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Paul Combs
editorial cartoon
The Tampa
Tribune
Cagle
17 January 2008
http://cagle.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/combs.asp - broken link

Don Wright
editorial cartoon
Palm Beach , FL
Cagle
18 December 2008
Uncle Sam

Andrzej Krauze
The Guardian p. 17 18 April 2005
Allure of the blank slate:
Naomi Klein
From
Aceh to Haiti,
a predatory form of disaster capitalism
is reshaping societies to its own design
https://www.theguardian.com/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1462290,00.html
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/oct/17/artsfeatures2
podcasts > 2025
podcasts > before 2025
USA >
American dollar / US dollar / the greenback
UK / USA
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/
dollar
https://www.theguardian.com/business/
dollar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
United_States_dollar
2025
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/07/
nx-s1-5455867/trump-dollar-value-debt-currency
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/04/
nx-s1-5453739/us-dollar-economy-harvard-university-kenneth-rogoff
2024
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/11/
nx-s1-4990256/strong-dollar-overseas-travel-currency-exchange-rate
2022
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/
1124284032/strong-dollar-euro-pound-foreign-exchange-fx-inflation
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/16/
business/strong-dollar.html
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/06/
1072406109/digital-dollar-federal-reserve-apple-pay-venmo-cbdc
2021
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/02/
the-us-dollars-hegemony-is-looking-fragile
2019
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/07/30/
746337868/75-years-ago-the-u-s-dollar-became-the-worlds-currency-will-that-last
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/
business/dollar-currency-value.html
2017
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/19/
551294729/the-dollar-is-weaker-but-that-may-not-be-a-bad-thing
2014
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/
buoyant-dollar-underlines-resurgence-in-u-s-economy/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/
opinion/dethrone-king-dollar.html
2012
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/04/
bringing-dollars-and-cents-into-this-century/
2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/26/dollar-falls-new-lows
2008
https://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUST244803
20080313
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUST271601
20080313
https://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSL11840897
20080313
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/13/
currencies.marketturmoil
https://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUST6905
20080122
2006
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/nov/29/
lifeandhealth.business
weak dollar
dollar peg USA
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/06/20/
business/business-us-china-yuan-forecasts.html
petrodollars UK / USA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/02/
green-energy-oil-saudi-arabia
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/
business/worldbusiness/16view.html
dollar coin
USA
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/
711162059/government-watchdog-flips-on-dollar-coin
the world's reserve
currency > dollar USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/12/
1181062016/dollar-reserve-currency-debt-ceiling-sanctions-china
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/
opinion/dethrone-king-dollar.html
greenback
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/
nyregion/two-dollar-bill-is-oddity-but-some-love-the-tender.html
$2 bill USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/
nyregion/two-dollar-bill-is-oddity-but-some-love-the-tender.html
dollar bills
USA
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/08/
711162059/government-watchdog-flips-on-dollar-coin
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/04/19/
150976150/should-we-kill-the-dollar-bill
$20 bill
USA
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/
474983292/treasury-decides-to-put-harriet-tubman-on-20-bill
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/
opinion/sunday/take-jackson-off-the-20-bill-put-a-woman-in-his-place.html
historical figures on
the $5, $10 and $20 bills
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/
us/mlk-eleanor-roosevelt-susan-anthony.html
$100
bill
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/09/15/
912695985/should-we-kill-the-100-bill
bill
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/
business/07currency.html
the cent
/ penny, pennies
USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Penny_(United_States_coin)
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/
nx-s1-5407493/no-more-pennies-one-cent-treasury-stop-minting
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/14/
890435359/is-it-time-to-kill-the-penny
https://www.npr.org/2015/11/26/
457397908/critics-wonder-whether-pennies-make-sense-anymore
buck
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/
opinion/why-the-fed-should-buy-munis-not-mortgages.html
big bucks
USA
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/
nx-s1-5407493/no-more-pennies-one-cent-treasury-stop-minting
Corpus of news articles
Economy > Currencies > USA > Dollar
As Plastic
Reigns,
the Treasury Slows Its Printing Presses
July 6, 2011
The New York Times
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
WASHINGTON —
The number of dollar bills rolling off the great government presses here and in
Fort Worth fell to a modern low last year. Production of $5 bills also dropped
to the lowest level in 30 years. And for the first time in that period, the
Treasury Department did not print any $10 bills.
The meaning seems clear. The future is here. Cash is in decline.
You can’t use it for online purchases, nor on many airplanes to buy snacks or
duty-free goods. Last year, 36 percent of taxi fares in New York were paid with
plastic. At Commerce, a restaurant in the West Village in Manhattan, the bar
menus read, “Credit cards only. No cash please. Thank you.”
