Dollar coins

The dollar coin is such a stupid example of how our country resists change these days instead of embracing it like we used to. We refuse to ditch the dollar bill because of inertia. Even worse, we keep the coin, so we have both floating around.

The dollar bill costs more.

The dollar bill is slower to pay with.

What would be awesome is if an influential money handler decided to round all prices to the nearest nickel and replace pennies in their cash registers with dollar coins. (Ahem... Wal-Mart...) Except, my bet is the vast majority of curmudgeonly people in this country shop at Wal-Mart, so this would probably serve to alienate their customer base. (Note - I'm not saying most Wal-Mart shoppers are curmudgeonly, but I will say that most curmudgeonly people are frequent Wal-Mart shoppers.)

This would have the effect of letting the market drive the shape of money, instead of big government artificially subsidizing wood pulp manufacturers and the curmudgeonly people of America.

And, yes, I may be the youngest curmudgeon on the face of the planet for posting this.