2024 Meltdown and Meme Thread

[Bogie]

Coming from here in the urban utopia...
 
1) It is difficult to wrap a benjy around a stack of 100 dollar coins.
 
2) The girls don't like the coins. They'd rather have fives, but they'll be happy with ones. Not really happy, but happy.
 
3) Do we really want yet another incremental step toward only digital currency?
 
4) The girls don't like credit card machines.

[zxcvbob]

Coming from here in the urban utopia...
 
1) It is difficult to wrap a benjy around a stack of 100 dollar coins.
 
2) The girls don't like the coins. They'd rather have fives, but they'll be happy with ones. Not really happy, but happy.
 
3) Do we really want yet another incremental step toward only digital currency?
 
4) The girls don't like credit card machines.

This is what $2 bills were made for.  Everybody forgets about them.

[Bogie]

I'd have customers show up with several hundred dollar bills... And the benjy wrapped around.
 
And that's if the man came in - all too often, the girl would come in the store, buy the two quarts of oil, go out, open the hood, and pour it in. Notice I didn't say anything about a dipstick - She knew that would turn off the Teapot Light. And her "man" would be sitting in the passenger seat listening to Hate The Man rap, and smoking a blunt.
 
"We can stand here and count them all out, or we can just weigh them. It's what we use to count the cash drawers at the end of the day. Can we do that?"

And it was a tossup over whether they would agree...

[cordex]

She opened up in that clip by saying she "takes umbrage" on behalf of her colleagues. I wonder if she even knows what "umbrage" means.

It means steal umbrellas, right?

[MechAg94]

"You call it "foresight and courage".  I just say that Britain and Canadian Parliaments don't give a crap what their voters think.  One of the problems with a parliamentary system it seems. "

Really? You think Congress has given one three-fingered flying *expletive deleted*ck what Americans think any more or less than do the Canadian/British MOPs?

If Congress truly does care what America thinks, why is Elon Musk DOGEing the living hell out of government programs? If Congress TRULY cared (unlike the British or Canadian systems) they would have only passed programs with widespread voter consent.

But...

"... a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion." -- Edmund Burke, 1729-1797

So, here we are...

That statement reveals both the cause AND the effect of all that happens in representative government.



"I think one of reasons people are a bit angry about it is a switch to a $1 coin would be official recognition the value of the dollar is very low and likely to go lower.  It is probably already less value than the 50 cent piece back when those actually had some silver. "

I think you're wrong about that.

Most people alive today have never lived in a time when a dollar actually equaled a dollar. To them, the concept of the dollar has always been static -- a dollar IS a dollar because it's an issue of perception, not an issue of true value.

It's prices that change. Sure, the dollar doesn't buy as much as it used to, but that's not because the dollar is worth less, it's because things cost more. Viewpoint is everything.

Yes, I know, potato pawtawtaho... But I suspect that I'm lot closer to being correct than not.


I'm mean literally, who here sticks their hand in their pocket, fishes out a dollar bill (or any bill for that matter) and says to himself, OK, today this dollar is only worth 67.9 cents relative to (intert arbitrary date here)... My God, when I was a kid, this dollar would have bought a steak and eel pie, a McCallum's Nervulator Tonic, first row admission to a bare knuckles prize fight, and an evening with a three star hooker! With enough left over for breakfast the next day!

My Dad has mentioned the value of the dollar many times over the years.  I am sure younger generations don't think about it because it has been worth little all their lives and many just pull out a debit card anyway. 

Lets get DOGE over to audit the FED and the US Mint before we make any changes.   

Not following you ont he bolded part.  You seem to be talking about inflation.  Things cost more versus the dollar is worth less.  Yes.  Inflation.  I am sure the cost of our bloated government has nothing to do with it either.

[K Frame]

She opened up in that clip by saying she "takes umbrage" on behalf of her colleagues. I wonder if she even knows what "umbrage" means.

Based on the context of how it was said, yes. Given the relatively uncommonness of the phrase, I wouldn't expect someone to pop it out randomly and have the usage actually be correct.

[K Frame]

"Not following you ont he bolded part.  You seem to be talking about inflation.  Things cost more versus the dollar is worth less.  Yes.  Inflation.  I am sure the cost of our bloated government has nothing to do with it either."

Yes, I'm talking about inflation. Because in our economic model inflation is the primary driver as to why the "dollar isn't worth as much."

[Ben]

FIGHT!

https://x.com/i/status/1889534360342171900

[Ben]

Yikes.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1889692800259616862

[Cliffh]

Yikes.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1889692800259616862

I couldn't stand more than maybe 10 seconds of that!