There is no definitive data on all of this. Cash transactions are notoriously
hard to track, in part because people use cash when they do not want to be
tracked. But a simple ratio is illuminating. In 1970, at the dawn of plastic
payment, the value of United States currency in domestic circulation equaled
about 5 percent of the nation’s economic activity. Last year, the value of
currency in domestic circulation equaled about 2.5 percent of economic activity.
“This morning I bought a gallon of milk for $2.50 at a Mobil station, and I paid
with my credit card,” said Tony Zazula, co-owner of Commerce restaurant, who
spoke with a reporter while traveling in upstate New York. “I do carry a little
cash, but only for gratuities.”
It is easy to look down the slope of this trend and predict the end of paper
currency. Easy, but probably wrong. Most Americans prefer to use cash at least
some of the time, and even those who do not, like Mr. Zazula, grudgingly concede
they cannot live without it.
Currency remains the best available technology for paying baby sitters and
tipping bellhops. Many small businesses — estimates range from one-third to half
— won’t accept plastic. And criminals prefer cash. Whitey Bulger, the Boston
gangster who lived in Santa Monica for 15 years, paid his rent in cash, and
stashed thousands of dollars in his apartment walls.
Indeed, cash remains so pervasive, and the pace of change so slow, that Ron
Shevlin, an analyst with the Boston research firm Aite Group, recently
calculated that Americans would still be using paper currency in 200 years.
“Cash works for us,” Mr. Shevlin said. “The downward trend is clear, but change
advocates always overestimate how quickly these things will happen.”
Production of paper currency is declining much more quickly than actual currency
use because the bills are lasting longer. Thanks to technological advances, the
average dollar bill now circulates for 40 months, up from 18 months two decades
ago, according to Federal Reserve estimates.
Banks regularly send stacks of old notes to the Fed, which replaces the damaged
ones. Until recently, notes were simply stacked facedown and destroyed, as were
dog-eared notes, because the Fed’s scanning equipment could not distinguish
between creases and tears. Now it can. In 1989, the Fed replaced 46 percent of
returned dollar bills. Last year it replaced 21 percent. The rest of the notes
were returned to circulation where they may lead longer lives because they are
being used less often.
The futurists who have long predicted the end of paper money also underestimated
the rise of the $100 bill as one of America’s most popular exports.
For two decades, since the fall of the Soviet Union, demand has exploded for the
$100 bill, which is hoarded like gold in unstable places. Last year Treasury
printed more $100 bills than dollar bills for the first time. There are now more
than seven billion pictures of Benjamin Franklin in circulation — and the
Federal Reserve’s best guess is that two-thirds are held by foreigners. American
soldiers searching one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in 2003 found about $650
million in fresh $100 bills.
This is very profitable for the United States. Currency is printed by the
Treasury and issued by the Federal Reserve. The central bank pays the Treasury
for the cost of production — about 10 cents a note — then exchanges the notes at
face value for securities that pay interest. The more money it issues, the more
interest it earns. And each year the Fed returns to the Treasury a windfall
called a seigniorage payment, which last year exceeded $20 billion.
To meet foreign demand, the Fed has licensed banks to operate currency
distribution warehouses in London, Frankfurt, Singapore and other financial
centers.
In March, largely because of the boom in $100 notes, the value of all American
notes in circulation topped $1 trillion for the first time.
In the United States, research suggests that the spread of electronic payment
technologies is steadily reducing the share of payments made in cash. Drivers
use E-Z Pass at toll plazas for roads and bridges. Commuters swipe stored-value
cards at turnstiles. Christmas stockings are stuffed with gift cards.
Mr. Zazula, the restaurateur, made his decision in 2009, inspired by a flight on
American Airlines, which had just introduced a no-cash policy. He said that 85
percent of his customers already paid with credit cards, and taking cash to and
from the bank was a nuisance and security risk.
Two years later, Mr. Zazula said he had no regrets.
“You still have some people that are outraged that we won’t accept cash,” he
said, “but most of it is a show because they end up having a credit card.”
But Commerce remains a rarity. Experts on payments cannot name another no-cash
restaurant. Snap, a cafe in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, rejected
cash in 2006, then reversed the policy a few years later.
Businesses are not required to take cash. The famous phrase “legal tender for
all debts” means that lenders — and only lenders — are required to accept the
bills. But most merchants don’t see the point in frustrating customers.
“It’s a rarity for a retailer of any size to go cash only, and it’s a rarity to
decline to accept cash at all,” said Brian Dodge of the Retail Industry Leaders
Association, a trade group.
Even the financial industry, which has promoted the spread of electronic
payments, has moved away from grand predictions.
“There’s always going to be some people, for good or nefarious reasons, who want
to use cash,” said Doug Johnson, vice president for risk management policy at
the American Bankers Association. “I’m glad I had it yesterday,” Mr. Johnson
said. “I blew out a fan belt on my car, and it’s nice to be able to give the tow
driver a twenty.”
