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Hey guys.. this week’s political minute is all about money.. big money.
But first.. if you missed the video of Curiosity landing on Mars, here is a quick replay from
the rover’s point of view:
If you look really closely, you can see the shadow of the rover as it’s landing... wow!!!!!
Arggghhhh!
OK... that was not cool.. you practically gave me a heart attack... and that was NOT
my voice screaming there!
Hey guys, Charles Como back with another Political Minute. This week we talk about a bill (pun
intended) before congress to do away with the dollar bill and replace it with a dollar
coin.
This may seem like a trivial matter to cover, but for some of us, this is not such a trivial
thing... to find out why.. start the one-minute clock.
Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona
are co-sponsors of a bill to take all dollar bills out of circulation and replace them
with dollar coins. They claim that it will save the government over 200 million dollars
a year as they won’t have to keep replacing worn out bills.. and the both happen to be
from states that mint coins for the government.
But, upon a closer look, there appears to be more going on here than just replacing
worn out paper.
It appears that a LOT of this profit the government will be making is coming from something called
seigniorage
If you are like me, you hate coins, as they jingle around in your pocket and they are
heavier than bills... basically annoying, so you do what a lot of people do, put their
coins in a jar at home, effectively removing the coins from circulation. When you take
money out of circulation, the government needs to print more to make up the loss. And this
difference is a big part of the profit the government will be making by moving to dollar
coins. By making things inconvenient for us, they are able to make a profit.
Plus, coins make the following situation inconvenient:
Yeah baby.. shake that thing... here’s a whole dollar coin with your name written all
over it... umm.. where am I supposed to put this?
So as far as I’m concerned, let’s stick with the dollar bill.. it’s so much more
convenient.
What do you guys think, shall we kill the dollar bill and replace it with a dollar coin,
or just stick with the bill. Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe
for more political minutes.
See you next week!