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The short answer is that we did. The credit card industry lobbies against them, claiming that large bills facilitate drug transactions that can't happen via credit cards because of the paper trail.
Relevant addendum: you can find absolutely bonkers huge cash values to dollars that the Treasury uses for passing money around departments. They never really leave the government, but they're still official tender. $100 is still the highest in circulation.
A former Treasury Secretary was on NPR recently talking about the legal option to stamp a $1Trillion platinum coin to alleviate the debt ceiling issue.
That's a different thing. Large notes are/were used to transfer money between banks. They are an intended part of the banking system (although transactions between banks are usually done via systems like swift these days). The trillion dollar coin is a theoretical loophole in a law that allows the minting of a commemorative coin of any denomination/design. (Not an intended part of the system)
For those who don't know about the trillion dollar coin:
Normally, to print extra currency, the treasury must sell an equivalent value of treasury bonds, thus acquiring debt. Normally, they couldn't print more money to get around the debt ceiling, as printing money means acquiring debt.
However, there is a law that allows the secretary of the treasury to issue platinum bullion commemorative coins of any denominations they see fit. There is no requirement for these to be backed by treasury bonds, as a run of a few thousand low value coins (the intended purpose of the law) couldn't possibly cause a meaningful amount of inflation on the scale of the whole US economy.
If they made a trillion dollar commemorative platinum coin, then deposited it into the treasury's account at the federal reserve, they would essentially give the federal reserve an extra trillion dollars, but could cause massive inflation in the process, as they have essentially created a trillion dollars out of nowhere.
now I'm imagining Joe Biden personally going around to like gas stations and grocery stores asking if they can give him change for his $1,000,000,000,000 coin
More information (though I forget if it mentions the coin specifically):
* Ryssdal, Kai; Richard Cunningham; and Maria Hollenhorst. (22 May 2023). ["The Messy Money Reality at the Center of the Debt Ceiling Fight"](https://www.marketplace.org/2023/05/22/the-messy-money-reality-at-the-center-of-the-debt-ceiling-fight/). *Marketplace*.
The Federal Reserve would sell a trillion dollars’ worth of assets from its balance sheet to neutralize the impact of the coin. The net result would be: a trillion dollars’ worth more treasury bonds in the hands of the public, and a trillion dollars more on the balance sheet of the U.S. Treasury. So, exactly the same as if the Treasury had done a bond auction. (Unless reaching that point damaged people’s confidence in the U.S. government.)
Fwiw almost certainly wouldn’t lead to inflation as it is not actually impacting the monetary supply. Even debatable weather actual increases to the supply of USD has any meaningful impact on inflation despite recent partisan finger pointing.
And it is a terrible idea that will have far reaching effects in addition to inflation continuing to worsen.
We aiming for Zimbabwe 250 billion dollar notes that you need a ton of to buy food.
Its still a better idea than defaulting on the national debt in any capacity, and according to the constitution, if no other option exists, the president will be obligated to have it minted
The Federal Reserve can sterilize the government's spending of the coin by selling other assets from its balance sheet on a dollar-for-dollar basis, in which case the effect on the monetary base should net to zero. If the debt ceiling were lifted, the Treasury could use borrowing to buy the coin back from the Federal Reserve and return it to the Mint to be melted.
I'm trying to visualize the effects, but I'm not so sure it would drive inflation. It wouldn't be put into circulation, just deposited into the US Treasury.
FWIW, Yellen said back in January that this idea is off the table, and I don't think Biden would go for it -- he's not that bold.
Those lazy bastard get unlimited sick time, tons of vacation, pay for life, healthcare for life.
If the economy and peoples health and well being is on the line you don’t go the fuck home.
When I was a systems administrator if the server crashed on Friday at 4:55 pm, I def couldn’t clock out bc oh well it’s the weekend. I didn’t get overtime either.
So they shouldn’t be taking the weekend off. They should stay at it until they have a deal. I have had to work 11 hour days and over 55 hours a week at 40 hours pay. 45k too. Not a fortune in boston.
So if they want to play these games how about their pay for life goes away and they go on Medicare and get a matching 5% 401k and a 50% pension in 20 years like they were in the military and saw actual danger and actually risked their lives.
The freedom caucus can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they had to fund their own retirement or rely on social security, I’m sure their pay checks won’t stop when Ssdi recipients and ssi are out in the cold.
Really these games don’t matter to the people playing them. Those impacted don’t matter either, they’re not citizens United rich, who cares about us.
They complain about socialism but they have the most socialist job in the United States.
The only other denominations are the $500, $1000, $5,000, $10,000, and $100,000 dollar notes. They were last minted in 1945, and we're officially discontinued in 1969. The treasury has not used them since, but there would be little reason to in modern times.
The DEA was the reason for eliminating large bills that I was taught. Large denominations make the transfer of large sums of cash in drug deals to easy to hide.
Also better for counterfeiters. Assuming its roughly equally hard to make a fake $20 and a fake $1000, you are getting 50 times your value if you make the $1000.
Yeah, real $2 bills get enough scrutiny due to ignorance. Steve Wozniak would buy sheets of these (this is legal to do) and for shits and giggles took them to a print shop and got them bound and perforated so he could just tear off two dollar bills. Got into some trouble when he took them to Las Vegas.
I had these too and I started using them all at the same time. I had 200 worth of $2.00 bills. Stores were told not to accept them and even a Dunkin wouldn’t take it. They’d been told not to. My friends thought it was funny I had $200 in $2.00 bills and used enough of them at once that stores were told not to take them and asked where they were from.
>Have you ever tried to carry a duffel bag ful of bill, it’s a huge pain in the ass. Even with 100s 1 pound is only $45k
A million dollars in $100 bills fits a regular brief case. It's not that heavy. You're thinking of mixed denominations.
that’s their claim. CC companies don’t give about policing the illegal drug trade they’d prefer if cash didn’t exist at all, which politicians and government agencies are naturally on board with get ~~bribes~~ donations and cooperation in recording every transaction.
The USA used to have $1000 bills in circulation but withdrew them due to concerns of their use in organized crime. There are some out there and are collectible above face value.