As Plastic Reigns, the Treasury Slows Its Printing Presses,
NYT,
6.7.2011,
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/
business/07currency.html
Where Cash Registers Go
to Get Their ‘Ka-Ching’ Back
March 10, 2009
The New York Times
By JAMES BARRON
The hair dryer whines. Brian Faerman aims. Hot air blasts into a cash
register that is about as old as he is, which is 46.
That is old enough for the cash register to have black-and-white numbers that go
up and down, not a green, glowing electronic display. That is old enough to have
rows of buttons — 10 for cents, 10 for dimes, 10 for dollars and 10 beyond that.
So to ring up a $29.95 special, you have to press four separate buttons, one by
one. This is the kind of machine that is slow. It is thoughtful. It is
onomatopoeic. Ka-ching. But it is not ka-chinging the way it is supposed to. It
is not ka-chinging at all. Hence the hair dryer.
“Steel holds cold,” he says. “Machines, they need to be warm to work.”
This machine resides on a dusty shelf in a store on the Bowery, between Broome
and Delancey Streets, that still sells and repairs cash registers. Once the
Bowery was cash register heaven. Beneath the old Third Avenue el, among the
restaurant supply stores and the flophouses and the down-and-outers who lived in
them, stores trafficked in cash registers.
Now Mr. Faerman’s father, Bernard Faerman, an old man whose hair turned white in
this store, is remembering, and counting. “There were five within a radius of
five blocks,” says the father, who is 86 and still comes in most days.
The son remembers another store. The father, busy poking a screwdriver in a cash
register, remembers another, and another. Hit the total button, check the
receipt: a grand total of eight, gone now.
The father says the Bowery has always been a barometer. The son says, “The
Bowery told what was going on — what happened here happened later everywhere
else.”
It is tempting to say, glibly, that what happened is that the others cashed in,
that they made a big profit from the real estate boom that remade skid row when
there was mortgage money to be borrowed. Maybe they did, maybe they did not.
The Faermans’ neighbors now include a bank turned catering hall, the scene of
benefits running $500 a person and up. Or, walk a few blocks to a Whole Foods
store. It’s a pricey neighborhood these days. Bernard Faerman says stores rent
for $15,000 a month. Brian Faerman says it is more than that. They own their
building, and the son says it is not for sale.
Their shelves are filled with “tombstones” in different colors: orange, gold,
copper, blue, black, silver. Tombstones are what bartenders call the tallish,
slender machines that ring up beers and martinis and the occasional burger. The
Faermans sell new electronic machines, too, but it is these old ones that are
prized by restaurateurs who want that old-fashioned look behind the bar.
A walk down the aisle at their store is like a little archaeological expedition.
The cash registers show the last total they rang up: 00.55 on that one, who
knows how long ago; 50.76 on this one. That one over there still packs a mean
stomach punch when the drawer flies open.
One machine, the kind that a lot of barber shops used to have, has a bumper
sticker: “1986 N.F.C. Champions — Giants.” They won the Super Bowl that season,
too, defeating Denver, 39-20, in January 1987.
That was nine months before a stock market collapse. Bernard Faerman says
recessions are good for business. “We make more money in recession times than in
good times,” he says. “When people get laid off, they go into any kind of
business, starting up, and they need a cash register.”
The son says, “That’s what I’ve always been told.”
What about now? Are they seeing customers who are starting out on their own?
“Not yet,” he says. He talks about banks that do not lend and a nation that does
not save the stuff that goes into the drawers of the machines they deal in. If
only the economy could be fixed in a day or two, with a handful of tools and a
hair dryer.
“There’s a way certain things were made,” Brian Faerman says. “National Cash
Register was probably the greatest manufacturing company in the world. Not only
did they make their own machines; they made their own tools. They made things
the best, and that’s why these old things still work. It’s a sad thing. Things
are made cheap now.”
Where Cash Registers Go
to Get Their ‘Ka-Ching’ Back,
NYT, 10.3.2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/nyregion/10cash.html
Op-Ed Columnist
Where the Money Is
January 13, 2009
The New York Times
By BOB HERBERT
A trillion here, a trillion there ...
President-elect Barack Obama is warning us to expect trillion-dollar budget
deficits “for years to come.”
The economy is in a precipitous downturn and no one, on the left or right, is
advocating tax increases that would jeopardize a recovery.
In the meantime, we’re spending money as fast as we can: the Troubled Asset
Relief Program ($700 billion and counting); Mr. Obama’s proposed stimulus
program ($800 billion and counting); and important initiatives still to come,
like an overhaul of the way we pay for health care.
China, which has purchased more than $1 trillion of American debt, is getting
antsy. As Keith Bradsher of The Times has reported, the global downturn has
prompted Beijing “to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have
painful effects for U.S. borrowers.”
Mr. Obama has tried to assure the public that his administration will be as
careful as possible with its monumental spending, promising to invest wisely and
manage the expenditures well. And he has made it clear that he is aware of the
minefields that accompany mammoth long-term deficits.
