7 ms·

If cash gets damaged, this Treasury team will make sure it’s not a lost cause

103 points by wallflower 7y ago

AllasAskBar 7y ago
Add whiner on site, anyone know a workaround?
wyldfire 7y ago
Someone should do the same thing for lost cryptocoins ;)
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  Plot twist... Satoshi' Bitcoins were in cold storage, but got burned up in a fire.
  - penagwin 7y ago
    I mean that is certainly possible, maybe unlikely (because of the amount you'd assume they'd have backups), but possible.
kemiller 7y ago
I wish we had a team that cared as much for our democracy.
- tathougies 7y ago
  A solid monetary system is a prerequisite to democracy.
haste410 7y ago
There is a great Planet Money episode that covers this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/30/535062249/episode-781-the-money-fixers https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/30/535062249/epis...
stopads 7y ago
It's kind of hilarious that they still spend money on the PR team to push these stories about how important and sanctimonious cash is while at the same time printing billions of dollars every night and just transferring to any bank or hedge fund that wants it in the overnight repo market. A whole set of theatrics for the commoners who still use cash, meanwhile we just press some buttons and poof a billion dollars appears out of thin air in your account (if you're rich enough).
- refurb 7y ago
  Those two issues seem completely unrelated to me. One has to do with replacing damage cash, the other with control over the money supply.
- testfoobar 7y ago
  We crossed the Rubicon in 2008 with government intervention in money markets. Consider this: "France's Richest Man Gets a Free Lunch From the ECB" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-07/louis-vuitton-gets-help-from-the-ecb-for-16-billion-tiffany-deal https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-07/louis-... Or this: "All-star economists urge Fed to use QE and ‘new tools’ to fight next recession — just move sooner and go bigger than crisis" https://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-star-economists-urge-fed-to-use-qe-and-new-tools-to-fight-next-recession-just-move-sooner-and-go-bigger-than-crisis-2020-02-21?mod=mw_latestnews https://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-star-economists-urge-f...
- RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
  >A whole set of theatrics for the commoners who still use cash, meanwhile we just press some buttons and poof a billion dollars appears out of thin air in your account (if you're rich enough). It does seem as if an identical-ish puff piece finds its way through the aggregators at least quarterly. I think the actual content of the story is irrelevant enough and I have some misgivings about attributing nefarious motives to this participial puff piece, but I do take issue with the kinds of non-story this article represents, and the collection distraction that journalism as infotainment represents (being neither truly informative, nor particularly entertaining).
eganist 7y ago
I appreciate dearly that this team exists and wouldn't be surprised if their specific techniques for uncovering mutilated cash can be used in other scenarios e.g. criminal forensics, but I feel like this is one of those groups that would be targeted for a government cost-cut in the not-too-distant future. > If you're still using cash, it's at your own risk. We no longer have a recovery service for paper money.
jugg1es 7y ago
CBS Sunday Morning (my favorite news show) had a segment about this too: https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/GZb3nlcVQD7qUGIx9BqXoUoiiJzV2Wt4/how-the-government-handles-your-mutilated-money/ https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/GZb3nlcVQ...
Octopodes 7y ago
Is this article really only one paragraph long, or is there some kind of paywall on the site?
penagwin 7y ago
For those struggling because of the paywall you can try outline. It's a pretty decent site that can bypass a lot of paywalls and is actually usable compared to most news sites. Ad block doesn't work here as it only shows the first paragraph. https://outline.com/crbq2m https://outline.com/crbq2m Note to moderators, If the direct link isn't allowed please change it to just outline.com
- bananamerica 7y ago
  Thank you so much.
- frandroid 7y ago
  You can also read WaPo by carefully timing a click on your browser's Reader Mode icon when the article loads. (The icon disappears once it detects that you're not a subscriber, so you need to snipe it)
paulddraper 7y ago
A. This the hard-core disaster recovery for cash. For mundane stuff (my bill got ripped in half) you can go to a bank and they will give you new bills and ship the damaged ones to the Treasury. B. If you have a stomach for cheesy movies, The Hurricane Heist (2018) is about a fictional plot to steal $600M from a cash destruction facility. (Cash that is too old/damaged to be in circulation, but is still legal tender.)
damip 7y ago
The Bretton Woods Agreement pegged the dollar to gold ($35 for an ounce of gold). I understand that this can work if the central bank emits $35 for every ounce of gold they store. But how does that account for destroyed/damaged/lost dollar bills ? The loss is very hard quantify and monitor, but needs to be compensated either through re-printing of new dollars, or through the destruction of stored gold to maintain the desired exchange rate. Could someone with better knowledge than me explain how this works ?
- rileymat2 7y ago
  Do you need to monitor the exact supply or even have any gold on hand or just monitor the (black) market price of gold?
- refurb 7y ago
  I think you just assume that unless bills are returned to you as damaged and you need to replace them, all the bills printed are in circulation. And I don't think the peg needs to be exact. If bills are destroyed and the peg becomes 1 dollars = $35.05, things aren't going to fall apart.
- testfoobar 7y ago
  Cash money is replaced at face value if it is damaged - presumably the owner of the cash has an interest in seeing it kept safe. But unless the Treasury is notified and presented to their satisfaction with damaged bills for replacement, by definition, there is no way of tracking destruction/damage to cash money. The amount of cash in circulation is tracked: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircvalue.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircv... In the Euro zone - with negative rates, holding on to paper money can mean a positive return: "German Banks Are Hoarding So Many Euros They Need More Vaults" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/german-banks-are-hoarding-so-many-euros-they-need-more-vaults https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/german-ba...
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  The Bretton Woods agreement never had anywhere near enough gold to account for all of the currencies pegged to it. The US held all the gold and agreed to the fixed conversion and everybody else agreed to never convert. It never had to balance presumed destroyed bills with the gold reserve.
darkstar999 7y ago
I'm surprised it's a free service. How long are they spending on these $100k+ cases?! I guess an argument for it being free is to garner trust in the currency.
- andyv 7y ago
  I would say it is a free service because most people take very good care of their cash.
- ekimekim 7y ago
  A lot of very old government services are like that, they hail from a time before everything was expected to be "free market" and needed to turn a profit to justify its existence.
  - solotronics 7y ago
    It's not really a free service we are all paying for it via government spending.. which is loosely related to taxes.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

