Amer. Council of Blind and U.S. Treas. Dept. conspire to catch drug dealers

[Ladewig]

On a local call-in radio show about the recent Federal District judge's ruling about making U.S. currency more accessible to the blind (Reuters story (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-11-29T144832Z_01_N28292849_RTRUKOC_0_US-CURRENCY-BLIND.xml&WTmodLoc=OddNewsHome_C2_oddlyEnoughNews-5)) I heard a caller propose that the lawsuit and the ruling were part of a U.S. government conspiracy to flush out drug dealers and other money launderers. If the currency were to be completely redesigned, then drug dealers sitting on hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars would not be able to exchange their old bills for new bills without calling attention to themselves. Thus, the government could arrest these criminals.

The idea is rather preposterous, but I thought it should be documented in this sub-forum.

[Anti-sophist]

If you have millions of dollars in cash, you aren't going to walk into a bank and try to exchange it.

You are going to siphon it through the dozens of money laundering fronts you already have.

[ArmillarySphere]

A co-worker had an interesting angle on this:

The US has no tradition of phasing out money. If you find your great-grandpaw's hidden stash while renovating your house, you can still use it. Granted, inflation will mean it's only lunch money, but still.

Personally, I think the US Treasury could learn a lot by looking at Aussie money. Their bills have a lot of interesting innovations - they're printed on a polymer base, so they're waterproof (cue joke about laundering) and include a transparent portion as protection against forgery. Plus, they're different sizes so blind people *can* tell them apart...

[PerryLogan]

Conspiracy people have a thing about money, don't they?

How many weird theories have you heard about the Federal Reserve, or about how we should back to the gold standard?

Austin's conspiratorial bottom-feeder, Alex Jones, sometimes claims the U.S. is evolving toward a "cashless society"--a secret plot so shudderingly horrible, Alex refuses to discuss what he's talking about, much less give out any documentation on the subject.

Alex recurrently tears apart a dollar bill (sometimes a $20 dollar bill!) on his cable TV show, to prove that our money contains little wires that record everything we purchase. So even our money is watching us.

[uk_dave]

Drug use 'behind crumbling euros'

Users of the drug crystal methamphetamine may be causing euro banknotes to disintegrate, German police have told Der Spiegel magazine.

Sulphates used in the production of the drug could form sulphuric acid when mixed with human sweat, they say, causing banknotes to corrode.

Drug users sniff powdered crystals through rolled up banknotes.

About 1,500 banknotes have crumbled after being withdrawn from cash machines, German banking officials say.

Much of Germany's supply of crystal methamphetamine is believed to come from eastern Europe, and has a high concentration of sulphates.

Its corrosive effects are also spread between contaminated notes and clean notes in wallets and purses.

The Bundesbank announced in early November that reports of bank notes worth between five euros and 100 euros disintegrating began to be received in the summer.

A 2003 report by the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg found that 90% of German euros were contaminated with cocaine.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6142912.stm

[kevin]

Actually the US has recently started changing it's designs more frequently. I believe the 5, 10, 20 and 100 are done and will probably be changed again. They also have a regular policy of taking old currency out of circulation. However it can take some time before all old bills are removed from circulation. Counterfeiters (the reason bills are changed) can keep conterfeiting old bills until the percentage of those types of bills in circulation is really low.

Drug dealers, at least those with millions sitting around, typically launder their money through various sources to make them look legit. Frequently this is done with various electronic means so the volumes of bills are dumped pretty quickly. Drug dealers don't typically sit on hordes of money, they put them in banks same as most people. Offshore banks perhaps, but banks all the same.

[Loss Leader]

A co-worker had an interesting angle on this:

The US has no tradition of phasing out money. If you find your great-grandpaw's hidden stash while renovating your house, you can still use it. Granted, inflation will mean it's only lunch money, but still.

Yeah, it's legal tender no matter when it's from. I think if you find some Confederate bills, the US government has pledged to honor them.

Personally, I think the US Treasury could learn a lot by looking at Aussie money. Their bills have a lot of interesting innovations - they're printed on a polymer base, so they're waterproof (cue joke about laundering) and include a transparent portion as protection against forgery. Plus, they're different sizes so blind people *can* tell them apart...

I will stake my entire fortune (in Confederate currency) on the fact that the US will never, never, never implement bills of different sizes.