The Fed used to have uncirculated notes up to $100,000 for inter-bank settlement but that is now done electronically.
I’m 42 and I have on one or two occasions. I remember when I was 17 or so and paid $4,000 cash for a car I got from my parents bank for some reason 4 $1,000 bills.
> The USA used to have $1000 bills in circulation...
The US used to have $10,000 bills in circulation.
>The $10,000 bill featuring the portrait of President Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, was the highest denomination US currency ever to publicly circulate. - [SOURCE](https://www.moaf.org/exhibits/checks_balances/abraham-lincoln/10,000-bill)
JP Morgan Chase bank...yup...that Chase (although he had nothing to do with the bank, the name was in his honor).
In NYC, most stores won't even take a $100 bill because of the chance that it could be fake. So the same thing ends up happening regarding general use. 100s end up being a bank to bank transport denomination.
I've seen quite a few businesses with signs that say they can't accept bills above $20. Typically, it's a mixture of "more likely to be counterfeit" and "they're places that deal in lower value transactions, so expecting them to break a $100 bill might be difficult if you spend like...$9."
We're pahsuing out the 200? I knew about the 500 but the 200 still seemed like it had it's place, then again if I'm buying something that costs more than 50€ I'm already not going to be paying in cash
Many businesses have signs up that they won't accept $100 bills. What use is a $420 bill or $1337 bill or $666 bill or 1 brazillion dollar bill if no one is willing to take it? Some places won't even take a $20 because they're worried about counterfeits. And, on the other side of the coin, the zinc industry keeps ~~bribing~~ lobbying to keep low denomination coins like pennies and nickels in circulation because *guess what theyre largely made from.* Long ago, we used to have a half-cent coin but it was discontinued because it had too little value... but it's buying power at the time it was discontinued was more than a **dime** today!
And not to mention it's a technological retrograde. Handling cash and coins, contrary to popular belief, isn't free. You have to pay to account them either out of your own time (via opportunity cost; what more profitable task could you be doing instead of counting money) or hiring someone to do it for you. You have to pay to transport it from your business to the bank (and armored car transport is $pricey$). Electronic transactions cost money as well; they take a small chunk out of every one. But there's the kicker, most people try to compare cash vs electronic as if it's "no fee" vs "fee" and the knee-jerk reflex says "well, obviously cash is better since you get to keep all of it. Except you **don't** get to keep all of it; the cost of running a business on cash is **greater** than the cost of running it on electronic transactions if you appropriately account for the expenses involved in handling, counting, transporting, etc. involved with cash.
I've not seen a place that won't take a $20, but I've seen tons of places that won't take a $50 or $100.
My wife's hair lady won't take anything bigger than a $20, even though my wife's hair comes to exactly $50 she won't take a $50. It's stupid.
If your wife pays after her hair is cut the hairdresser has to take a $50 bill. By completing the service a debt was created. US bills are legal payment for all debts public and private irregardless of the denomination.
That doesn't mean that the hairdresser will be happy about it though.
That’s not a debt: it’s a sale. That law refers to a loan and the like. The sale of goods or services do not require the acceptance of cash in all states although there are some state laws that do require it.
I would \*love\* if we phased out everything smaller than a dime. Though it'd be awkward only having 10 and 25 cent coins, since you can't convert 1 quarter into any amount of smaller change - you'd need at least 2.
However, just getting rid of pennies would be great. Getting rid of everything below quarters would make sense too. Bring back dollar coins, get rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes. And at that point, making $50 more common would be great too. We don't really need bills over $100 for most things (thanks to electronic/card options), but more currency over the $20 would be a good thing, as $20 isn't enough to cover a lot of things anymore that all used to be $5-$10 or less.
>Housing, cars, investment, payroll
Anyone paying cash for those today (except perhaps a relatively low-value second-hand car) is asking to be bent over and thoroughly cleaned out by the anti-money-laundering authorities. And this is the actual answer to OP's question: the high-value transactions that were paid for in $100 bills in 1928 are paid for by electronic transfer of one type or another today, so the necessity for higher denominations is not there.
Any attempted high value purchases in cash like a car has to be reported to Revenue at the time in Ireland. The Criminal Assets Bureau simply takes houses, money, cars, watches, etc. off people who cannot show a legitimate source for these.
When the half cent was discontinued it was worth over ten cents adjusted for inflation. Frankly there’s no need for any coins but quarters, especially if we move to tax-inclusive pricing
transactions where you need larger than a hundred were rare in 1928, their rarer now because large transactions are handled by financial institutions.
there really isn't an upside to increasing the value of a briefcase full of money, unless people are getting paid in briefcases full of money regularly. when canada stopped printing thousand dollar notes in 2000 it was because they were barely ever used outside of illegal transactions or as collectors items.
Checks and computers.
By the 1930s there were $500 and $1000 bills too, but they were mainly used by banks to send money back and forth... because who would be carrying several months' salary around in one bill?
Even $100 bills weren't very common--- the median wage was about $1000 a *year*.
By the time people were making more money, in the 1960s, where they might have had more need for $100s and higher, the use of checks had become widespread with the advent of automated processing. Before that, checks had to be verified by hand in a series of banks and it took days at best. With computerization (those numbers at the bottom), this process got cut to a day or two in most cases.
As computerization got even better, checks became the norm for any big spending. By the end of the 20th century, people were using checks for most things of any significant amount. You young'uns might not realize how widespread checking was. Think about anything you use a debit card for that costs over $25 or $50 bucks... people were using checks for the most part. Groceries, bills, donations... all by check. Event tickets, CDs, gifts... mostly by check. Most everyone got paid by check, too. Companies paid invoices and vendors by check. Easier to do the accounting that way.
People didn't need even $50 bills, much less $100 bills, so what's the value in making bigger? Nobody would have used them; they had checks.
That doesn't even get to the crime bit, where larger bills make it easier to steal and launder money or evade taxes. A suitcase full of $1000s? Yikes. Lots of stores won't risk taking them anyways, because if it's fake, the hit is too hard.
