Plastic Money Coming

[Mr. Analog]

Sooooooooo, I guess we're making the shift from having our money made out of one commodity to another:

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110310/plastic-money-era-to-begin-in-november-110310/20110310/

The prime question I have is thus: Does it make sense to make money out of a resource that is a limited commodity whose value will be on the rise with the price of oil vs one that can be grown in mass quantities by our largest trade partner?

Second question: Can I still light cigars with $100 bills (will they just melt)?

[Thorin]

Well, it'll be a plastic polymer, not pure plastic.  Having been in Mexico a couple of years ago and seen these plastic polymer bills, I can tell you they look and feel very similar to regular wood/cotton-blend bills.

As for doing an environmental-impact assessment, there are a lot of variables to consider.  Perhaps the bills will use more oil directly (to make the plastic polymer), but perhaps the gathering of that oil will use less oil than what's required to gather wood and cotton and combine them.  Perhaps each bill will individually use 25% more oil (including all oil used in the production process), but perhaps they'll last twice as long, in effect reducing oil usage by 37.5%.

When considering the total oil usage in producing these notes versus producing the old notes, you have to add in oil used to heat warehouses, drive ships and trucks and logging equipment, drive farm tractors and pickups, run busses for the workers to get to/from work, etc.

I don't know if they'll burn nicely, but I know I went into the ocean with Mexican (plastic-polymer) bills in my pocket and they were fine afterwards, whereas Canadian (wood/cotton-blend) bills would not have been.

[Darren Dirt]

"F--k Money, Get B-tches"








^ fyi that's a reversal of an internet forum meme. I wasn't being offensive, at least not on purpose

[Mr. Analog]

"F--k Money, Get B-tches"








^ fyi that's a reversal of an internet forum meme. I wasn't being offensive, at least not on purpose

LOL