past when men, I mean REAL men, carry change purses around with them -- except, of course, as a defensive weapon. (Most now use a roll of quarters in a sock as a weapon in lieu of the change purse. It's more "manly," don't you see?)The continued dollar coin folly of the US government is NOT a failure to communicate. It is, in fact, a failure of the government to pay any attention to what you and I are communicating TO them!
WE DON'T WANT ANY MORE DOLLAR COINS! We HATE the accursed things!
And it is not JUST the private citizen's dislike of the heavy coins, "retailers, on the other hand, say replacing the dollar bill completely would carry a high transition cost. They’d have to adapt cash registers, change money-transportation procedures, and reprogram coin dispensers," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores. Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/08/17/3461896/small-change-lawmakers-push-dollar.html#storylink=cpy
Look. Our northern neighbors in Maple Leaf Country may LOVE their "Loonies" (Canadian dollar coins) but, take a good look Congress, we are not Canadians! Now that America has a socialist dictator and at least one half of the Congress is socialist and we now have a "centralized authority" as a government rather than a constitutional representative republic, we can be sure we will be looked after -- whether we want to be or not! So, we can expect to see more dollar coins within a few short months or years.
Many Americans will lay claim to one of the new coins, ASAP, and we'll lock it away as a keepsake, and then the coins will begin piling up at Treasury until they lease more space in the salt mines or warehouses to store them, too -- at taxpayer expense, of course.
If the government is stupid enough to take the dollar bill out of circulation, there will be hell to pay and I don't mean paying with dollar coins either. This is the sort of dumb maneuver that ends political careers.
So -- why, with all the problems assailing the US these days did I choose this "minor" irritation on which to comment? Because it is emblematic of the "dumb-ass" decisions our government has been making for decades now.
The mess we are in today is the result of a culmination of all those little dumb-a, uh, unwise decisions. They add up. Eventually the bill comes due, sometimes as a balloon note. That's sort of where we are today. We have this huge balloon note due and we have no money to pay it. We're effectively, and REALLY, broke.
So, yes. The dollar coin decision is an important part of all of this. We have to hold the government accountable. If we don't pay close attention, heck, they might begin paying our debts by printing worthless paper money!
Say WHAT???
© J. D. Longstreet
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1 comment:
I'll tell how much I hate coins ... I won $250 on a dollar slot in Vegas once, it paid off in silver dollars...
I beat feet to the window to get me some folding money..
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