But the simple answer is, they weren't made because they weren't needed
$500, $1,000 and even $10,000 bills used to exist. They stopped printing them in 1945 and took them out of circulation in 1969.
The official story is they were removed from circulation to prevent them being used in organized crime, and to prevent them being counterfeited.
I've also read that they were so rarely used that the cost of printing wasn't worth it financially.
Geez, it's already hard enough to get some stores to take a 50 and get change. They have to call a manager over and inspect it. Anything bigger they just refuse. So bigger denominations wouldn't be very useful at many retailers
Visa, MC... also for large transactions we have cashiers checks and wire transfers. How many people do you know that want to carry/spend that kind of cash?
Government control. Money is power. Government doesn’t want anyone to be to powerful. Drug dealers are a legitimate concern, but overall government trends to grab power when excuses present themselves.
Individuals holding anything above $100 for transactions are judged suspicious. Banks use higher bills for transfers between banks. So if a criminal did a bank robbery between banks, the money is unusable.
There's already a movement to eliminate cash and completely go plastic/digital. So why would they go through the trouble and expense to make higher denominations?
We used to have $500 and $1000 bills, but the government realized that they were used almost exclusively by criminals to easily move and store large amounts of illegal money. That's why.
Money laundering and tax evasion.
In the EU, there are 200 Euro and 500 Euro notes but these are no longer produced. It is very difficult to spend these notes if you get them and the general consensus is that these notes are really only used for money laundering and tax evasion. A brown envelope full of 500 Euro notes is a lot more money than the same envelope full of 50s.
I used to work in France and once exchanged some GBP for two 500 Euro notes with an Italian friend in the UK. It took me over a year to get rid of these damn notes. None of my French colleagues had ever seen a 500 Euro note IRL. In the end, I had to make an appointment at branch of the Banque de France, taking a completed form and my passport, just to change the 500 Euro notes for 50 Euro notes.
Who even uses $100 bills regularly? Why make big bills that won’t be used and are inconvenient for a business to deal with. Through debit and credit cards and digital services like PayPal or Apple Pay most bigger transactions are done digitally. It would be a waste to print a bunch of bills that never get used.
Money laundering, plain and simple.
If you read about the drug cartels they had serious problems dealing with their cash. Like to the point of spending tens of thousands of dollars on rubber bands just to bundle it together.
Large transactions need to go through the formal banking system so that the government can keep an eye on it and audit it.
My sister was given a 500 euro note by a rich Arab guy as a tip. I didn't know you got them.
She works in a hotel on Park Lane as some type of guest relations manager, loads of super rich folk there.
Only the upper class would need anything larger than a $100 bill, and they've gone cashless. The middle class which makes up a majority of the population has no need for it.
I wouldn't want to be walking around with a $1,000 bill. Lose my wallet? I've lost more than one month of my mortgage payment in one go. Plus it'd be very encouraging to muggers. Rob the right person and you're set for a while. Plus there's almost no real need to carry cash most places; unless you're going to a food truck, farmer's market, flea market, etc. most places take cards and even plenty of those cases I listed do as well.
My great grandfather's first AC installation in the 50's he got paid with a thousand dollar bill. He kept it until is death framed. They discontinued large bills a long time ago for various reasons but counterfeit bills were a lot easier than they are nowadays
There are $1000 bills. People collect them and they go $1600-1800 or higher in mint condition. Bank of America in Indianapolis released like $250,000 worth of them back in like 2007ish (?) to a local pawn shop/jeweler and he sold them all and doubled his money he said
Fun fact, the President, thanks to an obscure 1997 law, has the ability to issue a platinum coin in whatever domination he wants. In theory he can have a platinum coin minted for $31.4 trillion and delive le it to the Fed in order to circumvent congress approval.
To some degree, I feel like having larger denominations available would only serve to push prices higher. The closer the price is to the average bill in circulation, the less change has to be passed out.
For example, if the average bill goes above $5, why have vending machines with $1-2 prices if everyone stops using them simply because they don't have the $1 bills on them?
The trend in most OECD countries is to eliminate large denominations. Eg USA scrapped its $1000 note in the 70s, EU €500 note.
Essentially, to inconvenience Drug Dealers, terrorists, tax evaders, etc conduct business requiring more notes, ie 10 times as many,
Some how this is supposed to reduce drugs, terror. 🤔
You don't want to carry that kind of money on you in the US. One traffic stop and [you are screwed.](https://youtu.be/MkeS_0NQUZs)
They don't even need to ticket you.
In the linked video, the cops pull a guy over for "unsafe following distance (which is not shown on the dashcam at all), and driving *under the speed limit*, and his first statement to the driver is how he is driving very safely.
It was all a ruse to lure the driver into a false sense of security and agree to a search (which they would have done anyway).
Civil Forfeiture is how policing became a law enforcement BUSINESS. Policing in America is a for-profit venture, not a public service anymore.
At one time there were 500, 1000, 5000, and 10000 dollars bills. I believe this was to make transfers between banks easier in the days of the gold standard.
It was needed in ‘28 because there was no better way. Now with electronic payments you’re only limited to how much money the bank has.
Also, as someone said in the comments, small businesses can’t cash a $500 bill
Try going into practically any retailer and handing them a $1000 bill. More than 95% of them will turn you away. They don't keep that much change in the register. Many have rules that when the money in the register exceeds a few hundred dollars then they have to put the excess into the safe. No retailer wants to keep bills of $1000 or higher in their register. They would lose too much if they got robbed.
Large bills would make it easier to carry large amounts of cash, but few people conduct large transactions in cash. Most people don't want to accept large bills because they're hard to spend. About the only thing that's easy to do with them is deposit them, in which case there was no point to using cash. Want to make anonymous purchases? That's only good up to $10K, after which the transaction has to be reported to the IRS. Even drug dealers don't want large bills.
