Do Not Weep for Andrew Jackson

[randomness]

Dan McLaughlin in the National Review makes a number of important points about changes to the $20 bill:

"There are a few lessons here, not least the power of popular culture: Hamilton, previously the most obscure figure (to the general population) of the men on American currency was clearly saved in large part by the runaway success of the Broadway hip-hop musical celebrating his life. Conservatives may decry the politically correct identity-politics drive to demand a woman on the money and downgrade Jackson, but it’s worth remembering that Jackson has only been there since 1928, when he replaced Grover Cleveland, and decisions about whom we should honor on our money have always said as much about our values at a given moment as about any historical merit.

"...Tubman herself is a worthy honoree, the first ordinary citizen on paper money and a woman of great courage and powerful Christian witness. She was also — this tends to be forgotten today — a nurse and scout during the Civil War and herself a leader of the women’s suffrage movement until her death at 91 in 1913, more than half a century after her “Underground Railroad” exploits. Tubman’s life is not without its own controversies, like her assistance to John Brown in advance of the Harper’s Ferry raid that ended with Brown being hanged for treason (the justification of Brown’s actions is one of the great ethical dilemmas in American history: How far exactly should one go to stop something as bad as slavery?). And if the debates over the $10 and the $20 lead more Americans to learn the flesh-and-blood stories of Hamilton, Jackson, and Tubman, that can’t be a bad thing. They remind us that our politics have always been messy and sometimes bloody."

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Jackson was a nasty bastard, even by the standards of his time. And as one op-ed writer noted, he'd have hated having his face on paper money, because he was against paper money, and against a central bank as well.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I thought this piece in The Week spoke to that last bit pretty well.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's were I read it!

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Woot. :D

[tavella.livejournal.com]

... that's surprisingly rational and balanced for the National Review.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I read them semi-regularly. Not as regularly as I read The American Conservative, where I follow all of Daniel Larison and Noah Millman's posts, but the National Review is currently in my regular rotation.

I don't agree with everything they say, but it's not like I agree with everything I read anywhere.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

To echo what I heard another person say about the change:

"Why would I have a problem with a racist Democrat being replaced with a black Republican?"

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Heh.

I'd actually go farther and describe the decision having a genocidal Democrat replaced by a bible-thumping, gun-toting, black militant Republican. It's no surprise to me that Trump is against removing Jackson from the $20; they have some characteristics in common.

I was also never much for Wilson, either--and I'd be against his being returned to the $100,000 bill--but that's another subject for another time.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

I agree regarding Wilson, the man who re-segregated the federal government. Fortunately since the bills larger than the $10,000 were only printed in order to have a way of moving currency between Federal Reserve banks, now obviated by wire transfers, I doubt we'll see the return of the $100,000 bill any time soon.

Personally, I advocate for bringing back the $500 bill into general circulation and putting Ronald Reagan on it, but then again I also want to abolish the penny and the $1 bill (print $2 bills instead), and change the dollar coin to be the size of a half-dollar.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

The Federal Reserve's own link has gone dead, but they actually talked about larger denominations and the consequences of reissuing them in a memo from 2010, quoted by the Financial Times' Alphaville blog:

Production capacity for $100 bills, the largest denomination in production, is uncertain, but is no more than $500 billion per year. In the extreme, presumably production of larger-denomination banknotes could be reinstated, but at least one year’s lead time would be required before production of such notes could begin. There is precedent for the use of denominations up to $10,000 in general and for denominations up to $100,000 for transactions between the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. In addition, the information that currency production is being ramped up substantially, or that any other changes to banknote management are being made, could have large and unpredictable consequences if such changes were misinterpreted as pointing to higher inflation.

That said, a year is pretty optimistic given the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's last botched job with the blue $100.

I think the dollar coin is good enough as is, at least for now, because there are already over a billion of them in storage. That's ridiculous. Get them out into circulation, even if you have to give every American three.

After they're no longer sitting in vaults taking up space I'd be open to striking something different.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

I remember reading that the government will ship dollar coins to you at cost: $500 gets you 500 dollar coins, the government eats the cost of shipping (which for the weight involved, is non-trivial). I recall Carneggy joking about the idea of getting 500 dollar coins, putting them in a chest, then lugging it around a con to use to pay for things (calling them gold pieces, of course).

The problem with the dollar coin is that the quarter-sized dollar is immensely unpopular. While I personally love the Eisenhower dollar coin (I still carry one), it wasn't very popular either, since it seemed too big for people, even though it weighed the same as four quarters (actually, 1 Eisenhower dollar coin weighs the same as 2 Kennedy half-dollars, 4 Washington quarters, and 10 Roosevelt dimes). So under the Goldilocks principle, maybe a half-dollar-sized dollar coin might be a size people would use. Confusion with the half-dollar would be minimal since the government hasn't minted any new half-dollars for general circulation since 2003. If the public actually accepts the half-dollar-sized dollar coin, then start melting down the unpopular dollar coins to make the new ones.

Back when Congress was balking at raising the debt limit, the idea was being kicked around of making a $1 trillion, or slightly more practially, a $100 billion coin, and minting them as necessary to fund the government. Reportedly it was going to be about the size and weight of a manhole cover. It never happened because the debt limit eventually was raised plus the economic consequences of doing that would be pretty much exactly what you would expect, inflationary-wise.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I remember reading that the government will ship dollar coins to you at cost: $500 gets you 500 dollar coins, the government eats the cost of shipping (which for the weight involved, is non-trivial).

