About damn time (paper money)

[RB TexLa]

I'm of the opinion that we should get rid of cash all together and just go electronic, but.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_go_ot/blind_money_4

WASHINGTON - The government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said Tuesday in a ruling that could change the face of American currency.

[EstimatedProphet]

1. They already changed American money!

Number 3 is not a realistic choice, since all the bills other than the $1 have changed in the last 10 years.

[TalkingDog]

8. Yes, like they change it every few years.

When I was a pup you could still find the occassional silver certificate. If you don't know what those are, just google it.

Paper money has a life of about 18 months and the printing of new money and reconfigured plates happens every year (the issuance year and signature change). So small changes are happening all the time.

The new anti-counterfitting measures changed the look drastically, but trust me, it would be a minimal change to put raised dots on the face of bills and only a little more expensive for the mint to make them different sizes.

As one person pointed out however, every place money is changed in public from retail stores to ATMs would have to reconfigure their physical set up.

[Scooter24]

2. All my monetary transactions are electronic 99% of the time.

I rarely keep cash on me. All my bills are paid electronically as well. The rest is paid for on plastic.

But I agree, there should be some system in place for those who are blind to handle money by touch.

[LA lady]

3. raised dots not sizes

I have worked in retail many years. Different sized bills will force reconfiguring cash registers and machines. VERY EXPENSIVE.

[Phredicles]

4. Wouldn't raised dots also make them harder to counterfeit?

At least somewhat, I have to think.

[China_cat]

23. European currency

already has raised dots to differentiate denominations. The Dutch have had them since before WWII.

[Warpy]

5. Different shapes will do it nicely

I've been nearly blind for some time now, and the old bills that all looked the same were hideous to deal with. I had to keep a magnifying glass with me to cope with them.

Now that they're different patterns of "somebody peed on me" colors, it's a bit easier.

Different shapes would be wonderful, rectangular for the ones (the most common denomination) rounded corners for the fives, ovals for the tens, corners clipped for the twenties, and fancier shapes for the higher denominations.

That way the stuff could still be folded and stuffed into a pocket. The problem with metal currency is that it's HEAVY.

Braille would be nice for those who read Braille, but those dots just won't last. A lot of the blind can't master Braille for one reason or another. Cutting the currency into different shapes as I've outlined would be the most economical and workable solution.

[cynatnite]

6. My brother-in-law keeps his bills folded...

That's how he can tell ones from fives and so on. He's almost completely blind. Fits very nicely in his wallet and out of the almost 20 years I've known him, he's never complained :shrug:

[flobee1]

9. I just cant help

but to think of the scene in "Ray" where he had to be paid in ones to be sure he was getting all his money:)


Why not just switch to the euro?

[cynatnite]

11. Yeah, I remember that...

Love that movie!

[tpsbmam]

17. The problem with that....

is that you have to be able to trust all of the people who hand you money. Maybe it's me as a native New Yorker, but that's more trust than I can handle. :shrug: :P

[cynatnite]

22. Family handles his money so not a problem n/t

[mentalsolstice]

28. Some visually impaired persons don't have family they can rely on. n/t

[tpsbmam]

29. Exactly, and...

I'm a freaking adult. I don't WANT my family to handle my money for me. If I were visually impaired, it wouldn't mean that I wasn't a highly capable, responsible adult fully capable of handling all of my own financial matters, including money. I'd want to be able to go out, pay for things, and make sure that I'm getting the correct change back for my purchase. And I'd want to be able to do it with or without someone in my family present.

You're so right -- I know a number of people with visual impairments (complete or partial blindness) who are single. Most of them live in NYC where it's pretty easy to get around without having a car so it's easier to be independent than in some other areas where cars are necessary. They don't have family around to handle their money for them and they move through the world VERY independently. And at least 2 of them have been cheated by scum who take advantage of the fact that they can't see what bills they're being handed.

[TheWraith]

7. Perhaps an expanded system of coinage?

I've always wondered why we don't have more variety in coins--a $20 coin would be more durable than a paper bill of the same denomination.

[TahitiNut]

10. It wouldn't take much of a size difference to make it useful.

Ideally, I think, the smaller denominations should also be the smaller in size ... but given the limited number of denominations (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100) the range in sizes would have to be very much at all. The sizes could vary only in length, too ... or some staggered combination of length and height/width.

For a couple of years, I 'car-pooled' with a blind co-worker, driving 15-20 miles (about 30 minutes) each way with Tom. (I couldn't take gas money - he kept me on-time and I was tempted to let him drive.) I learned a great deal from Tom ... from how he mowed the lawn to how he painted his house to how he shingled his roof to how he went grocery shopping. I also learned how often people tried to screw him out of his money by short-changing him. It's appalling.

[rasputin1952]

14. It is appalling that some people would take advantage of

a situation like that...:grr:

Back in the 20's/30's different size bills were different denominations. I had a $20 bill from 1916, it was completely different from what we see today.lo had a $10 Gold Certificate and a few other little things. Somehow they all got "lost"...:(

Anyway, a guy here in Central Nebraska inherited a house. He came in from CA to see what he had, not impressed w/the rundown house, he went to the barn and found a perfect Model A under a tarp....more looking and he found a couple of coffee cans w/all kinds of coins and bills from the turn of the century to about 1960.....Must be nice....:)

[Occulus]

12. Implant grains of plastic or metal in the corner

arranged in Braille. Problem solved.