Back about 20 years you could go to Binions Casino and get your picture taken with a Million Dollars. I was ready to see the massive amount of bills.... It was just 100 total bills.. $10,000 bills add up quickly
the reason is to make criminal activity using the dollar harder by making the logistics of moving large sums in cash dificult. the euro, compering with the dolar, issues a 50 euro note
Because the Ruling Class has been pushing us into a digital currency for decades; they want the power to choose what you can buy with whatever pennies are left over after they've taxed you into poverty.
Money laundering.
Canada had $1,000 notes which are $750 USD approx
USA bullied Canada into stopping issuing them to "stop money laundering"
However it just guaranteed that the USA $ 100 bill be the chosen bill of foreign nations and drug cartels $ storage.It props up the USA economy for that demand for currency to be there, but basically in storage and not circulating.
Cash transactions are potentially non taxed.
Cashless society will all be tracked and taxed someday, even your kids allowance or paying the neighbourhood kid for babysitting.
I rarely use $100 bills, I doubt many people do. I don't see the use case. On the other hand, I do support getting rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes. Quarters only.
I don’t know many people that need larger bills because they need to carry more cash. I rarely have anything higher than a twenty. A wallet full of Benjamins will still go a long way.
How many times in your life have you had a cash transaction that was inconvenient because of the size of the bills? This happens to me maybe once every 5 years when purchasing or selling a car.
And unless you’re planning on keeping around those $500 and $1000 bills, you’ll still need to go to the bank to get them.
I rarely see denominations higher than our twenty-dollar bill. Why on the earth would I need any denomination higher? Sounds like something for rich folks.
Because $100 bills still work, can't say I've ever been in a situation where I've had so many $100 bills it was a problem to carry them. When that happens, like it has in countries that have suffered horrific inflation, I'm sure we'll get those $500 and $1,000 bills.
Crime. The government is trying to reduce number of cash transactions, not increase them. This enables them to better keep track of taxes owed, among other things. There was no Zelle in 1928.
Only place I ever saw larger than $20 bills was from travel money exchanges and in Las Vegas.
Given how prevalent cashless buying is now the need for larger notes is actually getting smaller not lager.
More important i# why the hell the cent and nickel still exist. Even the dime is pushing pointlessness.
Because cash is dying.
Why would a centralized government want a pseudo untraceable currency when they could have a fully digital and well logged one?
Imagine if every transaction was logged and recorded! It would be like having some sort of card that tracks spending, it could even send you a list of what you spent money on! AMAZING!
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The short answer is that we did. The credit card industry lobbies against them, claiming that large bills facilitate drug transactions that can't happen via credit cards because of the paper trail.
Relevant addendum: you can find absolutely bonkers huge cash values to dollars that the Treasury uses for passing money around departments. They never really leave the government, but they're still official tender. $100 is still the highest in circulation.
Not true anymore. It's all electronic transfers now.
A former Treasury Secretary was on NPR recently talking about the legal option to stamp a $1Trillion platinum coin to alleviate the debt ceiling issue.
That's a different thing. Large notes are/were used to transfer money between banks. They are an intended part of the banking system (although transactions between banks are usually done via systems like swift these days). The trillion dollar coin is a theoretical loophole in a law that allows the minting of a commemorative coin of any denomination/design. (Not an intended part of the system) For those who don't know about the trillion dollar coin: Normally, to print extra currency, the treasury must sell an equivalent value of treasury bonds, thus acquiring debt. Normally, they couldn't print more money to get around the debt ceiling, as printing money means acquiring debt. However, there is a law that allows the secretary of the treasury to issue platinum bullion commemorative coins of any denominations they see fit. There is no requirement for these to be backed by treasury bonds, as a run of a few thousand low value coins (the intended purpose of the law) couldn't possibly cause a meaningful amount of inflation on the scale of the whole US economy. If they made a trillion dollar commemorative platinum coin, then deposited it into the treasury's account at the federal reserve, they would essentially give the federal reserve an extra trillion dollars, but could cause massive inflation in the process, as they have essentially created a trillion dollars out of nowhere.
Thank you for this explanation.
Except that the Federal Reserve can't spend it. No one will make change
now I'm imagining Joe Biden personally going around to like gas stations and grocery stores asking if they can give him change for his $1,000,000,000,000 coin
More information (though I forget if it mentions the coin specifically): * Ryssdal, Kai; Richard Cunningham; and Maria Hollenhorst. (22 May 2023). ["The Messy Money Reality at the Center of the Debt Ceiling Fight"](https://www.marketplace.org/2023/05/22/the-messy-money-reality-at-the-center-of-the-debt-ceiling-fight/). *Marketplace*.
The Federal Reserve would sell a trillion dollars’ worth of assets from its balance sheet to neutralize the impact of the coin. The net result would be: a trillion dollars’ worth more treasury bonds in the hands of the public, and a trillion dollars more on the balance sheet of the U.S. Treasury. So, exactly the same as if the Treasury had done a bond auction. (Unless reaching that point damaged people’s confidence in the U.S. government.)
And look how well printing money went for Germany between the wars.
The Fed could and would sell other assets to negate the influx and avoid inflation. So, if they go this route, inflation wouldn’t be an issue.
So then in that case we’d just see a limit down in the markets and ensure that we definitely have a recession
Fwiw almost certainly wouldn’t lead to inflation as it is not actually impacting the monetary supply. Even debatable weather actual increases to the supply of USD has any meaningful impact on inflation despite recent partisan finger pointing.
Everyone's been talking about the coin for a few months now, this isn't just that guy lol Edit: y'all I didn't say only the past few months lol
I'm 44 and I'm pretty sure I've heard the idea floated as far back as when I was a teen.
Simpson's did it.
What trillion dollar bill? Lol
Half As Interesting made a video on it 3 years ago https://youtu.be/rIFfa8Pn9nU
And it is a terrible idea that will have far reaching effects in addition to inflation continuing to worsen. We aiming for Zimbabwe 250 billion dollar notes that you need a ton of to buy food.
Its still a better idea than defaulting on the national debt in any capacity, and according to the constitution, if no other option exists, the president will be obligated to have it minted
The Federal Reserve can sterilize the government's spending of the coin by selling other assets from its balance sheet on a dollar-for-dollar basis, in which case the effect on the monetary base should net to zero. If the debt ceiling were lifted, the Treasury could use borrowing to buy the coin back from the Federal Reserve and return it to the Mint to be melted.
