It's like, well, burning money...or letting money collect dust... - Granite Grok

It’s like, well, burning money…or letting money collect dust…

"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."
            – President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

This is not a sterling example of Goverment that "works":

The money — bags and bags of dollar coins — is the result of a 2005 law that requires the U.S. Mint to print a series of coins bearing the likeness of each U.S. president.

The problem is, people don’t really like dollar coins. And there aren’t enough people who are fired up about, say, Rutherford B. Hayes, to make much of a difference.

So more than 1 billion dollar coins are now sitting, unwanted, in Federal Reserve vaults around the country. By the time the program wraps up in 2016, the Fed will be sitting on 2 billion unwanted coins, according to the Fed’s own estimates.

The total cost to manufacture those unwanted coins: $600 million.

Here’s the difference:

  • Government just does what somebody thinks is a good idea.  It continues to do so until it reaches the illogical end.  THEN somebody else counts the cost.
  • Private sector – make a few.  No demand means no sales means no profit.  Kill the idea and put the money and effort into what seems to be more productive purposes.  Repeat.

Sadly, with the vast sums of money being thrown around today, most become desensitized with a "paltry" $600 million – almost a rounding error in the bigger picture of government.  But by ANY means, that amount of money in the private sector would denote a very successful company that is creating real wealth from the innovation, skill, and efforts from workaday people.

Zachery Taylor, anyone?

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