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Inflation killing Cent & Nickel - but will it bring back the Kennedy Half?
MsMorrisine
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As many expect inflation to eventually kill off the cent and nickel, would it revive the use of the Kennedy Half?
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Either inflation will lead to the use of larger denomination coins or all coinage will become
superfluous to tranbsactions. The only other significant possibility is the government will
eliminate currency altogether. (unlikely for the near future).
In any of these scenarios the half dollar is most unlikely to circulate. Not only is it gener-
ally disliked because of its weight and reduced utility but in the eventy larger coins are
instituted in commerce it will reduce the demand for quarters driving significant numbers
into storage. In such an enviroment halfs simply would compound the problem rather
than alleviate it.
The only way I could see it happening is if the government finally got serious about sav-
ing taxpayer money and using the resources available rather than spending to support
some vested interest. You might laugh but I once read a scxience fiction story with just
this theme.
You are given back a few bits of change. This is the tail end of the transaction to make it all come out even. Your handful of change is worth a tiny fraction of the paper you used for the purchase.
Maybe, eventually, you re-spend the change. But that is a minor effect. The vast bulk of your currency dollars are in the form of paper.
Since change has a long lifetime and gets used over and over again, the arguments about how expensive coinage is to produce are "diminishing arguments". It's less important than folks think.
The government does make wholesale melting of coinage illegal so that they don't have to produce so much; they do want to limit the expense of course.
I'd like to see coinage become more important in a transaction. That implies that we need higher denomination coinage.
The half dollar is such a remnant. The weight changed a few times and so did the material, but the general size AND denomination has been preserved for over two hundred years.
I wish we had coins up to $20.
there seem to be too many factors working against what we all take for granted in a coinage system and it's really about time for the retards in Washington to wake up. i know that compared to the National Debt the savings would be miniscule, but to ignore anything which cuts cost is arrogant at this point in time-----and the current structure of our coinage system and cuurency system is outdated, uneconomical and just plain ridiculous.
1. the Cent is a dinosaur which needs to be retired despite all the romantic, sympathetic pleas for its retention.
2. the size/weight of the Nickel needs to be reassessed and changed.
3. something needs to be done with the "middle denominations" we know as the Dime, Quarter and Half-Dollar, both in size and denominated amount.
4. the Dollar coin just needs to be used. Governments govern and this is a case where ours just needs to tell us what we'll be using.
5. we also need a coin denomination in a value larger than a Dollar, yet a size which doesn't make it cumbersome to carry.
6. we need to eliminate the $1 and possibly $2 bills, figure something out to make currency counterfiet-proofer and increase our highest publicly used amount.
7. money needs to be sunk into electronic systems which are fool-proof and facilitate more use of "Plastic" for EVERYTHING without putting any cost on consumers.
the present economic crisis brings the sensibility to these things into the forefront, but they have been inevitabilities for many years. it's time for the Fed to pull their collective heads out of the sand and begin to Govern. America, a supposed World Leader, is burdened with a Monetary System which is over 200 years old. certainly it has been tinkered with over the years, principally during the mid-1800's when wave after wave of uncertainty seemed to be the norm. apparently we have become comfortable with the present broken system and uncomfortable with the spectre of change ahead. too bad, we need to learn to deal with it.
i'm sure not well informed on the topic, but what developed country is still using an archaic monetary system that's 200 years old?? Geez, even the European Union figured this one out, can't we do the same??
Keets- you're being naive. Romance and sympathy have nothing to do with it. It's all political lobbying and donations from the zinc industry.
granted, i am naive, but not about this!!!
As for the half dollar, it is not viable as a circulating coin at its current size. If they were to make it smaller and distinctive, perhaps multi-sided, then it would circulate. It would, in any event, need to be usable in vending machines.
In a perfect world, we'd see:
Elimination of the cent, dollar bill, and two dollar bill
Resizing of the half dollar
Addition of a two dollar coin
Reinstatement of the $500 and $1000 bill.
But then in a perfect world I'd be dating Shakira.
Stewart Huckaby
mailto:stewarth@HA.com
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