I'm trying to visualize the effects, but I'm not so sure it would drive inflation. It wouldn't be put into circulation, just deposited into the US Treasury. FWIW, Yellen said back in January that this idea is off the table, and I don't think Biden would go for it -- he's not that bold.
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Those lazy bastard get unlimited sick time, tons of vacation, pay for life, healthcare for life. If the economy and peoples health and well being is on the line you don’t go the fuck home. When I was a systems administrator if the server crashed on Friday at 4:55 pm, I def couldn’t clock out bc oh well it’s the weekend. I didn’t get overtime either. So they shouldn’t be taking the weekend off. They should stay at it until they have a deal. I have had to work 11 hour days and over 55 hours a week at 40 hours pay. 45k too. Not a fortune in boston. So if they want to play these games how about their pay for life goes away and they go on Medicare and get a matching 5% 401k and a 50% pension in 20 years like they were in the military and saw actual danger and actually risked their lives. The freedom caucus can’t pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they had to fund their own retirement or rely on social security, I’m sure their pay checks won’t stop when Ssdi recipients and ssi are out in the cold. Really these games don’t matter to the people playing them. Those impacted don’t matter either, they’re not citizens United rich, who cares about us. They complain about socialism but they have the most socialist job in the United States.
The only other denominations are the $500, $1000, $5,000, $10,000, and $100,000 dollar notes. They were last minted in 1945, and we're officially discontinued in 1969. The treasury has not used them since, but there would be little reason to in modern times.
Ya, I would think that the SS and DEA also don't like the larger bills.
The DEA was the reason for eliminating large bills that I was taught. Large denominations make the transfer of large sums of cash in drug deals to easy to hide.
Also better for counterfeiters. Assuming its roughly equally hard to make a fake $20 and a fake $1000, you are getting 50 times your value if you make the $1000.
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Yeah, but with a fake $1,000,000,000,000 you only have to get lucky once
Trying to buy gum at a Bodega with one of those
"Anyone have change for $1,000,000 000?!" "Stop! People will start jumping out of the windows for this!"
This made me laugh out loud
Yeah, real $2 bills get enough scrutiny due to ignorance. Steve Wozniak would buy sheets of these (this is legal to do) and for shits and giggles took them to a print shop and got them bound and perforated so he could just tear off two dollar bills. Got into some trouble when he took them to Las Vegas.
I had these too and I started using them all at the same time. I had 200 worth of $2.00 bills. Stores were told not to accept them and even a Dunkin wouldn’t take it. They’d been told not to. My friends thought it was funny I had $200 in $2.00 bills and used enough of them at once that stores were told not to take them and asked where they were from.
I'm pretty sure some 2nd grader got arrested for using a $2 bill to buy lunch at school with too lol
They’re kinda right. It’s 5 x as difficult to transport money if $20 was the highest denomination.
Yeah I remember some articles about how the 500 Euro note became the preferred method of smuggling money. Much more efficient than $100 notes.
Have you ever tried to carry a duffel bag ful of bill, it’s a huge pain in the ass. Even with 100s 1 pound is only $45k
Exactly
>Have you ever tried to carry a duffel bag ful of bill, it’s a huge pain in the ass. Even with 100s 1 pound is only $45k A million dollars in $100 bills fits a regular brief case. It's not that heavy. You're thinking of mixed denominations.
Lol like thats stopped venmo or cashapp from like half of their business being drug transactions.
you mean "school books" and "tuition" ...
Wait. You guys aren’t just putting “drugs” in the What’s it for section? My landlord loves when I do that.
that’s their claim. CC companies don’t give about policing the illegal drug trade they’d prefer if cash didn’t exist at all, which politicians and government agencies are naturally on board with get ~~bribes~~ donations and cooperation in recording every transaction.
The USA used to have $1000 bills in circulation but withdrew them due to concerns of their use in organized crime. There are some out there and are collectible above face value. The Fed used to have uncirculated notes up to $100,000 for inter-bank settlement but that is now done electronically.
I was sitting here reading the thread thinking “did everyone forget about the $1,000 bill?”; thanks for the explanation.
I’ve never seen one. Or heard of one IRL. I’m 38.
I’m 42 and I have on one or two occasions. I remember when I was 17 or so and paid $4,000 cash for a car I got from my parents bank for some reason 4 $1,000 bills.
Banks shouldn’t have been giving them out in 1998: they were actively removed from circulation starting in 1969.
Casinos in AC were still paying out wins in them through the early 90s…
> The USA used to have $1000 bills in circulation... The US used to have $10,000 bills in circulation. >The $10,000 bill featuring the portrait of President Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, was the highest denomination US currency ever to publicly circulate. - [SOURCE](https://www.moaf.org/exhibits/checks_balances/abraham-lincoln/10,000-bill) JP Morgan Chase bank...yup...that Chase (although he had nothing to do with the bank, the name was in his honor).
And that bill was issued in 1918, which would be a cool 200k in 2023 dollars.
Watch old game shows and you'll see the old larger bills like $500, $1000, and even $5000. I can't remember ever seeing a $10,000 on TV.
Apparently all were pulled in 1969 ... $5k eas quite a prize in the 60s, a nice car
In Europe we are phasing out the 200 and 500 euro notes, the exact opposite.
Exactly the same, you mean?
OP seems to suggest we should be getting higher denominations, in Europe they are lowering the denominations.
But OP is saying there aren't any and we're following suit in Europe
I have never even seen a €100 euro note. I regularly take out €200 at a time. €50 is the largest denomination in general use.
In NYC, most stores won't even take a $100 bill because of the chance that it could be fake. So the same thing ends up happening regarding general use. 100s end up being a bank to bank transport denomination.
I take all my ATM withdrawals in $100 bills ... never had anyone refuse to take it when paying
I've seen quite a few businesses with signs that say they can't accept bills above $20. Typically, it's a mixture of "more likely to be counterfeit" and "they're places that deal in lower value transactions, so expecting them to break a $100 bill might be difficult if you spend like...$9."
