Paper money
In 1690, before we even became our own country, we had money. They called them Colonial Notes, and they were issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I’m sure you’re anticipating the great ways they spent money. These were used to fund military expeditions. Before the United States of America was even formally born, we had a military industrial complex.
By 1766, we had our own pound system which would later go on to picture the American values and virtues. What did those pictures entail? Why of course, illustrations of the 13 colonies fighting Great Britain!
What is the dollar sign? That depends on if you’re talking about the one with two lines or $? For instance, $ is called a peso sign. That’s right. America took its money symbol from Mexico, and just added another line. $ is actually a P on top of an S, for pesos. The curve of the P is just removed.
The one with two lines signifies U.S. Dollars. Bet you can’t figure out why. It’s a U on top of an S, with the curve of the U removed. The double line symbol was officially adopted in 1785.
$2 bills called Continentals were released. This was decided by the Continental Congress June 25th, 1776. This is still before Independence Day, so these were created as bills of credit for the military. Yet again. Money for violence.
Alexander Hamilton decides to create the Bank of the United States in 1791. This was to create a credit system for the government. Essentially, you give them your gold, pesos, etc. They give you a dollar that says you do have that much value. Then they use your real money for war, while you run around chasing paper.
In 1792, The Mint Act went into affect. This created coinage as well as the decimals used in our currency. Before this, I guess it was just a “keep the change” economy.
By 1813 we had $5,000 Treasury bearer notes which were redeemable for gold like Chuck E. Cheese tickets. That was the value of the American currency. It was redeemable for gold.
During 1861, we’re in the midst of the civil war. You know what that means. We need to make up a new money. Enter the “Greenbacks”. Available in 5, 10, and 20 denominations.
The Secret Service was established in 1865, not to protect the President, but to protect the dollar. It was created to catch counterfeiters. Fake money can ruin a nations confidence in the value of a nation’s currency.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created a structured a national banking system. This is where the modern Federal Reserve Note was born. Historically, this is about 50 years after the Civil War and just before World War 1, as well as 107 years before me writing this. Not that long ago. You could have great-great grandparents that witnessed this.
The original Federal Reserve Notes were bigger than modern bills and featured the face of nationally beloved Tennessee slave owner, Andrew Jackson. While being a legendary man by winning duels and just taking bullets, he was also an immense shit-head. His plantation is still standing in Hermitage, Tennessee.
By 1918, Americans were “getting it”, this meant we needed bigger bills. They gave us $500, $1,000. $5,000, and $10,000 bills. The $1,000 bill wasn’t discontinued until 1969, which is when we lost the unnecessary war in Vietnam, giving an entire generation of young, able-bodied American men PTSD. A scar which is still present to this day.
The $10,000 bills were for bank-to-bank transfers. The person pictured on this may surprise you. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury and founder of Chase Bank. A bank that has had it’s fingers in the Federal Reserve since it was founded.
The first automobile was added to the dollar bill in 1928 on the back of the $10 bill. It’s just off the lower center of the Treasury building. In case you didn’t know, that’s not the white house on the back. This car was there all the way to 1996. I was born 1994. The $10 bills I saw as a kid had a fucking Model T on them. Money is out of date, and has been for a while.
In 2003 it became clear that our self-proclaimed valuable money needs to be made safer. This is when they added the backgrounds to the $20, and a the UV ink. I remember this as a kid. This was big.
Next year they follow up that hit with another hit: a redesigned $50 with all the same security features and a more elaborate color palette.
2006, the remix of the $10 was released. 2008, the new 5’s dropped.
2013, the Treasury dropped that horrendous hundred with the blue skid mark on it.
This very year, 2020, the Federal Reserve introduced recycling. They now have the technological capabilities to shred money and re-use it.
All official US money since 1861 is still redeemable for full face value….OR you can sell it to a collector and get more than the money claims to be worth. On Ebay, a $10 greenback is worth $10,000. If that isn’t inflation, what is?
Maybe it’s time to reconsider the American pursuit of money and the American Dream as a whole. What’s money really worth? That all depends on who we’re at war with at the time the government makes it up. If it’s a Civil War we may need 5’s and 10’s. If it’s World War 1, we may need $1,000 and $5,000 bills. Of course, that inflation is exactly what led us right to the Great Depression.
All I’m saying is, perhaps instead of printing a trillion dollars which will cause inflation and potentially lead us to a greater depression. We must instead consider giving away free healthcare so people don’t need a trillion dollars to survive.
Maybe we could also consider college as a choice. My biggest life regret is going to college. It landed me deep in debt to….well, someone has my debt and I owe them $25,000. I thought I was in debt to the government, turns out it’s EdFinancial. A private, for-profit company.
That’s the American Dream in action. EdFinancial, a huge company with millions of dollars gets the opportunity to make billions. While me, a single college graduate starts off my adult life with a useless college degree and a $25,000 debt.
It’s a pandemic. There are no jobs. The companies America has said are important are thriving, the people that America is suppose to take care of are dying. You want your capitalism, well you got it. Unfortunately, you are not a company. You are not getting the tax cuts that were promised. You are not getting anything.
Slavery isn’t gone, it just became minimum wage. It’s not enough money to thrive on, it’s just enough money to force you to show up the next day. You are an Amazon slave, not Jeff Bezos. You are the slave, not the plantation owner.
Just like the birth of America, a majority of our money goes to “Defense”, although I’ve only ever seen us play offense. We attacked Vietnam. We attacked the middle east. We attacked the Native Americans. Shit, we even attacked ourselves.
Perhaps it’s time to come to terms with the fact America is not the good guy. I think America has turned itself into the world’s strip mall. We’re all employees.
The final questions I will offer up without and answer are these:
What happens when it turns out money isn’t really worth anything?
What happens when creativity is turned into business and marketing?
I hope you have a plan for the greatest economic collapse the world has ever seen.
If you thought 2020 was bad, wait for 2021 when the bottom drops out. Wait for 2022 when we go into hyperinflation. Wait for 2023 when we’re a broken country fighting with ourselves over dumb superficial bullshit and another country decides they could probably take us out?
Then what?