2001-01-02
There was talk some years ago about removing the penny and rounding prices
to the nearest nickel (5 �), but some minority group speaking on behalf of
all the citizens claimed it would add to inflation and the idea was dropped.
We now have the Sacagewea dollar coin, and although a recent newspaper
article stated the US mint has already produced 1.2 milliard of these coins,
only 700 million are in circulation. But, this means they might be in
banks, people's closets, or still at the federal reserve. Even though I
have seen some people paying for items with them, I never see the cashiers
give them back out. They are deposited in the same tray section as the
paper clips and rubber bands.
I read somewhere, that the people who supply the paper that paper currency
is printed on lobbied against a dollar coin. A compromise was agreed upon
by Congress that when the Sacagewea was minted, the paper dollar would
continue to be produced. There would be no increase in the production of
paper dollars, instead the additional dollars needed to meet the demands of
the economy would be fulfilled by the coin. There were also some scare
tactics that the public would not want to totally replace the dollar bill
with a coin. Change for 5 $ would result in 5 heavy coins jingling in ones
pocket.
This shows the stupidity of those who agreed to these conditions. They
could have solved both problems, by printing more of the two dollar bill and
minting the one dollar coin. The paper industry should have no problem with
2 $ bills being printed instead of 1 $ bills and the public should have no
problem as change for a 5 $ bill would be 2 -2 $ bills and 1 - 1 $ coin.
How much simpler can it get?
As for the area code situation in Canada, it has to do with Canada being on
the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). As long as Canada is on this
plan, it can not introduce 8-diigit phone numbers. For further information
on this plan, and some alternative information on other plans, such as 8 or
9 digit numbers, visit this website: http://www.lincmad.com.
Gl�ckliches Neues Jahr!
Happy New Year!
John
Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
frei zu sein.
There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Gregory Peterson
Sent: Tuesday, 2001-01-02 14:33
To: U.S. Metric Association
Subject: [USMA:10166] RE: Aussie newspaper article on the USA'scurious
'inertia'
Hi all,
I've said for years that Canada should remove the "penny" from
circulation and use a slightly thicker/heavier version for a $5-coin.
BTW... many grumbled in Canada about the introduction of the $1
coin in 1987, but the Royal Canadian Mint went ahead and made them
anyway. The government stopped printing $1 notes at the same time.
Within 9 months not a single $1 note was to be seen.
Less grumbling happened with the $2 coin in 1996. I'm sure nobody
will say a peep if the mint decided to mint a circulation $5 coin.
Toronto was the first city to adopt a new area code in Canada. The
metropolitan area was given the new "905" number and the city kept
the old "416" number. Alberta just recently split in half; the
larger city, Calgary, kept the old "403" number while the northern
half, containing the provincial capital, Edmonton, adopted the new
"780" number. I would suspect if there was a single national
telephone network it would not be difficult to adopt an 8 digit
local number, but each province has it's own telephone system, and
many cities still have their own local phone company. It would be
very difficult without the heavy hand of the CRTC (Canadian Radio
and Telecommunications Commission; the national regulator for TV,
radio/cellular, and telephone). I suspect we have nearly as much
inertia as our American cousins, but at least we have a stronger
central government to knock us in a new direction... if they set
their minds to it, at least.
greg