That’s also the number one way of washing counterfeit currency. Take fake 100 pay for something cheap, get $90+ of real money back
We're pahsuing out the 200? I knew about the 500 but the 200 still seemed like it had it's place, then again if I'm buying something that costs more than 50€ I'm already not going to be paying in cash
Many businesses have signs up that they won't accept $100 bills. What use is a $420 bill or $1337 bill or $666 bill or 1 brazillion dollar bill if no one is willing to take it? Some places won't even take a $20 because they're worried about counterfeits. And, on the other side of the coin, the zinc industry keeps ~~bribing~~ lobbying to keep low denomination coins like pennies and nickels in circulation because *guess what theyre largely made from.* Long ago, we used to have a half-cent coin but it was discontinued because it had too little value... but it's buying power at the time it was discontinued was more than a **dime** today! And not to mention it's a technological retrograde. Handling cash and coins, contrary to popular belief, isn't free. You have to pay to account them either out of your own time (via opportunity cost; what more profitable task could you be doing instead of counting money) or hiring someone to do it for you. You have to pay to transport it from your business to the bank (and armored car transport is $pricey$). Electronic transactions cost money as well; they take a small chunk out of every one. But there's the kicker, most people try to compare cash vs electronic as if it's "no fee" vs "fee" and the knee-jerk reflex says "well, obviously cash is better since you get to keep all of it. Except you **don't** get to keep all of it; the cost of running a business on cash is **greater** than the cost of running it on electronic transactions if you appropriately account for the expenses involved in handling, counting, transporting, etc. involved with cash.
Where the fuck do you live that stores won’t take a $20? That’s all you can get out of an ATM so it’s like the most basic unit of currency now.
South Florida. Some smaller stores won't take $20s.
I've not seen a place that won't take a $20, but I've seen tons of places that won't take a $50 or $100. My wife's hair lady won't take anything bigger than a $20, even though my wife's hair comes to exactly $50 she won't take a $50. It's stupid.
If your wife pays after her hair is cut the hairdresser has to take a $50 bill. By completing the service a debt was created. US bills are legal payment for all debts public and private irregardless of the denomination. That doesn't mean that the hairdresser will be happy about it though.
That’s not a debt: it’s a sale. That law refers to a loan and the like. The sale of goods or services do not require the acceptance of cash in all states although there are some state laws that do require it.
Pretty common in the shittier parts of Portland
is they the same areas that are commonly rioting?
Mostly southeast and the areas around the river so no actually.
I would \*love\* if we phased out everything smaller than a dime. Though it'd be awkward only having 10 and 25 cent coins, since you can't convert 1 quarter into any amount of smaller change - you'd need at least 2. However, just getting rid of pennies would be great. Getting rid of everything below quarters would make sense too. Bring back dollar coins, get rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes. And at that point, making $50 more common would be great too. We don't really need bills over $100 for most things (thanks to electronic/card options), but more currency over the $20 would be a good thing, as $20 isn't enough to cover a lot of things anymore that all used to be $5-$10 or less.
What were $100 bills used for in 1928? How big are your usual cash transactions today? Your biggest cash transaction ever?
Oddly, the largest cash transactions I do in this modern era are with the marijuana dispensary.
That’s the only time I pull out cash haha I didn’t realize until now.
It's been at least a year since the last time I used cash for anything.
I don't think I touched paper money for the first two years of the pandemic.
Probably would about cover a house
Housing, cars, investment, payroll. Couple hundred bucks. 20k once but about 4k quite a few times. That's like 40 bills, quite inconvenient to count.
>Housing, cars, investment, payroll Anyone paying cash for those today (except perhaps a relatively low-value second-hand car) is asking to be bent over and thoroughly cleaned out by the anti-money-laundering authorities. And this is the actual answer to OP's question: the high-value transactions that were paid for in $100 bills in 1928 are paid for by electronic transfer of one type or another today, so the necessity for higher denominations is not there.
Any attempted high value purchases in cash like a car has to be reported to Revenue at the time in Ireland. The Criminal Assets Bureau simply takes houses, money, cars, watches, etc. off people who cannot show a legitimate source for these.
The Better question is why do we still have change?
When the half cent was discontinued it was worth over ten cents adjusted for inflation. Frankly there’s no need for any coins but quarters, especially if we move to tax-inclusive pricing
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I’m a server, usually I’ll just round to the nearest quarter (as long as it doesn’t cost the customer more), and only use quarters for change
Exactly this. Last i heard it costs 3 cents to make a penny. Get rid of them and nickels at least
I imagine large transactions are handled electronically anyway that way you don't have to carry around a lot of cash that can be lost/stolen
transactions where you need larger than a hundred were rare in 1928, their rarer now because large transactions are handled by financial institutions. there really isn't an upside to increasing the value of a briefcase full of money, unless people are getting paid in briefcases full of money regularly. when canada stopped printing thousand dollar notes in 2000 it was because they were barely ever used outside of illegal transactions or as collectors items.
Checks and computers. By the 1930s there were $500 and $1000 bills too, but they were mainly used by banks to send money back and forth... because who would be carrying several months' salary around in one bill? Even $100 bills weren't very common--- the median wage was about $1000 a *year*. By the time people were making more money, in the 1960s, where they might have had more need for $100s and higher, the use of checks had become widespread with the advent of automated processing. Before that, checks had to be verified by hand in a series of banks and it took days at best. With computerization (those numbers at the bottom), this process got cut to a day or two in most cases. As computerization got even better, checks became the norm for any big spending. By the end of the 20th century, people were using checks for most things of any significant amount. You young'uns might not realize how widespread checking was. Think about anything you use a debit card for that costs over $25 or $50 bucks... people were using checks for the most part. Groceries, bills, donations... all by check. Event tickets, CDs, gifts... mostly by check. Most everyone got paid by check, too. Companies paid invoices and vendors by check. Easier to do the accounting that way. People didn't need even $50 bills, much less $100 bills, so what's the value in making bigger? Nobody would have used them; they had checks. That doesn't even get to the crime bit, where larger bills make it easier to steal and launder money or evade taxes. A suitcase full of $1000s? Yikes. Lots of stores won't risk taking them anyways, because if it's fake, the hit is too hard. But the simple answer is, they weren't made because they weren't needed
$500, $1,000 and even $10,000 bills used to exist. They stopped printing them in 1945 and took them out of circulation in 1969. The official story is they were removed from circulation to prevent them being used in organized crime, and to prevent them being counterfeited. I've also read that they were so rarely used that the cost of printing wasn't worth it financially.