That was true for a while but then they stopped because people with frequent-flyer credit cards were using them to accrue mileage: order ten thousand with a credit card, hand 'em right back to their local bank as soon as they arrived, lather, rinse, repeat. This was great for the credit card holders as they racked up lots of miles but the Mint was left eating a lot of postage.

The problem with the dollar coin is that the quarter-sized dollar is immensely unpopular.

But that's mainly because the dollar bill still exists. Here's why I think that: in 1979, the Americans came up with the SBA dollar, which in a blinding fit of stupidity was the same color as the quarter, and even the same shape. Originally, it was supposed to be eleven-sided, which is where the eleven-sided rim around the edge of the design comes from. However, the vending machine industry objected, saying an eleven-sided coin wouldn't roll down a chute. (There was a fix for that which somehow the Mint didn't think of, which will come later.) So the SBA was also round as well as being the same color and composition as a quarter.

Anyway, the vending machine companies updated their acceptance equipment so that machines would take SBAs, but then no one liked the SBA because you couldn't easily tell it apart from a quarter by looking at it, so those machines didn't get a whole lot of use dealing with dollars.

In 1987, the Canadians decided it was time for them to stop printing dollar bills, and came out with the loonie. They noticed that the Americans had gone to a lot of trouble to find a coin size that wasn't already in use by someone else (so that another country's coin couldn't be used as a dollar) and there were already all these great vending machine mechanisms around, so they picked the same size as the SBA for the loonie. However, as they managed to learn from other people's mistakes, they did two things that made the loonie instantly recognizable: they colored it gold, so you'd know it was a dollar as soon as you looked at it; and they made it eleven-sized, so you could feel the difference in your pocket.

But how'd they get the loonie to roll down a chute? Turns out that the British had figured that problem long ago, with the 50p piece, which is seven-sided, but has beveled edges, so it still rolls. The loonie did that, but with the eleven-sides the SBA was supposed to have from the start.

The Canadians ditched their paper dollar at the same time. The loonie is a very popular coin nowadays. And they got to use the American coin acceptance hardware in their vending machines: back when oil was above $100/bbl. and the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American one I brought some SBAs and Sacagawea dollars up to Canada to try in Canadian vending machines. They worked. (It was only a couple of cents difference but US coinage is actually legal in Canada, so it was a useful experiment.)

When the Sacagawea dollar came along in 2001, it would have been smart for the Americans to go and copy the Canadians right back. The Canadians had made it easy by using a different composition for the loonie, so all the Americans would have had to do was to color the Sacagawea dollar and make it eleven-sided, and the different metallic properties would have made it easy to reject Canadian loonies in US machines. Instead, the US Mint had a fit of "not invented here" syndrome and made the Sacagawea round. They did color it, so you can tell the difference if you look, and they did make the edge smooth, but in any case they didn't withdraw the one dollar bill, and this is why it's as unpopular as it is.

The general experience countries have had with one unit (dollar/pound/what have you) coins is that if you want the public to use them you have to withdraw the paper money when you introduce the coin, or no one switches over. But if you do withdraw the paper, everyone gets used to the new situation pretty quickly. (That said, the Australians did something silly with their $1 and $2 coins, but again, I'm getting off topic.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, I thought the trillion-dollar coin was really wacky as an idea. Funny and absurd, but wacky. Because of the legislation that "permitted" it--I use that word very loosely because I don't think it was actually legal, although that would have ended up in the courts--the coin would have had to have been made of platinum. It couldn't be made of anything else, because the legislation people were talking about using was one which authorized platinum coins for collectors and investors.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the problem with the old dollars is that the mess up the banks' coin-sorting machines, which use a rotating disk with holes in it that are half-dollar sized, so any of the sub-dollar coins will drop into the hole. It turns out that the old dollar is big enough that two dimes can fit into a dollar-sized hole.

Though the "confusion" about the new dollar coin is a matter of habit -- the new dollar is bigger than a quarter by the same amount the quarter is bigger than a nickel. But you're used to making the latter distinction.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong; I really like the old dollar as well. I just don't think it's a practical size for daily use.

Originally, the Eisenhower dollar was revived for the benefit of the slot machine industry. Having big dollars clatter noisily into buckets on payout was a selling point. The SBA/Sacagawea sized dollar never caught on with the casinos, although the half dollar was pretty popular. I remember going to one of the Connecticut casinos for a bucket of them at one point, because it was easier than going to three or four bank branches to pick up half dollars.

Now that the casinos have entirely gotten out of the coin-handling business--all their slot machines take bills and spit out receipts that you cash in at the teller--I've completely lost interest in the machines. They used to be great places to get quarters for parking meters: put in a couple of twenties, hit the "cash out" button, and instantly I had a refill of my car's quarter supply. What's more, the casino would even gave you a bucket to carry them in loose, which was more convenient than rolls of quarters from the bank.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Trump is against removing Jackson from the $20; they have some characteristics in common

See "Andrew Jackson, Revenant" by Walter Russell Mead.