At some point, however, someone is going to have to talk about raising revenue.
The dreaded T-word is going to come up: taxes.
Well, there’s a good idea floating around that takes its cue from the legendary
Willie Sutton. Why not go where the money is?
The economist Dean Baker is a strong advocate of a financial transactions tax.
This would impose a small fee — ranging up to, say, 0.25 percent — on the sale
or transfer of stocks, bonds and other financial assets, including the seemingly
endless variety of exotic financial instruments that have been in the news so
much lately.
According to Mr. Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research in Washington, the fees would raise a ton of money, perhaps $100
billion or more annually — money that the government sorely needs.
But there’s another intriguing element to the proposal. While the fees would be
a trivial expense for what the general public tends to think of as ordinary
traders — people investing in stocks, bonds or other assets for some reasonable
period of time — they would amount to a much heavier lift for speculators, the
folks who bring a manic quality to the markets, who treat it like a casino.
“It raises money in a way that comes primarily at the expense of speculation,”
said Mr. Baker. “The fees would be a considerable expense for someone who is
buying futures, or a stock, or any asset at 2 o’clock and then selling it at 3.
The more you trade, the more you pay.
“For the typical person holding stock, who is planning to hold it for a long
period of time, paying the quarter of one percent on a trade is just not that
big a deal.”
The fees, though small, could amount to a big deal for speculators because in
addition to the volume of their trades they often make their money on very small
margins. Someone who buys an asset and then sells it an hour later at a one
percent appreciation might feel quite pleased. He or she would be less pleased
at having to pay a quarter-percent fee to purchase the asset in the first place
and then another quarter percent to sell it.
This, according to Mr. Baker, is part of the beauty of the transfer tax; it
tends to curb at least some speculation. “It’s a very progressive tax,” he said,
“that discourages nonproductive activity.”
A hallmark of the Bush years has been the rampant irresponsibility — by the
White House, Congress and the general public — when it comes to matters of
finance. The costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were placed on credit
cards and off the books. Their ultimate overall costs will be in the trillions.
Incredibly, President Bush and Congress cut taxes in wartime, which is insane.
Budget deficits and the national debt are streaking toward the moon. And the
only remedy anyone has come up with for fending off Great Depression II has been
deficit spending on a scale reminiscent of World War II.
Excuse me, but did somebody say the baby boomers are about to start retiring?
Maybe the piper will never have to be paid. Maybe the deficits will someday
magically right themselves. Maybe some prosperous future generation will be more
than happy to clean up the mess we left behind.
If none of that is true, we should start looking now for some real money
somewhere. A stock transfer tax is not a bad place to start.
Where the Money Is, NYT,
13.1.2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/opinion/13herbert.html
Money
Makes the Political World
Go Around
November 2,
2008
Filed at 11:49 a.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- What's your vote worth? Because Barack Obama and John McCain can spend
about $8 to get it.
Together, the two presidential candidates have amassed nearly $1 billion -- a
stratospheric number in a campaign of record-shattering money numbers. Depending
on turnout, $1 billion means nearly $8 for every presidential vote, compared
with $5.50 in 2004.
And that's just McCain and Obama. All the presidential candidates in the
2007-2008 contest took in $1.55 billion, nearly twice the amount collected by
candidates in 2004 and three times the amount from 2000. The total includes
fundraising for the primaries as well as the general election.
Using all that cash, the candidates have traveled more miles, employed more
workers and advertised more than ever.
But it has been Obama, with his $641 million and 3.2 million donors, who has
rewritten the rules for financing campaigns.
He abandoned the public financing system -- after pledging to participate if
McCain did -- and became the first major party candidate to raise private funds
to pay for a general election since the campaign money reforms of the Watergate
era. McCain did take public funds, but Obama's success left little doubt that
taxpayer-supported presidential campaigns, as currently configured, are 20th
century relics.
Neither Obama nor McCain participated in public financing during the primaries.
McCain's acceptance of $84 million in general election public financing also
came with limitations on spending. He continued to raise money for the
Republican Party, though, which so far has spent about $100 million on his
behalf to supplement his public funds.
Obama mastered new technology, turning the Internet into an incredible political
networking tool and attracting record numbers of donors giving less than $200.
While that flood of money raised new questions about the safeguards of Internet
fundraising, it also helped dilute the role of big money donors and fundraisers.
''When you have that many contributors, I think it does, in a weird way, cleanse
the system even though it seems like that much more money,'' the Federal
Election Commission chairman, Republican Donald F. McGahn II, said recently.
''That many more contributors disperse the influence of any one contributor.''
Some of the financial highlights from the presidential campaign:
The total is almost the same as what the Federal Trade Commission says food and
beverage companies spend in a year marketing their products to children.
