Do They Owe Me A Hobby?

Of course they don't. I'm speaking of $1 bills in particular. One of my geek hobbies is Where's George? No doubt you have received a bill with some Where's George markings on it, directing you to that website so that the movements of that bill can be tracked, for kicks and giggles.

In some of the budget cutting talks this year, the discussion turned to eliminating the $1 bill and replacing it with a $1 coin. This makes a lot of sense. Coins are vastly more durable than paper money. Did you know the average $1 bill only lives about 18 months? Over the long run, the cost savings are enormous- $5.6 billion over 30 years. This makes it worth doing.

But, but, but.. my hobby! Well, screw that. Nobody owes me a hobby. Where's George will as easily become "Where's Tom?" as $2 bills become the new smallest paper denomination, or, "Where's Abe?", as the public doesn't generally like $2s.

I'm fond of pennies, but there's really no good reason to continue minting them. I like riding trains, but that doesn't mean I support subsidies to Amtrak. Etc. I don't expect the entire country to spend foolishly just so that I may continue to enjoy a hobby as I know it today. My whims just aren't that important.

So, if the $1 should fade into history, I'll be glad of it overall. I'll smile at the cost savings to my country, and adjust my bill stamping habits accordingly.

Incongruous Thoughts on Lincoln

Yesterday was Lincoln's 200th birthday, and of all the nice things said, I hadn't noticed anywhere that Abe Lincoln was once making a living in a way quite impossible to now: as a self-taught lawyer. If it was good enough to be self-taught then, and it produced Abe Lincoln...

The Lincoln penny was introduced in 1909, at Lincoln's 100th birthday. The Lincoln penny replaced the Indian Head penny, and is currently the longest running unchanged coin, at least on the obverse. In 1959, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, the reverse changed from images of wheat to the Lincoln Memorial. I still get about 5-10 "wheat pennies" every year in change, and I keep them all, just because. It's been about a year since I got a pre-1965 silver Roosevelt dime. I love getting those!

There is some talk about eliminating the penny altogether, on the basis of cost savings to the US Treasury. Now, I really like any cost savings that can be found. But there are other things I like about American money, such as the stability of the images of it, and, the fact that inflation, for all the damage it has done, has still not made the American penny as useless as, say, the Danish 25 Ore coin, which was just eliminated a few months ago.