Mr. Rawles,
The U.S. Treasury has announced that it is seeking public comment on revised compositions for U.S. coinage. They are seeking comments from us mere citizens about what we think of changing the metal content of coins to even cheaper metals than the copper, zinc and nickel currently used. I think that all Survival Blog readers should comment – let the Treasury and the rest of The Powers That Be know that we don’t like how they’ve already debased our currency, and we don’t want them to do it to an even greater extent.
Of course, the Treasury will have to either change the content or change the stated value of the coins (or do away with them altogether). As you know they are already losing money just on the metal content of the nickels, and [the currently-produced copper-plated zinc] pennies aren’t far behind. The rest are profitable, but less so than if they used low-grade stainless steel or aluminum. Maybe nickels will use 5% nickel on the surface, just for show (like the Potemkin Village that is our economy) and aluminum or whatever underneath.
It is just so sad and so aggravating to see our nation’s wealth disappear right before our eyes, but that is just a reflection of the deterioration of our values over the last 50 or 75 years. Our currency is faith-based, and our word literally isn’t worth the paper it is printed on any more, so of course they can’t continue to make nickels out of nickel, let alone use copper for pennies and silver for dimes and above, any more. – Paul W.
JWR Replies: In 1964, nearly all U.S. silver coins were replaced by silver-plated copper slugs. Soon after, paper Federal Reserve Notes (so-called “dollars”) were no longer officially redeemable for silver. Since that time U.S. currency has been pure fiat–nothing but an empty promise. It can be exchanged by the government, but only for other worthless tokens–not for genuine specie. Author Boston T. Party summed this up well when he described the Federal Reserve Note as an “I.O.U. Nothing“.
To reflect the true value of the U.S. Dollar, I suggest that henceforth all U.S. coinage be made of plastic or aluminum. That way, they will be conveniently recyclable when the U.S. Dollar inevitably becomes worthless via mass inflation. That might spare the government the shame of the seeing its currency and coinage littering the streets.
SurvivalBlog’s Michael Z. Williamson wrote to mention that the editor of The Don’t Tread On Me blog humorously suggested that the U.S. Mint begin issuing Chuck E. Cheese tokens, in this missive: In Pizza We Trust.
Here is a footnote to this tale of monetary woe, courtesy of AskDefine.com: “On April 2, 1792 Alexander Hamilton, then the Secretary of the Treasury, made a report to congress that [was] the result of his task to scientifically determine the amount of silver in the Spanish Milled Dollar coins that were then in current use by the people. As a result of this report, the Dollar was defined (See the Act of April 2, A.D. 1792 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 9) as a unit of measure of 371 4/16th grains of pure silver or 416 grains of standard silver. (Standard silver being defined as 1,485 parts fine silver to 179 parts alloy; See Section 13 of the Act.)”.
I’ve said it before: Stock up on nickels now, before their composition changes. Your children will be glad that you did.