103 points by wallflower 7y ago

AllasAskBar 7y ago

Add whiner on site, anyone know a workaround?

wyldfire 7y ago

Someone should do the same thing for lost cryptocoins ;)

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
Plot twist... Satoshi' Bitcoins were in cold storage, but got burned up in a fire.
- penagwin 7y ago
  I mean that is certainly possible, maybe unlikely (because of the amount you'd assume they'd have backups), but possible.

kemiller 7y ago

I wish we had a team that cared as much for our democracy.

tathougies 7y ago
A solid monetary system is a prerequisite to democracy.

haste410 7y ago

There is a great Planet Money episode that covers this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/30/535062249/episode-781-the-money-fixers https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/06/30/535062249/epis...

stopads 7y ago

It's kind of hilarious that they still spend money on the PR team to push these stories about how important and sanctimonious cash is while at the same time printing billions of dollars every night and just transferring to any bank or hedge fund that wants it in the overnight repo market. A whole set of theatrics for the commoners who still use cash, meanwhile we just press some buttons and poof a billion dollars appears out of thin air in your account (if you're rich enough).

refurb 7y ago
Those two issues seem completely unrelated to me. One has to do with replacing damage cash, the other with control over the money supply.
testfoobar 7y ago
We crossed the Rubicon in 2008 with government intervention in money markets. Consider this: "France's Richest Man Gets a Free Lunch From the ECB" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-07/louis-vuitton-gets-help-from-the-ecb-for-16-billion-tiffany-deal https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-07/louis-... Or this: "All-star economists urge Fed to use QE and ‘new tools’ to fight next recession — just move sooner and go bigger than crisis" https://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-star-economists-urge-fed-to-use-qe-and-new-tools-to-fight-next-recession-just-move-sooner-and-go-bigger-than-crisis-2020-02-21?mod=mw_latestnews https://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-star-economists-urge-f...
RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
>A whole set of theatrics for the commoners who still use cash, meanwhile we just press some buttons and poof a billion dollars appears out of thin air in your account (if you're rich enough). It does seem as if an identical-ish puff piece finds its way through the aggregators at least quarterly. I think the actual content of the story is irrelevant enough and I have some misgivings about attributing nefarious motives to this participial puff piece, but I do take issue with the kinds of non-story this article represents, and the collection distraction that journalism as infotainment represents (being neither truly informative, nor particularly entertaining).