--Selling politics like burgers: With all that money, Obama has blanketed the
country with his message. As of mid-October, he had spent $240 million on
broadcast ads to penetrate old battlegrounds and to help create new ones. He
spent $77 million in the first two weeks of October, more than McDonald's spends
on ads in a month. He pinpointed audiences with ads on such video games as
''Guitar Hero'' and ''Madden NFL 09.''
He also went global, with national network advertising that culminated with a $4
million-plus half hour buy on prime time six days before the election. His
spending stretched McCain's resources; the Republican had spent about $116
million as of mid-October.
--Bad apple, bad money: Some fundraisers put campaigns in awkward situations.
Barack Obama donated to charity tens of thousands of dollars in donations to his
past campaigns that were linked to convicted Chicago developer Antoin ''Tony''
Rezko. Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton returned more than $800,000 to
donors whose contributions were linked to Norman Hsu, a fundraiser who was
wanted in California on charges of bilking investors. Hsu was subsequently
indicted in New York on federal charges of fraud and violating campaign finance
laws.
--Bundle up some cold hard cash: Perfecting a fundraising practice initially
mastered by George W. Bush, presidential candidates enlisted fundraisers to
raise thousands upon thousands of dollars for them. These are the well-connected
money people to whom a campaign is ultimately indebted. Both McCain and Obama
list their fundraisers -- or bundlers, as they are known -- on their Web sites.
McCain's are easier to find than Obama's. But unlike McCain, Obama lists the
fundraisers' home towns.
--Who are those small donors, anyway: Obama has raised about half of his money
in increments of $200 or less. The average contribution is $86, the campaign
says. But the success of the Internet fundraising effort has also led to some
puzzling donors. Individuals have been credited with giving tens of thousands of
dollars to the Obama campaign, far more than the $2,300 limit. Obama has
reported more than $17,000 in contributions from a donor identified as ''Doodad
Pro'' and more than $11,000 from one identified as ''Good Will.''
''I wouldn't be surprised if the FEC doesn't address this in the next couple of
years -- what you have to put on your Web site for soliciting contributions,''
said Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC chairman and a law professor at Capital
University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.
--I show mine, you don't show yours: Federal law requires candidates to identify
only those donors who contribute, in the aggregate, more than $200. But McCain
has made his entire donor database available through his Web site. Obama has
not, drawing criticism.
------
On the Net:
Federal campaign finance law:
http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.shtml
Money Makes the Political World Go Around, NYT, 2.11.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/
AP-What-It-Takes.html
A Shortage at the Pump:
Not of Gas, but of 4s
July 15, 2008
The New York Times
By KEN BELSON
If one is the loneliest number, then four is the hottest — at
least when it comes to gasoline.
With regular gas in New York City at a near-record $4.40 a gallon, station
managers are rummaging through their storage closets in search of extra 4s to
display on their pumps. Many are coming up short.
That’s why Vishal Nair, who runs the Lukoil station at Eighth Avenue and 13th
Street in Greenwich Village, took another plastic number last week, turned it
over and scribbled “4” on it with a black magic marker. The result was an
obviously homemade “$4.47,” but it would have to do until he received the extra
4s he ordered months ago.
“Typically, we have a lot of 9s and 1s, and we had a shortage of 3s before we
got a lot of 3s in,” Mr. Nair said.
The missing digits are an unanticipated barometer of how frequently prices are
changing. The average price of regular gasoline in New York City has risen by 35
percent this year, forcing station managers to change their price displays
almost every time they get a delivery, which can be daily at some stations.
Franchises often order numbers from their parent companies, though like
independent station owners, they can buy directly from sign companies. Sets of
40 include equal numbers of each digit, which are magnetic or slip into plastic
holders. Digits, which are often in a Helvetica font, are sold individually for
as little as a $1.50. In New York, numbers must be 4.5 or 9 inches tall.
When prices passed $4, many stations ran out of 4s, and managers improvised by
photocopying signs or stenciling numbers by hand.
The makeshift digits are legal as long as they are similar to the neighboring
numbers, said John Browne, the assistant director of enforcement for the city’s
Department of Consumer Affairs’ petroleum unit.
“As long as the color and size are correct and it is apparent what the number
is, they are fine,” said Mr. Browne, who inspected Mr. Nair’s handiwork last
Friday at the Lukoil station.
Jessica Chittenden, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Agriculture and
Markets, which regulates gas stations, said inspectors were being lenient
because prices were changing so rapidly and because few manufacturers made the
signs.
“People are running out of 4s and 5s, so we’re allowing them to post makeshift
numbers as long as they are the right size,” she said.
Sanjay Thakker, president of Gasoline Advertising in Clifton, N.J., said that
sales of his magnetic digits had risen as much as 20 percent this year, though
because it costs only about $10 to outfit the signs above the pumps with enough
numbers, the product is not a huge money maker.
