Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

I had the pleasure of a trip to the US late last year for work, LA to be precise. It was my first trip OS and was great fun.

When I made my visit to the cash exchange centre to buy some US dollars, I was immediately struck by the lack of differentiation in the 'greenbacks'. Every denomination was virtually the same, the greatest difference being the faces of the Presidents gracing the front. And then my first purchase gave me some coin, and the largest one they have is the world renown 'Quarter'. 

Thinking on this now, it seems strange that a country that is always seen as one moving ahead has done nothing to alter its currency for ... I know not how long.

Here in Australia, we moved from pounds to dollars in 1966, with each denomination a different colour and size. Then a few decades later we introduced plastic bank notes. These have proved extremely difficult to counterfeit - something the paper US dollar always seems to have problems with.

As inflation has worked its demon ways, the introduction of the dollar coin and then the two dollar coin saw the removal of those pesky little bank notes. And this simple move proved a great boon to manufacturers and distributors of coin operated machines, be they for confectionery, chips, cigarettes, drinks, etc.

It also meant that parking meters and ticket machines were given a greater life span. They didn't need bank note recognition technology as soon as might otherwise have been the case.

This is not the case in the US, where the 'quarter' is still king in parking meters. Unfortunately it has proven to be a real problem for some city treasuries whose hands have been tied in regards parking fee increases. 

Lets say the city bosses decide that they need more cash from parking, and so double their current fees from $1.00 per hour to $2.00 per hour. This potentially doubles the number of coins going into the meters coin vault. Beauty! More cash flow.

Hang on, the meters now fill up twice as quickly, need to be emptied twice as often otherwise they will jam and nobody pays. Extra staff are now required to empty the machines, count, sort and bank the cash.

The alternative? Invest large amounts of money that they probably don't have at this time in the economic cycle to purchase new machines of some sort. Preferably ones that accept credit cards as well as bank notes. That's between a rock and a hard place.

Meanwhile, perhaps the US Treasury could look at replacing the 1 and 5 buck notes with coins? How about a $2 coin while their at it?

JP