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Comment by grogenaut | Hacker News Reader

It's the cost of paper not the dollar value. Also only the outermost bills need be real the rest could just be paper, or voided bills or whatever. But accounting can cover it. It's not gold or pennies where the currency costs what it is worth to make

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Coins don’t cost what they are worth to make.

It's only true for the smaller denominations, 1c and 5c for USD.

Other than that, coins are cheaper than bills on the long run, because they last longer. It would be cheaper for the US government to stop making $1 bills and have people use the $1 coins, but I guess old habits die hard.

I guess that's why we have €1 and €2 coins (1 EUR ≈ 1.18 USD).

Well that, and Germans need the 1 Euro coin to unlock their shopping trolley.

(Or at least they used to; when I visited back recently many supermarkets had free trolleys! Can you imagine my shock?)

A US quarter will work just fine in those trolleys that take 1/2 euro coins. I hang onto one for just that purpose because I won't accidentally spend it.

Unlocking trolleys with a coin is normal in Britain too. I'd never considered that this might be unusual.

Is this not a thing in other countries? How do they get people to return their trolleys to the bays?

> How do they get people to return their trolleys to the bays?

There is no external force compelling US shoppers to do so. This has led to the (in)famous "shopping cart theory" [0], first posited like this:

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test as to whether a person is capable of self-governing.

To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with the law and the force that stands behind it.

The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_cart_theory

It's funny that Germany (and other countries) solved what's a social problem in the US with a simple piece of technology.

It's not a thing in most US cities. Since there's no incentive for individual people to return their trolleys it ends up being someone's job to collect the carts.

It's not a thing in the US, I think.

And did Britain have this before the invasion of Aldi and Lidl?

Yeah, we've had it for at least 30 years, probably longer

There is an excellent recent "The Answer is Transaction Costs" podcast episode (The Price of Pennies: Make or Buy?) outlining a proposal to save money by buying back coins instead of making new ones.

https://taitc.buzzsprout.com/2186249/episodes/17383823-the-p...

Pennies and nickels cost more to make than they are worth.

People are quick to state this as if it's a slam dunk case for 'we shouldn't make them any more', but I don't understand the thinking there. An individual coin can be used many many times to facilitate many many transactions before it eventually falls out of circulation through loss or damage. The amount you should spend on making coins of a given denomination has nothing to do with what the total face value of those coins is, but needs to be traded off against the value to the economy of having those coins in circulation. If spending more money on producing higher quality coins enables them to remain in circulation twice as long, it might be worthwhile even if the cost exceeds the face value.

It's a different story if the material value of the metal in the coin exceeds its face value - at that point it makes sense to go to a bank, change money into pennies, then scrap them and sell the copper. That would be bad.

But the reason pennies are a bad deal isn't because of their manufacturing cost, it's because their handling costs exceed the value of incorporating them in a transaction. Should a store go to the trouble of keeping pennies available, counting them, storing them, transferring them to the bank? Or should they round up change to the nearest five cents and take a 4c hit on each transaction where you'd have been able to use pennies? If your average transaction value is over a hundred dollars or so, like most supermarkets, and you only handle cash on one sale in 50 say, if handling pennies in your cash-management operation takes more than a few thousandths of one percent of your budget, it's costing you too much.

> It's a different story if the material value of the metal in the coin exceeds its face value - at that point it makes sense to go to a bank, change money into pennies, then scrap them and sell the copper. That would be bad.

Well, that is highly illegal and not very profitable vs the amount of risk. You'd be better off doing almost any other crime.

In my countries a decade or so ago we had a copper coin for roughly 1c. People started hoarding and defacing the coins then selling it as copper scraps. It was so rampant that I think it would have been infeasible to punish eveyrone. So the Govt just discountinued it.

Stores are going to round amounts in their favor, not customers’. So they will make more money once the penny falls out of circulation.

Pennies do. (More, actually.)

What do you mean? The currency in there is spendable isn’t it?

What leads you to believe that?

I haven't been there but the plaque seen in the picture just says:

    Have you ever wondered what one million dollars looks like? You don’t have to wonder anymore because you can see it right in front of you!

That does not say nor in my mind even implicate that these would be valid dollars. It just wants you to be able to "see" what a million would look like. For all we know they printed fake money for it that uses the right paper for thickness and such and the right face value print but is otherwise fake. It would still meet the stated description.

I would hope they at least used real bills they just took out of circulation for whatever reason but there can't be any real expectation.

It's a "stunt" only anyway coz a million in $1 coins would look way different. As would a million in 20s or 100s.

Because that’s the entire appeal of the structure, the fact that it’s filled with a million dollars.

I don't think that's true.

The appeal of the structure is the belief that it's actually a million dollars ;)

But as many things in life, it's probably just a nice facade.

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