On: The importance of cash in a technological society

[owlstuffing]

$100 today is worth less than $10 fifty years ago, and accelerating in that direction. We need to go the _other_ way, we should print $500 and $1000 notes. And while we’re at, stop minting cents, nickels, & dimes.

[2023throwawayy → owlstuffing]

I was lamenting yesterday how coins should all just go away. Round up or down.

[dragontamer → 2023throwawayy]

Pennies and nickels and even quarters might be useless.

But coins for $1, $2 and $5 is likely more convenient. In particular, coins last like 20+ years in practice while paper degrades in 1/10th the time

[dieselgate → dragontamer]

Interesting how a lot of countries have these coins if I'm not mistaken (e.g. Canada with the toonie) but they're not relevant at all in US currency.

I still like $2 bills though

[marssaxman → dieselgate]

I used to keep a stock of $2 bills around specifically to pay bus fare - with the bill and a couple quarters in hand, I could step onto the bus, pay, and move back to a seat with barely a pause. This sometimes confused the drivers.

[DerekL → dieselgate]

The US has a $1 coin, but stores never give it back in change, using $1 bills instead. Some vending machines do give it back in change.

[dieselgate → DerekL]

Indeed, I'm a fan of the USD Kennedy half dollar but haven't seen one in years

[peteradio → 2023throwawayy]

Won't somebody think of the gumballs :(

[zzzcsgo → 2023throwawayy]

I love coins ... Specially the 1$ ones... Apparently that's what they give you for change at Atlanta train stations

[illiac786 → owlstuffing]

hmmm, that seemed very high and a quick check on usinflationcalculator.com shows 100$ are more like 15$ from 1973. still impressive, though.

[owlstuffing → illiac786]

My $10 estimation is generous considering the number and creativity level of changes applied to CPI calculation over the past few decades.

[gumby → owlstuffing]

I hope your use of "creativity" was not to imply the fiddling of the numbers.

It is very hard to figure out how to adjust the CPI over time; some things in the basket decline in volume (more efficient cars need less fuel per mile driven, but then again have people also changed their driving patterns or not?) and of course products switch in and out (who buys ring binders any more but of course a smart phone is a pretty necessary purchase yet didn't even exist 20 years ago).

Also you want to record the influence of high frequency signals (volatile commodities) yet damp it so it doesn't cause noise (fluctuations) in the signal.

Any then there are wholesale service changes (people eat out a lot more; when I was a kid I hardly knew anyone who could afford to eat in a restaurant more than once or twice a year).

There's a similar problem with GDP but GDP is so stupid that I don't care about that. It was "designed" (actually just spontaneously thought up by Kusnets) as an interim way to get some idea of what the hell was going on in the economy using just pencil and paper until somehting "real" could be developed.

[jjeaff → gumby]

And on top of that, CPI is not just some politicians deciding what they want. It is long term employees at the Fed and they take their work very seriously. They choose thousands of specific products from randomly selected retailers and they literally call on a regular basis to check the price changes over time. They keep these specifics top secret to reduce the chance of meddling. The kind of people that do this are the real "deep state" and they are the kind of people that actually keep our government working.