On Dec 27, 7:58*pm, "
wrote:
On 27/12/2011 23:46, Peter T. Daniels wrote:





On Dec 27, 6:12 pm, Robert *wrote:
Jarle H *wrote:

I'm amazed you still use one dollar bills. Why haven't they been phased
out?

Paper notes are still far more convenient to carry than coins and the US has far
more vending machines and cash register drawers than most other countries. While
many will accept dollar coins, the ones that do tend to be government owned (ie
Post Office) or located in casinos. The far more ubiqutous soda and candy
vending machines tend to take nickels, dime and quarters, and if you are really
lucky, the have a working receiver for $1 bills. Replacing all those won't be
cheap and the cost would fall on the machine owner while the benefit went to the
government.

Benefit? There's upwards of a billion Presidential Dollar coins
sitting in warehouses, because Congress mandated that vast numbers
more be minted than there was a collectors' market for; they shipped
them to banks, and eventually the banks shipped them back. (I've never
seen one. The last time I used a p.o. vending machine, at least two
years ago, I got both Sackies and Susan B's.) Just the storage is
costly

I've lived in both kinds of countries and used both types of currencies. While
you can make an argument that coins are cheaper over their lifetime, I'm glad
the US is still using paper.

And 1c coins, too.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as
Canada each use their respective penny coins.-

UK pence are (these days) about 1.5c (if a GBP is still around $1.50).