Greenbacks No More

Chacham writes "The Financial Times has an article about the US adding colors to some denominations of US currency. Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.I still haven't gotten used to the larger pictures. And now this? As Kermit the frog sang, It's not easy being green." The Federal Reserve has a press release. At least there's no mention of RFID tags.

Huh?

[imta11]

What the hell is paper money? Is that what my parents used to buy things?

Vending Machines

[Dystopium]

Damn, I just go my vending machines to accept the new bills. Now I have to do it all again.

RFID tags

[technomancerX]

No, they don't mention them, they just put them in without saying anything =)

Foreigners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cause those Europeans spell "20" as... umm... "20".

Trouble?

[geekd]

Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.

One would think the big number in each corner would be a pretty big giveaway as to the bill's value.

:-)

I'm all for color on our bills. Our money is pretty boring compared to "exciting" foreign money.

But then, when it come to money, I'll all for boring. When "exciting" and "money" are used in the same sentence, it usually means I'm losing my ass.

You've got to be kidding me

[Clue4All]

"International visitors complain 'We can't tell your denominations apart,'" said the Bureau of Engraving and Printing which will release new versions of the $20, $50 and $100 bills next year.

What you mean besides having different pictures and a HUGE FUCKING NUMBER on them? This just seems silly to me.

Re:About Time!

[mindstrm]

Yeah..
It's *REALLY* hard to read the difference between the numbers "20" and "100" and "50" and "5"

I get them mixed up ALL THE TIME.

Seriously. Maybe you liked money in europe where each denominiation is a different size (and dimension, often).
I found it a royal pain in the ass. Can't carry it in a neat bundle.. can't fan it properly.

I hardly think some foreigners finding money all the same size too difficult is a reason to change something that has been standard for ages.

Great...

[telstar]

First that damn Sackajewei coin and now rainbow-bright bills?
Be on the lookout for future security enhancements:

• -Scratch & Sniff Bills
• 
  -Hologram Dollars
  -Crystal Dollars
  

It's about time

[L. VeGas]

Now I can use every color in my ink cartridge.

We use Canadian dollars in the US, too

[Anonymous Coward]

We call them "pennies"

Re:You've got to be kidding me

[tomhudson]

Well, it's harder at night, in a club, when you've had a few too many ...

Differentlly Shaped Money

[Chris Y Taylor]

Lets forget these paper bills altogether. If we want to make our money more interesting and easier to distinguish, we should just start using giant round rocks with holes in the middle.

doh

[theEdgeSMAK]

Now strippers can tell what I'm throwing on the table at a glance.

Help?

[thefirelane]

Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills


The Federal Reserve announced they would also hire outside consultants from Parker Brothers.


---Lane

Re:No more green

[silicon_synapse]

From the linked articles, it seems one of the major motivations for changing the color is to help tourists distinguish between denominations. Is it really that hard to read the big number on any of the corners of the bill? It's also printed out elsewhere on the bill. How are colors going to help if tourists can't make sense of the numbers?

Re:About goddamn time

[elmegil]

it's impossible to know if something is a 5 or a 10 just by glancing at it, so to see how much cash you have is a long winded counting process.

Yah, 'cos you know colors add in your head so much easier than numbers.

Jealousy!

[JudgeDredd]

You Americans have always been jealous of us Canadians and our beautiful money!

The wisdom of the Simpsons

[Torgo's Pizza]

From the recent episode where The Simpsons go to Brazil, where the kidnappers just receive the ransom money to free Homer.

Brazilian 1: "Look at all that pink and purple."
Brazilian 2: "Our money sure is gay."

No!! No!!

[Reality Master 101]

I've always thought US monochrome money was by far the best looking money in the world. Other countries with all their "pretty" colors look like fake, monopoly money.

US money, on the other hand, looks like serious money , beefy and substantial. There's no mistaking that US currency is a serious document.

In fact, I thought the current redesign really took a lot of the "heft" out of the bills. Now color?

Who's running the federal reserve? Whoever it is needs to get a clue. Next the military will be painting our fighter jets with nice, pastel colors.

Loonies, Twonies & what, "Finnies"

[crovira]

I'm a Canadian trapped here in the land of dull Greenbacks and I can attest that, while the confusion factor over the domination is not that high, damn, its a dull, ugly currency.

If only I had a lot more of it.

Re:No more green

[brocheck]

Thats alright, the ink required to make a counterfeit $5 bill costs $7.95.

this kind of money we need

[lingqi]

money shot [zzz.com.ru]

Excerpt from zzz [zzz.com.ru]: Bank notes of Belorussia: 3 and 10 rubles. Most countries put famous people on their money, Belorussia decided to put animals. There's a very special way to fold two notes...

differenciating

[larry bagina]

Apparently, with both size and color the same, foreigners have a hard time differenciating between the bills.

Where can I find some of these foreigners? I'd like to do some currency exchanging!

Re:If you're already used to coloured money...

[doooras]

AHH! Embedded Windows!