(Is Braille considered a language in itself, or is it just considered to be alternate notation? I'm just curious.)

[lonestarnot]

13. My Mom is blind, but she has a system. The system relies on

honesty from bankers. She separates bills into various wallet compartments and various methods of folding. Works for her so far.

[RB TexLa]

16. folding seems to be the preferred method used, from the stories I've read

sad, because anyone, someone close or not can take advantage of this.

[lonestarnot]

18. Yes they could.

[ret5hd]

15. They are all gonna be worth about the same soon...

I propose a return to the gold standard.

[Pyrzqxgl]

19. how about having them smell different?

[porphyrian]

20. I just don't care.

It's not that I don't want it to be fair to the blind, I do. But as long as I can keep a bunch of it in a small place (and it's going to be quite some time before I see a bunch of it), I don't give a shit if it's round, purple and scratch-N-sniff.

[MadHound]

21. Going to an all electronic currency is foolish, in more ways than one

First off, if you take the US off of a paper monetary exchange, you will ruin the economy. The black market relies exclusively on cold, hard cash to do its transactions. And the black market in this country makes up at least ten percent of this country's GNP. You take away that much from our economy, and it will all fall, hard.

Secondly, you go to an electronic monetary system, and every transaction you make is going to be recorded, mined, analyzed, for purposes legit and nefarious. Are you really down with the idea of leaving a full and complete economic record of your life out there for anybody to see? I'm certainly not.

Third, there is the problem of ID theft. It has become a plague already, in just the last fifteen years. Switch over to an electronic monetary system, and it will explode.

Fourth, what happens when the system crashes, either inadvertantly or on purpose. A couple of years ago in a nearby city, a backhoe sliced right through a major phone and data cable bundle. Not only did we have no long distance for hours, but many of the businesses in town couldn't conduct any CC or other electronic transactions. It was a cash only basis. It would really suck in such a situation if there was no cash.

Fifth, if you made the dollar completely electronic, it would probably drop like a rock in value compared to other currencies. Sure, the greenback is backed these days by faith, and faith alone. But if you took away that tangible dollar, paper and ink that you can hold, feel and smell, that faith is going to go straight down the tubes.

Sorry, but an electronic monetary system is insane.

[The2ndWheel]

25. It's a good thing

that someone can write what is in my head. I've never been too good at doing that myself.

"you go to an electronic monetary system, and every transaction you make is going to be recorded, mined, analyzed, for purposes legit and nefarious."

Unfortunately we're there in some respect already, and quickly progressing further. Your life is not for you anymore, it's for the institution.

[MadHound]

26. You're right, our lives are becoming ever more tracked, mined and analyzed

Everytime you swipe that oh so handy piece of plastic, some computer somewhere is recording this, analyzing it, mining it for information, and storing it with thousands of other little bits of data in a file with your name on it. Advertising is becoming a much more precise and targeted practice. All of this is due to the ability of computers to mine your data, store it and analyze your trends.

Go to the supermarket, and if you've been a regular customer, using either those discount cards, or another piece of plastic, the printer at the register will spit out a selection coupons for you. And even if you didn't buy, say, Fancy Feast cat food, the computer registers who is doing the purchase, notes that you've been a pretty regular buyer of Fancy Feast, and will try to entice you to buy more with those coupons. Switch over to Friskies for awhile, and soon you'll be getting coupons for that, whether you happened to purchase any at that particular time or not.

And sadly, much of this information is easily available to both the government and other corporations. It is either sold, coerced, siezed, or stolen, and then it is passed around for all to see and analyze. Get a subscription to Sports Illustrated, and pretty soon you will be receiving offers for ESPN the Mag, Maxim, or Stuff. Why? Because it has been determined that buyers of certain products fit into a certain niche served by others, this data is sold to others, and then here come the offers.

This is one of the big reasons that I favor remaining on a cash basis. I make my everyday transactions in cash, I leave no record behind, and I don't feel like I'm exposing an ever increasing segment of my life for corporate America and others to see. And frankly, I don't consider cash to be a hassle. I generally carry around forty dollars or less, and the time it takes me to pay for most items with cash is less than it takes most people to buy with credit card. Yes, that's changing, but still, no big deal. Are our lives so short that we begrudge the extra minute it takes to do a cash transaction? I don't, in fact some of the most interesting things I've found out, some of the most interesting people I've met have been while we're doing a cash transaction.

[The2ndWheel]

27. It's about the complete compartmentalization of life

The killing of diversity. The sameness. The categorizing and numbering of every aspect of life. The ease of order.

Like you said, you can meet different people when being face to face. With plastic, you don't even need a person behind the register anymore. We need actual people less and less. We really just need their number. I know, I know, mark of the beast. I'm not so much worried about what Satan may or may not be doing, I'm more worried about the logical reasons given for increased order in the form of tracking, analyzing, and mining of information.

Actual humans don't actually need that type of order for our everyday lives. However, the scale at which civilization finds itself basically requires that type of order by governments and corporations.

Then when they figure out how the brain works, it'll make everything that much easier. Paranoid, maybe. But that doesn't mean governments and corporations wouldn't love to know what we're all thinking.

[RB TexLa]

24. kick