Until extra digits arrive, improvising can be tricky. Alex Kubotki, 27, who runs
the Exxon on Coney Island Avenue at Caton Avenue in Brooklyn, ran out of 4s for
his large sign on the corner. So on Sunday, he painted a fresh “4” that was
roughly the same as the manufactured digit, and avoided using a paper number
because it might bleed in the rain.
“Everybody’s doing the same thing,” he said.
Even stations in New Jersey, where gasoline prices have only recently breached
the $4 barrier, are getting ready. At the Getty station on Tonnelle Avenue in
North Bergen, Jatinder Sarin, the manager, said he will order a bunch of new
magnetic numbers next month. He was selling a gallon of regular gasoline for
$3.85, but assumed that $4 a gallon was inevitable.
“We know it’s going to go up,” he said. “Usually it goes a digit up, and it
stays there five or six months. Let’s hope they stay at 4.”
But back in New York, stations are already grappling with the next problem.
“Now that we seem to be going to go to $5 a gallon,” Mr. Nair said, “we might
order more 5s, too.”
In fact, diesel prices are already over $5 a gallon.
On Monday, at a BP station on Coney Island Avenue and Lancaster Avenue in
Gravesend, Brooklyn, a “2” had been turned upside down to make a 5 for the large
sign on the corner.
“I don’t have enough 5s,” said Serdal Ozumer, 51, a clerk. “I got to talk to the
manager.”
Ann Farmer, Daryl Khan and Nate Schweber
contributed reporting.
A Shortage at the
Pump: Not of Gas, but of 4s, NYT, 15.7.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/nyregion/15four.html
Bush
says
strong dollar in U.S. interest
Mon Jun 9,
2008
9:43am EDT
Reuters
By Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged economic concerns as he
left for Europe on Monday, saying the United States was committed to a strong
dollar and that energy prices were high.
"I'll talk about our nation's commitment to a strong dollar. A strong dollar is
in our nation's interests. It is in the interests of the global economy," Bush
said at the White House before departing for a U.S.-European Union summit in
Slovenia.
The dollar tumbled on Friday after a jump in the unemployment rate underscored
the U.S. economy's weakness and was a factor that contributed to the biggest
one-day price gain in the history of the oil market. Oil surged by nearly $11 a
barrel to a record above $139.
Europeans are concerned about the dollar's weakness and have urged the Bush
administration to speak up more forcefully in defense of the U.S. currency.
Since oil is priced in dollars, Europeans blame some of their inflation
pressures on the dollar's weakening value and fear the cheap dollar will make
their products more expensive in U.S. consumer markets.
Bush will discuss the economy with European leaders during his June 9-16 trip,
which will include stops in Germany, Italy, France and Britain.
"Our economy is large and it's open and flexible," Bush said. "Our capital
markets are some of the deepest and most liquid. And the long-term health and
strong foundation of our economy will shine through and be reflected in currency
values."
He said he recognized the public was concerned about the U.S. economy in the
face of rising energy prices.
"A lot of Americans are concerned about our economy," Bush said. "I can
understand why. Gasoline prices are high, energy prices are high."
He said he would discuss with European allies the need to advance technologies
to become less dependent on hydrocarbons. Bush reiterated his stance that the
United States should increase domestic oil production and that Congress should
allow drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Record-high oil prices have raised concerns about the impact on the U.S.
economy, which is barely growing. The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 5.5
percent in May, its highest in more than 3-1/2 years, contributing to renewed
fears that the U.S. economy was at risk of sliding into recession.
"The U.S. economy has continued to grow in the face of unprecedented
challenges," Bush said.
"We got to keep our economies flexible. Both the U.S. economy and European
economies need to be flexible in order to deal with today's challenges," he
said.
Bush said he also would discuss with European allies the need to do more to help
Afghanistan. His wife, Laura, visited Afghanistan during the weekend and
reported that she saw progress but also "there's a lot of work to be done," Bush
said.
(Editing by Bill Trott)
Bush says strong dollar in U.S. interest, R, 9.6.2008,
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/
idUSN0944596220080609
Dollar Falls Against Euro, Yen
March 17, 2008
Filed at 12:09 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN (AP) -- The dollar fell to record low against the euro
on Monday, and sank to its lowest level in more than 12 years against the
Japanese yen as investors reacted to the latest emergency rate cut by the U.S.
Federal Reserve and to news that JPMorgan Chase is buying rival investment bank
Bear Stearns for a fraction of what it was worth last week.
In European trading, the euro rose as high as $1.5904 but soon fell back to
$1.5746. That was still above the $1.5687 it bought late Friday in New York
trading.
The U.S. Commerce Department said that the deficit in the current account
dropped by 9 percent last year to $738.6 billion. Later, the Fed said U.S.
industrial output fell half a percent in February, the biggest amount in four
months.