eganist 7y ago

I appreciate dearly that this team exists and wouldn't be surprised if their specific techniques for uncovering mutilated cash can be used in other scenarios e.g. criminal forensics, but I feel like this is one of those groups that would be targeted for a government cost-cut in the not-too-distant future. > If you're still using cash, it's at your own risk. We no longer have a recovery service for paper money.

jugg1es 7y ago

CBS Sunday Morning (my favorite news show) had a segment about this too: https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/GZb3nlcVQD7qUGIx9BqXoUoiiJzV2Wt4/how-the-government-handles-your-mutilated-money/ https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs-sunday-morning/video/GZb3nlcVQ...

Octopodes 7y ago

Is this article really only one paragraph long, or is there some kind of paywall on the site?

penagwin 7y ago

For those struggling because of the paywall you can try outline. It's a pretty decent site that can bypass a lot of paywalls and is actually usable compared to most news sites. Ad block doesn't work here as it only shows the first paragraph. https://outline.com/crbq2m https://outline.com/crbq2m Note to moderators, If the direct link isn't allowed please change it to just outline.com

bananamerica 7y ago
Thank you so much.
frandroid 7y ago
You can also read WaPo by carefully timing a click on your browser's Reader Mode icon when the article loads. (The icon disappears once it detects that you're not a subscriber, so you need to snipe it)

paulddraper 7y ago

A. This the hard-core disaster recovery for cash. For mundane stuff (my bill got ripped in half) you can go to a bank and they will give you new bills and ship the damaged ones to the Treasury. B. If you have a stomach for cheesy movies, The Hurricane Heist (2018) is about a fictional plot to steal $600M from a cash destruction facility. (Cash that is too old/damaged to be in circulation, but is still legal tender.)

damip 7y ago

The Bretton Woods Agreement pegged the dollar to gold ($35 for an ounce of gold). I understand that this can work if the central bank emits $35 for every ounce of gold they store. But how does that account for destroyed/damaged/lost dollar bills ? The loss is very hard quantify and monitor, but needs to be compensated either through re-printing of new dollars, or through the destruction of stored gold to maintain the desired exchange rate. Could someone with better knowledge than me explain how this works ?

rileymat2 7y ago
Do you need to monitor the exact supply or even have any gold on hand or just monitor the (black) market price of gold?
refurb 7y ago
I think you just assume that unless bills are returned to you as damaged and you need to replace them, all the bills printed are in circulation. And I don't think the peg needs to be exact. If bills are destroyed and the peg becomes 1 dollars = $35.05, things aren't going to fall apart.
testfoobar 7y ago
Cash money is replaced at face value if it is damaged - presumably the owner of the cash has an interest in seeing it kept safe. But unless the Treasury is notified and presented to their satisfaction with damaged bills for replacement, by definition, there is no way of tracking destruction/damage to cash money. The amount of cash in circulation is tracked: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircvalue.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_currcircv... In the Euro zone - with negative rates, holding on to paper money can mean a positive return: "German Banks Are Hoarding So Many Euros They Need More Vaults" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/german-banks-are-hoarding-so-many-euros-they-need-more-vaults https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/german-ba...
boomboomsubban 7y ago
The Bretton Woods agreement never had anywhere near enough gold to account for all of the currencies pegged to it. The US held all the gold and agreed to the fixed conversion and everybody else agreed to never convert. It never had to balance presumed destroyed bills with the gold reserve.

darkstar999 7y ago

I'm surprised it's a free service. How long are they spending on these $100k+ cases?! I guess an argument for it being free is to garner trust in the currency.

andyv 7y ago
I would say it is a free service because most people take very good care of their cash.
ekimekim 7y ago
A lot of very old government services are like that, they hail from a time before everything was expected to be "free market" and needed to turn a profit to justify its existence.
- solotronics 7y ago
  It's not really a free service we are all paying for it via government spending.. which is loosely related to taxes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]