Other currency feels cheap? Are you kidding? Whenever I go the US I'm always reminded of how crappy the currency is. It looks and feels like it's printed on low grade recycled paper. Counterfeiting is such a problem that half the shops won't take 50s or 100s. And your wallet is perpetually stuffed with dirty, crumpled, near-useless $1 notes.
Imagine if you ordered a credit card from a bank and instead of receiving a shiny plastic card you got a low quality bit of printed cardboard. You'd think that was pretty low class, right? Well that's how I feel comparing the US and Aussie money in my wallet. The production quality on the American banknotes just does not match my expectations for a modern country in 2011.
Nothing against America of course, but I don't get the country's weird resistance to progress in certain areas, no matter how much of a no-brainer improvement that progress is. "Protect the greenback" - this is nothing but resistance to change, any change, no matter how beneficial. It's baffling how it can seemingly win the day, again and again. For me it is analogous to not upgrading to OSX 10.7 because you have nostalgic feelings about 10.6. I just cannot fathom how people get themselves into this state of mind.
OK, going rather off on a tangent there .. anyway other currencies do not look cheap : ) except the japanese yen, which IMO is the only major banknote series even worse than America's.
Shop's won't take 50s and 100s for another reason. Almost nobody uses them within the borders of USA. The clerk at the store (often a kid from a high school) just don't know how they are supposed to look. ;-)
50s aren't particularly common, but ATMs in Nevada and Reno disburse all large amounts using Benjamins. They are a pretty common bill. I'm guessing 99% of those clerks in a store would have no trouble recognizing one.
Imagine if you ordered a credit card from a bank and instead of receiving a shiny plastic card you got a low quality bit of printed cardboard. You'd think that was pretty low class, right? Well that's how I feel comparing the US and Aussie money in my wallet. The production quality on the American banknotes just does not match my expectations for a modern country in 2011.
Nothing against America of course, but I don't get the country's weird resistance to progress in certain areas, no matter how much of a no-brainer improvement that progress is. "Protect the greenback" - this is nothing but resistance to change, any change, no matter how beneficial. It's baffling how it can seemingly win the day, again and again. For me it is analogous to not upgrading to OSX 10.7 because you have nostalgic feelings about 10.6. I just cannot fathom how people get themselves into this state of mind.
OK, going rather off on a tangent there .. anyway other currencies do not look cheap : ) except the japanese yen, which IMO is the only major banknote series even worse than America's.