Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 753
If the US were to change the dollar like that, most folks wouldn't care. The vast majority of American money is held in banks, which would make the change automatically on their electronic balance.
The only thing affected by such a change would be large stockpiles of cash. For legitimate businesses, replacing the cash in circulation would be an annoyance, but not impossible. For most individuals, who would have less than a few thousand dollars in cash on hand, the change would mean just a quick trip to the nearest bank.
The biggest disruption would be to those who have significant stockpiles of cash, larger than what banks would normally exchange. For that, the process could be pretty similar to what happens today if you need to make a large cash withdrawal or foreign-currency exchange: the bank can accommodate it with advance notice. You call the bank, give them a name and amount, and they'll make sure they have the cash on hand to serve your needs. The key detail, then, is that the bank knows your name and the amount you're exchanging, providing a paper trail indicating the presence of large amounts of cash. That paper trail is a problem for the criminal and the paranoid, but there aren't enough of those to make for a successful uprising.
I don't think you read what I said correctly. They didn't just devalue the notes; they devalued the currency . In other words, they increased the cost of everything/decreased the value of all money by 100-fold. And my response was to someone saying that there's no way that The Powers That Be can do anything to eradicate cash, essentially.
I see a lot of people arguing that "it wouldn't be a good idea to do that." Yeah, no shit