Re:Sight impaired

[Bob McCown]

Just FYI, up here in Canada they decided to put brail on the money itself. .

Cool, so I can counterfeit canadian money with a paper cutter and a hole punch now, as long as I only pass money to blind people. WOO HOO!

Even better

[The Turd Report]

The 'Scratch and Win' Bills. Kind of like a lottery system. Rub off the four corners and if the denominations match, that is what the bill is worth!

Re:Yeah, we think highly of foreigners here.

[rcw-home]

Or is the next 'new math' going to be based on adding colors, instead of numbers? Yeah, you gave me two blues ($5) and a yellow ($10), so thats a blue-green ($20.)

That would lead to the most valuable denominations having the most subtle color variations. The new colors will be based on a proven scheme most Americans are familiar with:

$1 white
5 pink
10 yellow
20 green
50 blue
100 gold
500 bronze

Re:Vending Machines

[Bob McCown]

Who sticks a $20 in a vending machine?

You obviously have never taken a 9 year old and a couple of his friends to a video arcade...

Re:Lots of twisty turny bills all the same

[eweu]

No more standing on a dark street corner in the bad part of town counting through notes to know if you have enough for a beer/cab home/meal/whatever.

Wouldn't you get arrested if you were standing on a dark street in a bad part of town with your hand going wild in your pocket?

How will this affect Danger Mouse?

[rhiorg]

Just as I'm about to finish the script for my live-action adaptation of Danger Mouse, I learn that we're changing our money. Great.

So now the name Silas Greenback will be an antiquated reference and the villainous character will have to be changed to reflect whatever color the government finally chooses. It will change the entire dynamic of the show, since the name "Greenback" made since because he is GREEDY and therefore desires MONEY, and because he is a FROG. A GREEN FROG.

I just hope they don't choose pink...because then the villain will have to be a Flamingo in order for the name to work. And there's already a bird villain in the show - the nefarious Stiletto! Not to mention Mad Manuel, "the Flamenco assassin", which sounds entirely too much like flamingo.

Thanks for ruining Danger Mouse, you feds!

Bad idea

[af_robot]

Considering the cost of ink cartridges i don't think it will be very profitable.

Re:Trouble? Trouble at the Gentlemans Club

[Bob McCown]

Us poor guys who wave the singles will be screwed!!!

Actually, probably NOT screwed...

Re:Lots of twisty turny bills all the same

[L. VeGas]

It's cheaper for us to give the blind an income tax deduction because we assume they've been cheated by dishonest clerks than it is to make all that gay money.

Re:Great...

[drkich]

Monica Lewinsky heard about the Scratch and Sniff Bills and look where it got her.

But I was told that color and size don't matter!

[L. VeGas]

Boy am I humiliated. Up till now I thought my 6" money was quite adequate.

Re:Great...

[rnb]

I personally like the dollar coins. Whenever I'm at the train station I toss a twenty into the change machine and get coins. People always look at me like I'm nuts when I hand them to me and usually end up staring at them for like ten seconds, with a look on their face like the coins are about to explode.

It's fun!

Internet Holographic Paper!

[Quixadhal]

Now that we're pretty close to having LCD paper, and wireless internet access in every major city, I'm all for the next generation of money having LCD hologram foil that has a full 3-D animation of George W (or whomever is President when it's "printed") waving out from each bill. Whenever you're in range of a wireless network, the hologram can be updated to meet the current political climate, and of course banner ads can scroll between the large flashing colored denomination symbols. (Quickly pulsing red ball means $50, slower green pyramid means $20).

Now if they can get integrated micro-foil speakers too, we can have money that talks to us and cries "Spend Me!", "I've been in your wallet for 3 days, Don't you need more Cheezy-Poofs?"

Re:About goddamn time

[Just Some Guy]

They're also slightly different sizes to help completely blind people identify the differences.

That's nice. That would also mean that obsessive-compulsives such as myself would be unable to neatly stack the bills in our wallet in order, facing the same direction, pointing upward, and squared away with all the corners touching.

God help the poor sap waiting behind me at a fast-food drivethrough as I spend 10 minutes trying to get my change back into my wallet.

Yeah, that's a swell idea.

Re:Trouble?

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

Our money is pretty boring compared to "exciting" foreign money.

That's a feature, darnit! Even with our new, more open, cleaner looking bills, US greenbacks are still the most evil looking money in the world. Black and green with dense and archaic patterns. Thanks to the slightly colored cloth stock they print on, our money starts out looking slightly grimy (crisp, but grimy). Can you picture a suitcase of Euros looking as menacing as a suitcase of US dollars? US bills demand respect. Our money reminds viewers that it is the root of all evil.

Re:No more green

[jmd!]

> to help tourists distinguish between denominations

Maybe they're tourists from ancient Rome, and can't read Arabic numbers.

examples?

[brer_rabbit]

Anyone have a picture of one of the new bills? Preferrably a large tiff image, around 2400 dpi, front and back...something I could print at the local Kinkos?

Re:Trouble?