The dollar fell as low as 95.72 Japanese yen, its lowest since August 1995,
before recovering to 97.03 yen but still below the 99.21 yen it bought in New
York on Friday. The dollar broke below 100 yen just last Thursday.
The lows came a day after the Fed approved a cut in its emergency lending rate
to financial institutions to 3.25 percent from 3.5 percent.
Also on Sunday, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it would acquire Bear Stearns for
$236.2 million in a deal backed by the Fed. JP Morgan will pay $2 per share,
down from Bear Stearns closing price of $30 per share on Friday.
''It has certainly been something of an historic weekend, with an emergency Fed
rate cut and news that J.P. Morgan intends to acquire Bear Stearns marking the
next chapter in the credit crisis,'' said James Hughes of CMC Markets in London.
''Unsurprisingly this has been broadly bad news for the dollar with (the)
euro-dollar managing a short-lived breach above 1.5900 -- yet another all-time
record high -- although this has been short lived with profit takers stepping
in,'' Hughes said.
The Fed is scheduled to meet Tuesday, and analysts are predicting that the
central bank could reduce its 3 percent benchmark rate on overnight loans
between commercial banks by as much as another percent.
The European Central Bank, by comparison, has left its own rate at 4 percent as
inflation in the 15-nation euro zone hit yet another record high last month.
Lower interest rates can jump-start a nation's economy, but can also weigh on
its currency as traders transfer funds to countries where they can earn higher
returns.
So far the ECB has remained steadfast in keeping its rates unchanged because
inflation has been so high, but politicians and some companies have bemoaned the
strong euro because it makes goods produced in the euro zone far more expensive
elsewhere and undermines exports.
However, at the same time, the higher euro can increase domestic purchasing
power.
The Bank of England said Monday it will offer an extra 5 billion pounds --
around $10.1 billion -- of reserves into the short-term money market because of
conditions in the market.
The dollar rose against the British pound, which fell to $2.0059 from $2.0218 on
Friday.
Dollar Falls Against
Euro, Yen, NYT, 17.3.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Dollar.html
Dollar Weakens to $1.50 to the Euro
February 27, 2008
The New York Times
By CARTER DOUGHERTY
The dollar breached the level of $1.50 to the euro on Wednesday for the first
time as fears of weakness in the United States economy mixed with evidence of
resilience in Europe.
In Asian trading, the euro hit $1.5047 after flirting with the $1.50 level in
New York Tuesday. That was the dollar’s weakest position since the euro, now the
currency of 15 countries, was introduced in 1999. In New York, the dollar
continued to weaken and was trading at $1.5126 at 12:30 p.m.
“Psychologically and symbolically, this is a significant move,” said Tony
Morriss, senior currency strategist with Australia & New Zealand Banking Group
in Sydney. “The economic numbers out of the U.S. have been uniformly terrible,
and we are entering a new phase of dollar weakness.”
The dollar has weakened steadily in recent weeks after recovering from similar
levels in November on the emerging realization that the Federal Reserve, despite
worries about inflation in the United States, will keep cutting interest rates
to protect economic growth at the same time that the European Central Bank is
holding rates steady.
Interest rate differentials drive currency movements by decreasing the appeal of
dollar-denominated assets. Donald L. Kohn, vice chairman of the Fed, played down
the risks of inflation in the United States on Tuesday, focusing instead on the
risks to economic growth — a clear sign the Fed has not finished the
rate-cutting cycle it began after the start of financial market turmoil late
last summer.
“The Fed’s stance is really aggressive,” said Stephen Jen, chief currency
economist at Morgan Stanley in London. “Every time we think the Fed is eyeing
inflation, they turn around and cut rates.”
Another round of weakness has the potential to increase political tensions in
Europe, though so far France is the only country that has consistently
complained about the strong euro. Though it has acknowledged the potential costs
of a stronger euro, Germany has remained upbeat, saying it is not worried.
Volker Trier, the chief economist of the German Chambers of Industry and
Commerce, largely echoed this view on Wednesday.
“The euro’s strength is hurting here and there,” Mr. Trier said, according to
Reuters. “Over all, though, the economy can still cope with it well.”
Asian currencies have also risen against the dollar, but exporters there can
take comfort in the fact that any pain is being broadly shared.
“Asian currencies are uniformly appreciating against the U.S. currency due to
dollar weakness, rather than any single Asian currency rapidly firming against
the others,” said Cem Karacadag, director in the emerging markets economics
group at Credit Suisse in Singapore. “So, no single country is going to lose
export share to its competitors in the region.”
Dollar Weakens to $1.50
to the Euro, NYT, 27.2.2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27cnd-dollar.html

Over six years, Mike Moore
affixed nearly one million pennies
to
the bar he owns with his wife, Annie.
Now the place is up for sale, pennies and all.
Photograph: Monica Almeida
The New York Times
See a Penny,
Pick It Up and ‘Honey, Get the Glue!’