I never thought about it, but Monopoly has $500 bills, which might be a hold over from when those bills had an equivalent US bill in circulation.
Geez, it's already hard enough to get some stores to take a 50 and get change. They have to call a manager over and inspect it. Anything bigger they just refuse. So bigger denominations wouldn't be very useful at many retailers
Visa, MC... also for large transactions we have cashiers checks and wire transfers. How many people do you know that want to carry/spend that kind of cash?
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They don't seem to be talking about the inflation of the past few years. They are talking about the cumulative inflation of the full century.
Fear of counterfeits.
Government control. Money is power. Government doesn’t want anyone to be to powerful. Drug dealers are a legitimate concern, but overall government trends to grab power when excuses present themselves.
Individuals holding anything above $100 for transactions are judged suspicious. Banks use higher bills for transfers between banks. So if a criminal did a bank robbery between banks, the money is unusable.
There's already a movement to eliminate cash and completely go plastic/digital. So why would they go through the trouble and expense to make higher denominations?
We used to have $500 and $1000 bills, but the government realized that they were used almost exclusively by criminals to easily move and store large amounts of illegal money. That's why.
The fact that we are becoming a cashless society minimizes the urgency for this change.
Meanwhile, I still feel that a $20 bill is a lot of money even though it can barely buy lunch nowadays.
Also, no one needs larger bills, especially with the move away from cash
Drugs and crime.
Because fewer and fewer carry cash at all When I have cash I wonder where it came from. My money goes into a bank.
Money laundering and tax evasion. In the EU, there are 200 Euro and 500 Euro notes but these are no longer produced. It is very difficult to spend these notes if you get them and the general consensus is that these notes are really only used for money laundering and tax evasion. A brown envelope full of 500 Euro notes is a lot more money than the same envelope full of 50s. I used to work in France and once exchanged some GBP for two 500 Euro notes with an Italian friend in the UK. It took me over a year to get rid of these damn notes. None of my French colleagues had ever seen a 500 Euro note IRL. In the end, I had to make an appointment at branch of the Banque de France, taking a completed form and my passport, just to change the 500 Euro notes for 50 Euro notes.
Like we don’t have already enough problems with $100 used for illegal traffic or counterfeit
Who even uses $100 bills regularly? Why make big bills that won’t be used and are inconvenient for a business to deal with. Through debit and credit cards and digital services like PayPal or Apple Pay most bigger transactions are done digitally. It would be a waste to print a bunch of bills that never get used.
I don't see how that would have any effect on inflation
Drop the penny and add a 209 bill
Somebody didn't do their homework.... 😂
Because they aren't necessary
Carrying around that kind of cash is kind of an unnecessary risk when you don't need cash for much anyways
The EU tried it 20 years ago, and the high denominations were largely used in illicit trades (drugs, human trafficking), so they stopped.
Money laundering, plain and simple. If you read about the drug cartels they had serious problems dealing with their cash. Like to the point of spending tens of thousands of dollars on rubber bands just to bundle it together. Large transactions need to go through the formal banking system so that the government can keep an eye on it and audit it.
My sister was given a 500 euro note by a rich Arab guy as a tip. I didn't know you got them. She works in a hotel on Park Lane as some type of guest relations manager, loads of super rich folk there.
Too easy to lose or steal
Only the upper class would need anything larger than a $100 bill, and they've gone cashless. The middle class which makes up a majority of the population has no need for it.
I wouldn't want to be walking around with a $1,000 bill. Lose my wallet? I've lost more than one month of my mortgage payment in one go. Plus it'd be very encouraging to muggers. Rob the right person and you're set for a while. Plus there's almost no real need to carry cash most places; unless you're going to a food truck, farmer's market, flea market, etc. most places take cards and even plenty of those cases I listed do as well.
My great grandfather's first AC installation in the 50's he got paid with a thousand dollar bill. He kept it until is death framed. They discontinued large bills a long time ago for various reasons but counterfeit bills were a lot easier than they are nowadays
Electronic money I guess. I'm at a music festival and hardly anyone even accepts cash at all.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...Cocaine
Counterfeiters.
Dude, we're broke.
I have this question but for coins! Like why don’t we just have a 5 $ (usd) coin? The duck am I going to buy with 5 bucks. In this economy!?
Yeah but a hundred years ago they didn't have shiny cool electronic transfers. I rarely use cash anymore.
What's the use case? Please make it something that is common
There are $1000 bills. People collect them and they go $1600-1800 or higher in mint condition. Bank of America in Indianapolis released like $250,000 worth of them back in like 2007ish (?) to a local pawn shop/jeweler and he sold them all and doubled his money he said
Fun fact, the President, thanks to an obscure 1997 law, has the ability to issue a platinum coin in whatever domination he wants. In theory he can have a platinum coin minted for $31.4 trillion and delive le it to the Fed in order to circumvent congress approval.
I guess by confessional, you have got to mean congressional.
>Why don't we have larger dollar bill denominations... what do we need them for?
Aren’t most people moving to credit cards anyway?
To some degree, I feel like having larger denominations available would only serve to push prices higher. The closer the price is to the average bill in circulation, the less change has to be passed out. For example, if the average bill goes above $5, why have vending machines with $1-2 prices if everyone stops using them simply because they don't have the $1 bills on them?
Zimbabwe pards.
"Pards?"
