[PRCo] Changed to: Do we need gold dollars and pennies

[Fred Schneider]

You want to see "gold" dollars, ask me.  I never go out without a pocket full of them.  About once every two or three weeks, I go to the bank and replenish my supply of gold dollars and $2 bills.  I was once asked why I wanted them.  My response was, "I
paid to mint and print them.  Somebody should be using them."  I have no trouble getting them ... my bank stocks them.  And when you use them,  you meet the most interesting people.  Like the former disabled owner/operator of the snack bar in the Reading
State Office Building who tore a $2 bill in little pieces and threw it on the floor.   Actually they are both quite good for tips in restaurants if you want the help to remember that you tip well.  (They will also remember better if you are a parsimonious
skin flint.)  Of course a 25 to 35 percent tip in a good restaurant works too ... you'd be amazed at the quality of service you will get the next time you walk in.

What is more amazing than minting a coin the same size as the quarter (so that vending machines could use them) is our government's refusal to take the $1.00 paper out of circulation.  Every developed nation that I've visted has no paper smaller than
something between our $5 and $10 bills.   Most, like Canada with its loonies and toonies, have coins for both $1 and $2, or €1 and €2 in the European Common Market, or £1 and £2 om Britain.  Their people didn't like the coins any more than ours do, but
their government understand that it costs far less to keep coins out there.

And, Bob, while we are on the subject of amazing currency, is it not strange that we continue to mint pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters?  They had a purpose in the past.  But a penny from 1900 is a dollar today with inflation.  The dollar today is
worth far less than the half cent was when we got rid of it.  Yes, I hear you, we need coins for parking meters (tokens would work), gasoline in amounts less than two quarts (credit cards work), and sales tax (that can be adjusted to $1 on every $15 or
so).  Of yes, we also need pennies because of our marketing belief that buyers are stupid enough to believe that $3.99 is not $4.00.

Maybe we need four coins:  $5, $2, $1, and quarters.

That ought to start comments!!!

"Dietrich, Robert J." wrote:

> To me this is more believable than the fact that the U. S. Government actually minted that quarter-sized coin.  One also has to wonder about the new dollar coin - I think I've "seen" but one or two of those puppies.  They really caught on didn't they.
>
> Bob
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> From:   Fred Schneider [mailto:fschnei at supernet.com]
> Sent:   Friday, January 09, 2004 7:56 PM
> To:     pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject:        [PRCo] More unbelievable stories
>
> This comment on my story about the AAA clerk deserves wider exposure ...
> but I'd prefer not to disclose who sent it to me.
>
> "This ranks with me along the Redwood Highway in California, handing a
> clerk
> a Susan B Anthony dollar.
>
> "She looked at it, and handed it back, telling me 'We don't take foreign
>
> money'."