NYT
January 7, 2007
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/
us/07penny.html
McKittrick
Journal
See a Penny, Pick It Up
and ‘Honey, Get the Glue!’
January 7,
2007
The New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
McKITTRICK,
Calif., Jan. 4 — It began innocently enough, like most casual obsessions. Annie
Moore dropped a penny into an empty coffee can. Clink.
And then another. Clink. And soon enough, many, many more. Mrs. Moore began
scouring parking lots for lost pennies. Clink, clink, clink. She filled several
cans.
Like many penny hoarders, she was never sure what to do with all of them — until
she and her husband bought a roadside bar and cafe in this speck of a town in
California oil country near Bakersfield. Why not, she asked her husband, Mike,
festoon the bar with the pennies? And he dutifully obliged the crazy idea, using
regular Elmer’s glue to affix them from one end of the bar to another.
Job well done. Well, almost.
“I said that was a nice start, but I meant the whole bar, everything,” Mrs.
Moore said with a laugh. She is the laughing one of the pair. Mr. Moore is the
grumbler, and it is no wonder.
It was his task to complete the job, penny by painstaking penny, six years of
gluing, gluing and gluing.
Now, one million pennies later — from Annie’s cans, customers with loose change
and not a few trips to the bank for exchanges — Mike & Annie’s Penny Bar is a
sight to behold. The pennies, like a swarm of copper ants, cover nearly every
surface: the floor, the walls, even the sides of the pool table.
Mr. Moore did not exactly count out one million pennies, but after calculating
304 pennies per square foot of surface area, he figures it is pretty close.
“It’s 200,000 on the floor alone,” he said proudly.
There are surprises. Mr. Moore used different shadings of pennies, old and new,
to spell out a few messages that the sober may miss without squinting: “No
Fishing,” under a fish tank. “I was a TV,” over an old television set. “Mike
(heart) Annie,” on the back wall behind a row of liquor bottles. (These compete
with an assortment of bumper stickers with messages like “Don’t suffer from
insanity, enjoy every minute of it.”)
Mr. Moore did not enjoy every minute of this job, especially when pennies kept
loosening from the ceiling railings. And it was not done entirely out of love.
Mrs. Moore paid him a bribe of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle a couple of years
ago.
Of course, they do appreciate the tourists.
“It is kind of a regional attraction,” said Kial Gunter, an oil field worker,
whose beer one afternoon sat close to the bar’s prize possession, an 1883 Indian
head penny. The oldest of the lot, it sits unheralded among its contemporary
brethren beneath the hard plastic that covers the bar top.
“I didn’t even know it was there until a customer pointed it out to me one day,”
Mr. Moore said. After a while, a penny is a penny.
The bar and cafe are what is left of the McKittrick Hotel, which has not
operated as one for decades and is one of just a few businesses downtown, such
as it is. A road sign off Highway 33, the main drag, gives the population as
190, but Jan Heim, a local rancher, said, “I think they were counting cats and
dogs.”
Still, the Moores are preparing to give it all up. They have put the place up
for sale, asking $899,999.98, “as is,” pennies included.
It is time to retire, they said, exhausted from the crush of business.
Illness sidelined Mr. Moore from much of the cafe work and penny-laying a couple
of years ago. Mrs. Moore, working seven days a week, is ready for some fishing.
For lunch each day she cooks about 80 steak specials on two outdoor grills, and
she often does many more for the dinner crowd.
The establishment’s pennies surely lure some, but it is also the only restaurant
to speak of for the growing number of energy workers in this part of Kern
County, which locals have nicknamed West Texas for all the oil derricks and
natural-gas plants.
Attractions are few.
“Who the heck would live in a godforsaken place like this?” Mr. Moore recalled
asking when he first passed through in the early 1970s, on the way to visit one
of Mrs. Moore’s aunts, who lived in town.
But the Moores were interested in getting out of the termite-extermination
business they had operated in Eureka, Calif., and so they rented and operated
the cafe for several months then. They went back to crawling under houses for a
few more decades before quitting eight years ago and buying the McKittrick Hotel
outright, moving in to some of the rooms upstairs.
From their travels they had grown fond of greasy spoons, and they dreamed of
owning one in a quiet, simple place. But every little cafe needs a quirk, and
that is where the pennies came in. Those, coupled with Mrs. Moore’s secret steak
marinade, have drawn the masses ever since.
Television stations and magazines have visited over the years, and usually
donations of pennies have followed. One customer left a five-gallon bucket full
of them.
The Moores are leaving it up to the next owner to decide the pennies’ fate, but
they hope they will remain. At the very least, someone has to keep up the penny
puns, which have been difficult to avoid to this point — but it is time for a
change.
“I guess,” Mrs. Moore said, “the buyer needs to be penny-wise.”
See a Penny, Pick It Up and ‘Honey, Get the Glue!’,
NYT,
7.1.2007,
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/
us/07penny.html
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