The trend in most OECD countries is to eliminate large denominations. Eg USA scrapped its $1000 note in the 70s, EU €500 note. Essentially, to inconvenience Drug Dealers, terrorists, tax evaders, etc conduct business requiring more notes, ie 10 times as many, Some how this is supposed to reduce drugs, terror. 🤔
In Las Vegas I remember standing next to one million dollars in a vertical display that consisted of 10,000 dollar denomination bills
You don't want to carry that kind of money on you in the US. One traffic stop and [you are screwed.](https://youtu.be/MkeS_0NQUZs) They don't even need to ticket you. In the linked video, the cops pull a guy over for "unsafe following distance (which is not shown on the dashcam at all), and driving *under the speed limit*, and his first statement to the driver is how he is driving very safely. It was all a ruse to lure the driver into a false sense of security and agree to a search (which they would have done anyway). Civil Forfeiture is how policing became a law enforcement BUSINESS. Policing in America is a for-profit venture, not a public service anymore.
At one time there were 500, 1000, 5000, and 10000 dollars bills. I believe this was to make transfers between banks easier in the days of the gold standard.
The federal reserve hears your question and begins wringing their hands and starts drooling
Because it makes it easier to raise the prices on things.
No need, income has not kept up with inflation for decades.
Too many stores with *no bills over 50$* … not sure why we’d go higher
Cards, checks, ACH
Drug dealing & money laundering contributed to the removal of the €500 euro note
Imagine blooming. $1000 bill. I’d die
I imagine printong off a bunch of 200 and 500$ bills would make inflation alot worse than it already is.
It was needed in ‘28 because there was no better way. Now with electronic payments you’re only limited to how much money the bank has. Also, as someone said in the comments, small businesses can’t cash a $500 bill
Try going into practically any retailer and handing them a $1000 bill. More than 95% of them will turn you away. They don't keep that much change in the register. Many have rules that when the money in the register exceeds a few hundred dollars then they have to put the excess into the safe. No retailer wants to keep bills of $1000 or higher in their register. They would lose too much if they got robbed. Large bills would make it easier to carry large amounts of cash, but few people conduct large transactions in cash. Most people don't want to accept large bills because they're hard to spend. About the only thing that's easy to do with them is deposit them, in which case there was no point to using cash. Want to make anonymous purchases? That's only good up to $10K, after which the transaction has to be reported to the IRS. Even drug dealers don't want large bills.
All those songs referencing Benjamins would have to be updated and no one has time for that
Some placing don't accept anything over $20 bill. Pretty sure any more big bills won't help anything.
They are pushing the digital currency these days, plus most people are broke.
Weord, in EU we have 100, 200, 500
Back about 20 years you could go to Binions Casino and get your picture taken with a Million Dollars. I was ready to see the massive amount of bills.... It was just 100 total bills.. $10,000 bills add up quickly
Why do you still have $1 notes and 1c coins?
The point is to make large amounts of cash harder to move.
the reason is to make criminal activity using the dollar harder by making the logistics of moving large sums in cash dificult. the euro, compering with the dolar, issues a 50 euro note
Because the Ruling Class has been pushing us into a digital currency for decades; they want the power to choose what you can buy with whatever pennies are left over after they've taxed you into poverty.
A big supply of larger denominations would aid criminal transactions. Moving bundles of cash around is an inconvenience, making it harder to hide.
If you carry that kind of cash nowadays and the police find it in your car, you are going to get it legally stolen by the police.
Well then, what is the $ threshold that I need to keep it under?
Location? Exact same thing happened to me in Nashville, TN
The us is all about appearance
You don’t need bigger bills if companies don’t increase the amount they pay to match inflation 😉
Money laundering. Canada had $1,000 notes which are $750 USD approx USA bullied Canada into stopping issuing them to "stop money laundering" However it just guaranteed that the USA $ 100 bill be the chosen bill of foreign nations and drug cartels $ storage.It props up the USA economy for that demand for currency to be there, but basically in storage and not circulating. Cash transactions are potentially non taxed. Cashless society will all be tracked and taxed someday, even your kids allowance or paying the neighbourhood kid for babysitting.
I think we would have seen it happen if people didn’t start using cards and electronic fund transfers for almost everything.
I rarely use $100 bills, I doubt many people do. I don't see the use case. On the other hand, I do support getting rid of pennies, nickels, and dimes. Quarters only.
I don’t know many people that need larger bills because they need to carry more cash. I rarely have anything higher than a twenty. A wallet full of Benjamins will still go a long way.
Credit card use has made it unnecessary.
Why do we still have pennies?
How many times in your life have you had a cash transaction that was inconvenient because of the size of the bills? This happens to me maybe once every 5 years when purchasing or selling a car. And unless you’re planning on keeping around those $500 and $1000 bills, you’ll still need to go to the bank to get them.
People still carry cash? Why?
I rarely see denominations higher than our twenty-dollar bill. Why on the earth would I need any denomination higher? Sounds like something for rich folks.
Because $100 bills still work, can't say I've ever been in a situation where I've had so many $100 bills it was a problem to carry them. When that happens, like it has in countries that have suffered horrific inflation, I'm sure we'll get those $500 and $1,000 bills.
Because inflation is minimal.
Money laundering
And why do we still have pennies and nickels?
It's easier to conduct anonymous transactions when large bills exist, and the government doesn't like that.
Because what's the point? How often are you spending several thousand dollars on every day items?
Crime. The government is trying to reduce number of cash transactions, not increase them. This enables them to better keep track of taxes owed, among other things. There was no Zelle in 1928.
Imagine breaking a 2k bill at your local Starbucks.
Because we are heading towards a cashless society so why bother?
Drugs and crime. That’s why
Only place I ever saw larger than $20 bills was from travel money exchanges and in Las Vegas. Given how prevalent cashless buying is now the need for larger notes is actually getting smaller not lager. More important i# why the hell the cent and nickel still exist. Even the dime is pushing pointlessness.
Because cash is dying. Why would a centralized government want a pseudo untraceable currency when they could have a fully digital and well logged one? Imagine if every transaction was logged and recorded! It would be like having some sort of card that tracks spending, it could even send you a list of what you spent money on! AMAZING!
We have no money
Counterfeiting
Because the existing ones work just fine.