So of course it would be in the seventies that we had the bright idea of putting a real woman on our currency. I mean we´d done ¨Liberty¨ and ¨Peace¨and other abstract concepts, but women´s lib called for real women, which led to the Susan B Anthony Dollar. Train wreck. It looked like a quarter and felt like a quarter, but no one likes a dollar that they spend like a quarter.
Around rolls the 21st century, and the GAO is making noise that replacing all $1 bills with coins would save the US Govt. around $500 million a year(almost enough money to finance two days of the Iraq war). So, in a cost saving measure that also gave meaningless symbolic gestures to historically oppressed groups (women and indigenous folk), the Sacagawea dollar was introduced.
A lot of fanfare, but what was the last time you saw a Sacagawea? See it wasn´t just that Susie B sucked as a currency, we, as Americans, hate change. Change is the crap that litters the floors of our cars, change is the stuff we pay for laundry and parking meters with. Change is not real money. Well, except when we clean out our cars every six months and take all that change to the bank, where it miraculously turns into real money. A dollar is still real money. At least to poor folk like us it is, those of you in SF may not agree. And real money is not to be thrown on the floor of the car.
So, where have all these coins that were going to save us millions of dollars in printing costs gone?
Ecuador.
Actually, the Sacagawea coin seems to be the primary source of liquidity in the Ecuadorean market place. Anything bigger is impossible to get change for, and anything smaller is still the crap that litters your car.
So here´s to Sacagawea for keeping the Ecuadorean economy afloat nearly 500 years after white men first set foot on Ecuadorian soil and changed the indigenous power structure forever.
