Making Cents

First it was toilet paper….then meat and poultry. Now you can’t find any change.

It doesn’t cause me a great deal of grief---I use a debit card for most purchases. I find the lack of coinage in relation to the pandemic to be curious. But I don’t think conspiracy lurks in the shadows.

If you believe the experts, this is a circulation problem…not a shortage.

The pandemic has apparently delivered a weird double blow to the supply of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies in this country. First, the dreaded social distancing rule slowed the production of coins at the U.S. Mint. Fewer workers were producing fewer coins. At the same time, fewer coins made their way back from customers to banks and from coin-driven businesses like laundromats, car washes and vending machines.

So, when a business asks for say $500 from a bank in coins….they are getting something less than that. So, many businesses are asking shoppers to pay with a card or produce exact change. That can be hard if there’s a shortage of change. I don’t buy the conspiracy theorists who believe it is a way to make change and paper money extinct. And I’m not inclined to believe this is a sign of the end times as written in the book of Revelation. There are those who do…

According to my research, there’s $142-dollars in coins for every man, woman and child in this country. So where is it?

Judging by my TV time this summer, I might find most of it beneath  the seat cushions of my Lazy Boy.