Devilish content, with a long tail

DCs Metro Center is now covered with advertising in favor of keeping the dollar bill (and not the dollar coin) in people’s pockets.  The ads have also appeared throughout the web in places such as (I’m not making this up) whitepeopleproblems.us.  Living in Washington, I’ve become accustomed to astroturf campaigns in favor of the status quo, but this one seems a little over the top.  Given the list of things we have to worry about (climate change, nuclear Iran, the weakness of the Euro, etc.), how is it possible that 77% of Americans “strongly oppose replacing the dollar bill with the dollar coin?”

It makes sense why the coalition behind americansforgeorge — a ragtag group of companies who conduct most of their business through vending machines that take dollar bills and people who handle high volumes of petty cash (cabbies and stripper unions) — might feel strongly about all these dollar coins flying around.  And the pro-coin camp is equally flush with copper miners and companies that make all that coin operating equipment that will have to be replaced soon.  But any effort to convince congress that normal, everyday Americans feel passionately about this one issue in an election season seems doomed to fail.

The reality is that the government doesn’t have much of a say in the matter.  It can certainly provide options, but it is for the public to decide what they actually use on a day to day basis, and their demand for a particular currency will ultimately decide how many coins are minted and how much paper gets cut.

So what are Americans most likely to choose, paper or metal?  My money is on neither.  By 1967, when Americans first heard Mr. McGuire’s one word of advice in The Graduate, the transition to plastic currency had already begun.  In the four decades since, the treasury sourced currency in circulation (mostly in the form of paper) has fallen by more than 80%.

And plastic is likely to see a similar decline in the next decade as more retailers, carnival workers, and coin operated vending machines accept payment from the one thing we’ll never leave home without: the cellphone.