[Angel Eyes]

[MechAg94]

Yikes.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1889692800259616862

So they need a sanctuary because Trump doesn't want to give them special privileges, freebies, and access to women's sports/locker rooms?  They can't stand it if they are not special and can't stand being ignored. 

[Ben]

Likely nothing will happen to them, it being CA and all, but sure, keep it up.

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/tesla-cars-threatened-vandalism-california-cities-20161195.php

[Ben]

I am 100% in support of this.

https://twitchy.com/warren-squire/2025/02/13/jasmine-crockett-for-president-2028-n2408257

[WLJ]

Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok
Rep. Watson Coleman claims that Trump, Musk, and Stephen Miller feel threatened by Black excellence because they’re mediocre.

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1889765028015833307

[WLJ]

ZUBY:
@ZubyMusic
·
2h
We've collectively suffered through TDS for 10 years and now we must also suffer through EDS.

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
What if I get EDS too!? 😱

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1890062261437521931

[WLJ]

[JTHunter]

Until they can get the weight of those dollar coins down to where they are comparable to dollar bills, they won't be replaceable.
Ten dollar bills weigh less than a single coin, fits easily and comfortably in a wallet or money clip, and carries more value per unit volume than a single coin will ever be able to do.

[JN01]

Declare that pennies are worth a dollar.  Problem solved. 

[K Frame]

"Until they can get the weight of those dollar coins down to where they are comparable to dollar bills, they won't be replaceable."

That was a common "pre-adoption complaint" about the equivalent coins in Britain and Canada.

In actual practice, it was quickly determined to be an absolute non-issue.

The reality is that few people (unless they're primed for the strip club) carry around enough dollar bills that substituting the same amount of dollar coins is an issue.

So yeah, I don't buy it as a valid issue. It's more of a conceptual issue than an actual issue.

Well, I could see it being an issue for people who like to walk around with a bunch of $1 bills wrapped in a $50 or $100 bill to make it look like they've got a phatty wad, but that's just street posturing. I'm sure Bogie's seen *expletive deleted*it like that given where he lives/works.

Oh, just to add more to this discussion, the Euro zone never issued a 1 Euro bill. They skipped that and went right for the 1 Euro coin.

The Euro is fractionalized in cents. Oddly enough, the Euro zone mints 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 Euro cent coins.

I'm pretty sure that the US hasn't minted a 2 cent coin since the 1870s. The US 20 cent coin was a resounding failure and was only minted for 3 years in the 1870s.

[cordex]

Even people who regularly carry cash much more rarely carry coins.  Removing the dollar means that the smallest currency that you can carry in a normal wallet is $5.  Maybe that's fine with years of nasty inflation, but if $1 is a reasonable fraction of currency to carry, making it only available in coin form definitely makes it less convenient to carry.

[K Frame]

Even more interesting...

According to information I just found online...

Current US dollar coins weigh 8.1 grams.

A current US dollar bill weighs... 1 gram.

8 US dollar bills would weigh about the same as a $1 coin.

So in reality the weight difference isn't all that some believe it to be.

If these were the days of the Morgan dollar, that would be one thing. Those weighed nearly 27 grams. That could get substantial pretty quickly.

But back then the US currency note was about 30% larger than it currently is, and that brought with it is own set of annoyances.

[K Frame]

Even people who regularly carry cash much more rarely carry coins.  Removing the dollar means that the smallest currency that you can carry in a normal wallet is $5.  Maybe that's fine with years of nasty inflation, but if $1 is a reasonable fraction of currency to carry, making it only available in coin form definitely makes it less convenient to carry.

That was also registered as a reason not to kill the dollar bill in Canada. It practice and reality, it was also found to be a nothing burger.

Don't know if the same thing was found to be the case in Britain.

But, given the massive use of Euro coins in the Euro zone for things like public transport, I suspect it's also seen to be a big nothing there, as well.

[Ben]

It has been years, but back before the krauts sold out to the EU, I recall Mark coins in 1, 2, and 5 Mark denominations, and they were like the size of a quarter or smaller. I think the 1 and 2 Mark coins may have even been the size of a nickel, but skinnier. Who knows where, but I think I have some around here somewhere. I recall they were not at all a problem to carry when I was there visiting.

Certainly US dollar coins, at least the ones I remember from the last time I had one (probably the 80s), were considerably larger, so I can see not wanting to have ten of those in your pocket.

[RocketMan]

Certainly US dollar coins, at least the ones I remember from the last time I had one (probably the 80s), were considerably larger, so I can see not wanting to have ten of those in your pocket.

I have a number of dollar coins of both common types.  They are both a bit larger than a quarter but significantly less than a 50 cent piece in diameter.