The Obama Administration has announced that it is going to put a female on the face of the ten-dollar bill in the next scheduled redesign in around the year 2020. The silliness of deciding that a uterus is more important than service to the country notwithstanding, you have to wonder at the way this is going to be decided.
Back when the Government -- oops, the Jimmy Carter Administration -- was devaluing the U.S. dollar on a regular basis by failing to protect its citizens against inflation and attendant high interest rates, it made a similar decision. "We will create a one-dollar coin", they said, "and put a woman on it."
Of course, we are not Canadians, and it is not in our nature to carry around pocketfuls of loonies and toonies. Accordingly, when the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was created and released -- apparently the Carter people couldn't come up with a woman in the 203 years since our founding who had done more than she -- the coin flopped mightily.
The Susie didn't last but a couple three years, and production was halted. The next attempt at a dollar coin was hilariously called the "golden dollar", because its color resembled gold even though it was made of lots of non-gold metals. It featured the Indian guide Sacagawea -- they needed another female face, since this was an initiative of the later Clinton presidency, and it had to be a female he had not ever ... well, you get the idea.
The "golden dollar" was immediately renamed, colloquially, the "squawbuck", and almost as immediately disappeared from circulation as the populace hated the idea. Surely you recall putting a $20 bill into a stamp machine at the Post Office and getting a bunch of squawbucks in change. I don't cuss, but a few choice ones certainly crossed my mind each time that happened to me.
So here we are again -- Democratic president foisting a currency redesign, and again trying to find a female American to put a face on it. There is a set of polls out there to select a face, but none appears to have just a blank with "Who should be on the redesign?" on it. No, there is a set of choices, hand-picked by ... well, just look at the list.
I would ask them simply to name someone who had done more for the country than Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who would be replaced on the ten, if they actually go through with this. Name someone, with or without a uterus, who had done as much or more. Or even close ... I could deal with close.
But I suppose it doesn't matter. The ghosts of Susie and Sacagawea will rise again no matter who the Obama people plaster on the ten. Because, much like the case with the two failed dollar coins, the USA will end up putting a female on an item of currency that no one will use.
Am I sure of this? Pretty much.
I don't think the ten-dollar bill has ever really been nearly the "big seller" that its fellow paper currency denominations have been. The twenty (Andrew Jackson) is the primary "big" bill in use. If there needs to be any further validation, the twenty is what is
dispensed in ATMs and has been since I programmed bank electronics in
the late 1970s. It is the case, simply because its denomination is large enough to make it useful for a wide range of transactions, and small enough that you're not always asking for change that you don't want, as you would with the $50 or $100.
Note that I say "change that you don't want." See, that's the thing. We carry around a lot less cash, now, than we did when Carter tried to jam Susies down our pockets, and even less now than when Clinton gave us the squawbuck. The proliferation of the debit card, with all its protections, has vastly trumped the money clip full of twenties (not tens), with no protections at all.
I love the debit card. My sons, 34 and 41, never carry cash around for daily transactions. Heck, I'll use a debit card for a $2.50 pack of beef jerky at the gas station, or for a buck or two for a McDonalds burger, without a moment's thought. The vendor has already built the processing fee into the cost of the merchandise, so I feel no guilt -- and I'm not carrying cash around.
And that is just 2015, this year. This is what they call a "trend", and trends that are worthwhile, that have value (like the ability not to carry annoying and risky cash around), tend to last. This one is growing -- money for daily transactions has become very much predominantly electronic, and will continue as such until paper currency is far, far less prevalent. Check out the Mint's production rates for paper currency vs., say 1985.
So we're already rapidly cutting back on our use of all pocket cash. The $10 bill is already rather low on the list of usefulness for those who actually do carry paper currency, relative to the other denominations. What, then, do we foresee by 2020, when the "new" ten is released?
The answer is patently obvious. Whoever the woman is, whose face is on the 2020 ten -- and you can guarantee that she will be selected for some cause that suits a liberal narrative -- she will find herself adorning a piece of paper rarely to be seen. It may not be cussed at like the dollar coins, since we do already have $10 bills and are at least "used to them". But much like we have to think to remember that Alexander Hamilton is the current resident of the ten, we will quickly forget who is on the new one, since we'll rarely see it. Eleanor who?
Of course, if they have to put a woman on the ten, I would quickly reply that the outstanding deceased female citizen of the USA, in terms of rendering good to the world (if not particularly this country) would be Mother Teresa. She was indeed a citizen of our country, and certainly is second to none in the good done for the world in her lifetime by deceased female American citizens.
Moreover, along with the hopey-changey thing that Barack Obama ran on -- OK, given the tenor of this piece, perhaps "change" isn't such a great thing -- he stands for nothing more than a global-centric USA and against a USA-centric USA. Who more represents "good for the world", done by a now-deceased female citizen, than Mother Teresa?
Of course, since the ten will be as useless in 2020 as the Iraqi Army and Obamacare are now, I suppose that proposing putting Mother Teresa on the ten is offensive to her memory.
So put Hillary on it. Obama can do an Executive Order waiving the rules about depicting living people on currency. He's done that sort of thing before on more important issues, and we'd love to see Mrs. Clinton "honored" by plastering her face on a piece of useless paper.
Or better yet, Obama can pull a Rachel Dolezal, call himself female and put his face on it.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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