OT: if $100/$50 bill withdrawn what will remain?

[Speedy]

I've seen a hundred dollar bill several times. Plastic is the inevitable future.

[jdc]

gold pressed Latinum or nothing

[$tevie]

I find $100 bills to be a PITA. I never buy expensive things with cash, so I end up wandering around finding someone willing to break a hundred for a pack of gum. ;-)

[cbelt3]

There are a lot of theories. And a lot of issues. Both bills are obviously more frequently counterfeited. And as a result most cash based businesses won't accept them.

The other theory is that an all electronic commerce environment makes detecting crime that much easier, because then all of our cash flow is accessible via subpoena. That can also become a mechanism for control, and then the only solution is a barter economy.

I doubt very much that the $100 or $50 are going away anytime soon.

I'd personally welcome dropping the penny. They get in the way. Although I will confess to keeping a collection of the copper ones around to act as emergency conductors for repairs. I used one a few years ago in the place of an expensive battery terminal gizmo. Worked like a charm.

[Buck]

Drop the penny? YES!
$100 and $50 bill? Just plain dumb!

[Speedy]

I use lots of pennies. I would like to see the thousand dollar bill return to help samintx's wallet's bloat.

[Bimwad]

Sheesh. If they do that, what am I going to light my cigars with? Jacksons don't work as well.


The biggest sum of cash I've seen was on a tour of a FRB.

We were able to glance the counting rooms, and one had a pile of cash sitting on a table that must have been at least a Meelion dollars worth, like in the movies.

[N-OS X-tasy!]

$tevie wrote:
I find $100 bills to be a PITA. I never buy expensive things with cash, so I end up wandering around finding someone willing to break a hundred for a pack of gum. ;-)

Buy more expensive gum. :-)

[Seacrest]

Black wrote:
My tenants pay in 100 dollar bills.

Bonus: you can probably vacuum half-a-gram of coke off them each month and supplement your income.

[davester]

Buck wrote:
Drop the penny? YES!
$100 and $50 bill? Just plain dumb!

Pennies AND nickels! It is absurd to have such tiny denominations. The only reason that we have them is due to lobbying by metals producers, profiting at taxpayer expense. Do they hang on to such ridiculously worthless coins anywhere else in the world?

The penny has been the smallest denomination coin since 1857 (the date when the half-penny coin was dumped because it was too small a denomination to be useful) and the nickel has been the second smallest since 1866. Inflation since that time has been 2600%. In other words, the quarter is equivalent to the 1857 penny in value. If we kept to the lowest denomination value of 1857 we'd dump the dime too!