First, Happy Half Birthday, Uncle David! Second, Happy Half Birthday (yesterday) to us both, Rach! I celebrated with Alvi by making our now internationally famous three sauce lasagna. It was delicious, and I'm happily enjoying the leftovers this morning even though Alvi can't (because he thinks the garlic sauce will be too potent at work).
As another part of my celebration yesterday, I decided to try out a recipe for flax and parmesan crackers. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend them- stick with my famous Chickpea Crackers- the cheese tastes funny after 12 minutes in the hornito. Still, crackers take a while to make- rolling out the "dough", cutting them into shapes, and waiting while the small hornito struggles to keep up. While I worked, I decided to catch up on some of my unheard NPR podcasts.
I listened to a Planet Money podcast that was updating a previous one, and they mentioned that the White House killed the Presidential dollar coin program- literally millions of dollars were being minted after Congress passed a law requiring their minting, only to be immediately shipped away to vaults because there was very low demand for them. It was required that 20% of the newly minted dollar coins (mostly Presidential) have Sacagawea's face on them to continue remembering her legacy. Unfortunately, there is little to no demand for the Sacagawea dollar coins, and the demand for the Presidential dollar coins come mostly from collectors. Most of the coins now sit in vaults.
...or do they??
I know where they are! They're in Ecuador! Ecuador dollarized in 2000, and while they use some of their own coins, all US tender is legal and accepted, including all dollar coins. First of all, it's important to mention the predominance of cash down here. It always shocks me when I go home that I can use my credit card for pretty much any purchase, no matter how minor. I don't have any cash? No big deal, everyone will take my card and we can even split a meal out with friends three ways on different cards. Here, the only place where I ever use my debit card is at the supermarket. I pay for everything else- meals out, taxi rides, pharmacy purchases- with cash. It's hard for me to generalize, but even adults with steady jobs who probably have a credit card pay with cash when we're out to eat.
This makes a lot of sense because most of my non-supermarket purchases come from smaller vendors who can't afford to get a card swiper. I get my fruits and veggies from the women at the open market, and I pay in cash. I buy minutes for my cell phone from my neighbor at the tiny paper shop and he won't usually accept any bills that are bigger than $10 unless I'm printing a lot. We've already discussed this- exact change is pretty important down here. So people use cash here, which is different from in the US. But people also use cash differently.
For example, while 50 cent coins may be pretty odd in the US, they're a regular part of my change purse here. 50 cent coins are mostly Ecuadorian, but every once in a while you'll come across a US 50 cent coin. And now back to the original topic- dollar coins are hugely popular here. I honestly don't remember the last time that I had a dollar bill in my change purse. The Sacagawea coins are the most popular ones, probably because the Presidential coins haven't been exported down here in huge volumes yet. Daria brought down some Grant dollar coins, which are particularly shinier than the Sacagawea ones, and some of the Ecuadorians didn't believe that it was real. The first time that we tried to pay for bus fare with one of the coins, the driver said, "what is this? this isn't a real coin!" We had to explain that it had come directly from the source- the US! He eventually took it, and thus the Presidential coins began to circulate in Ecuador. I mean, they were probably circulating earlier, but Daria and I played a role.
Panama has been dollarized since 1904, pretty much since it broke off from Colombia. Apparently the dollar coins are popular there too, although Panama, like Ecuador, uses some of its own coins as well.
If you're interested, here are links to the NPR stories about the dollar coins. The first one explains the program and its problems, and the second one announces on December 13, 2011 that the program was officially halted.
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137394348/-1-billion-that-nobody-wants
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/12/13/143648506/white-house-kills-dollar-coin-program?live=1
I was listening to that NPR segment on the radio a while ago! I thought it was funny that even the guy that co-sponsored the bill finally decided not discontinue the program. They said literally billions of them are waiting in vaults!
ReplyDeleteCertain machines give out dollar coins when returning change here in the US. One example that comes to mind are the stamp machines in US Post Offices. I recently got a dollar coin from the parking lot machine at Cal Tech, too.
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