[scott1853]

Don't forget the eye in the pyramid reminding us that they're watching us!

Re:Yeah, we think highly of foreigners here.

[scrytch]

Arabic numbers?! AYY-rab-ick numbers? Damn, I better write my congressman about this awful plot! They're in our numbers now!

Re:Yeah, we think highly of foreigners here.

[scrytch]

... then I remembered what my sig was after posting that, so at least *I* got a laugh out of it ...

Powers of 2

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Let's go whole hog and make money in powers of 2.

$1, $2, $4, $8, etc. denominations.

It would make it so much easier for geeks to count, and make writing software for ATMs so much simpler.

;)

Re:True

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Secret Service had mod points, L. VeGas would receive -1 Convicted Felon.

Re:Trouble?

[bastion_xx]

It would be nice if the different denominations all looked entirely different

Red hearts! Green clovers! Blue diamonds!!!

Re:Bad Idea: We'll lose brand recognition

[ryanvm]

From a marketing standpoint, the greenish color scheme has fantastic brand awareness.

Good point - we wouldn't want people to start using competing U.S. currencies. Seriously, you sat through too many marketing classes if you think U.S. currency needs brand awareness to be valuable.

Re:RFID tags

[ackthpt]

Have you ever noticed that lingering around the outside of operating rooms and dentists offices are these people who would look like spooks, with the right sun glasses and a wire dangling from their ear, and after an operation or dental work where you've been knocked out you always have some weird little sore spot you can't quite associate with the particular surgical/dental work?

Whoops, someone's just dropped by to

I have been seeing too many movies and imagined it. Go about your business and have a nice day.

Colored money?

[OrangeHairMan]

Well some colors that are on the paper money in certian countries are just obsurd. To quote one Simpsons episode, about Latin American money: "Our paper money is so gay." I hope the US won't have to stoop that low. ;)

Orange

I don't have trouble with small bills but...

[Eric Damron]

I think I need practice with really large denomination bills. If the government would just send me a bag full of VERY large denomination bills I could willing to practice.

Re:Huh II ??

[mixmasta]

Who cares if foreigners have a hard time with it?

Not that I have anything against them or anything, but the "problem" is simply irrelevant. People who can't understand numbers shouldn't be making purchases on their own.

Ruining our beautiful money (the envy of the world, btw) to make it look like play money from a board game is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

I've been to many countries, and used many lame currencies with different sizes and colors and heavy coins and was not impressed in the least. All they did was make it hard to keep your wallet neat (very messy) and made my pants keep falling down.

Traditional US bills are a model of order and security, which is what they are supposed to represent. Not a fashion show!!! Psychology is important with all markets, including money.

Why have people been buying US dollars for years with these kooky looking currencies? Because they are stable!

Re:currency tracking hardly needs rfids

[mosch]

nah, RFID tags in every bill are way more big brother-esque.

why no, officer. i have no idea how it is that the money i pulled out of that atm got deposited into that drug dealer's bank account 2 days later. i spent that $400 on ice cream, not an ounce of alaskan thunderfuck.

Re:Huh?

[The_Messenger]

Okay, having bills of different colors makes a bit of sense, but different sizes? That would make my wallet all imbalanced. Brits don't have to worry about such things because they don't care about personal appearance -- what? Oh, really? Well, they mustn't care much

And as for British misspelling, I think that we should say "fuck you" to those Limey bastards and start calling the language "American." We're the world's sole superpower. We can do what we want. And if the British don't like it, well, they can run off and cry to their socialist Eurotrash buddies, who I hear just this week managed to get a EuroFighter off the ground. Good job, "mates!"

The British "military" will be easy to decimate, and luckily we won't have to worry about resistance from the British populace, who are both docile (like sheep!) and unarmed. I mean, if a few shamrock-smoking IRA pussies are enough to make a Brit wet his trousers, it would probably only take a brigade of America's Slayer-fueled necro-wuss child murderers to get those pale, splay-toothed whiners under control.

And thanks to the British government's anti-privacy cryptography legislation, the takeover of Britain's business and economic communities would be simple -- that is, if said community were worth the effort.

Britain will be officially conquered within 72 hours of the declaration of war. )I would say 48 hours, except for the damn time difference. We Americans like to get a full night's sleep!) And what will become of your fucked-up little island then? It's not quite worthy of statehood, so I expect that it will become a prison colony. This option is attractive because in the event of a prison escape, the criminals would be quite far away from the law-abiding citizens of the US. Any escaped criminals will be forced to emigrate to Europe, and who knows, maybe if enough of them escape they'll have a positive influence on those neutered socialist clowns.

SO... The few British persons who recognize the truth in my words ought to start suggesting that their countrymen take the language's official name-change gracefully. You'll just have to accept that your people's version of the language is withered and dead, just like your empire and your potential influence in international politics.

I'm so glad I'm not from a lame country like yours! It must be difficult living day-to-day, knowing that you are a worthless nothing. Cheers, "mate!"

Re:Huh II ??

[GPL Troll]

Show us your tits!