7 ms·

How Tight Jeans Almost Ruined America's Money

22 points by kitcar 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago
Interesting article, but idiotic title. Tight jeans "almost ruined" money because instead of harvesting jeans for used cotton, they had to go buy new cotton. Since new cotton is neither expensive nor difficult to obtain, it's hardly "almost ruined".
- mynegation 13y ago
  I actually liked the title, because my initial guess was that no one wanted to pull banknotes from the pockets and everyone switched in droves to plastic. It turned out to be wrong but it was interesting trivia nevertheless.
blueblob 13y ago
Not what I expected. I expected health issues with people's circulation being cut off. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/skinny-jeans-cause-nerve-damage-doctors-warn-419904 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/skinny-jeans-cause-nerve-damage-doc...
- parasight 13y ago
  I expected jeans too tight to carry a wallet.
kamakazizuru 13y ago
Appropriate title "How A Company that makes paper, changed its raw materials".
nate_meurer 13y ago
For those who don't want to RTFA, the upshot is that the presence of spandex makes the denim waste stream unsuitable for paper-making. Esquire has a much better story about this: http://www.esquire.com/features/benjamin-hundred-dollar-bill-0913 http://www.esquire.com/features/benjamin-hundred-dollar-bill...
Theodores 13y ago
The dollar went from gold to denim off-cuts. Makes you think what a dollar is worth. Edit: No discourse on Bretton Woods, quantitative easing etc. intended! Sometimes it can be fun and helpful to look at things for what they are rather than what they represent. For instance, 'That sounds like a lot of recycled denim!' is a more light hearted way of saying 'you're ripping me off!'
- forgottenpass 13y ago
  I know, right? Denim isn't even shiny. How can a society collectively agree on assigning value to something to use as currency and not use shiny things we dug up!
  - ch4s3 13y ago
    I think you summed up my statement better than I did.
- ch4s3 13y ago
  No it doesn't. The gold standard is and always was ridiculous. Pegging a currency to an arbitrary rare metal limits the tools of monetary policy that now prevent inlfation spikes and worse. the rapid deflationary cycles common 100 years ago. Without the gold standard, we are able to add more money supply when demand for our currency spikes, this prevents spikes and crashes in prices. In case you aren't familiar with business planning, large price fluctuations are bad, very bad. If prices are falling, people stop buy (counter intuitive right?) because they put off purchases until they can get a cheaper future price. Then demand slacks, and companies lay off workers. Then demand slack further due to unemployment. Contemporary monetary policy allows us to constrict money supply and adjust interest rates to prevent price collapses. A gold standard arbitrarily prevents these actions. TL:DR; The gold standard is an arbitrary limitation on an already abstract system, that offers us nothing. Historical revisionism is the only reason the gold standard looks appealing. *edit for readability
- mpyne 13y ago
  Same thing it was worth before, I would imagine. Money, like anything else, is worth exactly what people think it's worth, nothing more or less.
forgottenpass 13y ago
"It's a sign of the times," Rudd said. It's a sign that the States doesn't keep up with the times. We should have ditched Crane's cloth for polymer banknotes ages ago. In general our currency reflects a stuffy and uptight attitude. Canada seems like a guy that says "fuck it, we're doing birds for 15 years"[0] or "How about Hockey, eh?"[1]. They've put the CanadaArm on the $10 [2], we've been to the fucking moon and only have the Eisenhower dollar where there is some moon [3], but not without that damn eagle, again. Instead we get "in god we trust," pictures of buildings and the only hint of changing anything more than shuffling the layout is occasional rumblings to put St. Reagan on a bill. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Canadian_dollar#1986_Birds_of_Canada_Series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Canadian_dolla... [1] http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/images/Journey/2002_005b.jpg http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/images/Journey/2002_005b.jpg [2] http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8694157272_a1323d9017_o.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8694157272_a1323d9017_o.j... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1974S_Eisenhower_Reverse.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1974S_Eisenhower_Reverse.j...
- Naga 13y ago
  Polymer banknotes are not necessarily better. I find the new Canadian bills to be much harder to count, since they are so slippery. Also there have been reports of them melting in the heat and breaking in the cold.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  No, the choice to use natural fibers is a deliberate defense against counterfeiters. Forgive me for pasting such a large portion of the Esquire article cited in another comment: "In the late 1980s, a new counterfeit hundred, the most perfect counterfeit yet made, began appearing in circulation. It looked identical to the real thing, betrayed visually, at least, under only the most rigorous forensic testing. (Some minor flaws were visible after enormous copies of the bills were made, but these were probably purposeful. Its makers didn't want to be suckered by their own handiwork.) Although the counterfeit came to America mostly on boats from gangs in China, it was eventually traced to North Korea, where it was believed to have been manufactured by the North Korean government on its own presses. Since then, new generations of the same counterfeit have appeared, including a big-head version, mimicking the redesigned hundred that entered circulation in 1996. This family of bogus notes has been given its own title, one that befits its almost mythical stature: the North Korean supernote. Some stories about the supernote sound more like legend than fact — like its being laundered by a bank in Macao called the Banco Delta Asia, or several thousand of them somehow appearing overnight in Lima, threatening to tip over the entire Peruvian economy. But there remains one truth in the supernote's history that has never been forgotten: It was first detected at the Central Bank of the Philippines by a teller, given pause only by the same nebulous flaw that betrays the majority of counterfeits. It just didn't feel right."
jrockway 13y ago
Flagging this for the ridiculous title.

22 points by kitcar 13y ago

Interesting article, but idiotic title. Tight jeans "almost ruined" money because instead of harvesting jeans for used cotton, they had to go buy new cotton. Since new cotton is neither expensive nor difficult to obtain, it's hardly "almost ruined".

mynegation 13y ago
I actually liked the title, because my initial guess was that no one wanted to pull banknotes from the pockets and everyone switched in droves to plastic. It turned out to be wrong but it was interesting trivia nevertheless.

blueblob 13y ago

Not what I expected. I expected health issues with people's circulation being cut off. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/skinny-jeans-cause-nerve-damage-doctors-warn-419904 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/skinny-jeans-cause-nerve-damage-doc...

parasight 13y ago
I expected jeans too tight to carry a wallet.

kamakazizuru 13y ago

Appropriate title "How A Company that makes paper, changed its raw materials".

nate_meurer 13y ago

For those who don't want to RTFA, the upshot is that the presence of spandex makes the denim waste stream unsuitable for paper-making. Esquire has a much better story about this: http://www.esquire.com/features/benjamin-hundred-dollar-bill-0913 http://www.esquire.com/features/benjamin-hundred-dollar-bill...

Theodores 13y ago

The dollar went from gold to denim off-cuts. Makes you think what a dollar is worth. Edit: No discourse on Bretton Woods, quantitative easing etc. intended! Sometimes it can be fun and helpful to look at things for what they are rather than what they represent. For instance, 'That sounds like a lot of recycled denim!' is a more light hearted way of saying 'you're ripping me off!'

forgottenpass 13y ago
I know, right? Denim isn't even shiny. How can a society collectively agree on assigning value to something to use as currency and not use shiny things we dug up!
- ch4s3 13y ago
  I think you summed up my statement better than I did.
ch4s3 13y ago
No it doesn't. The gold standard is and always was ridiculous. Pegging a currency to an arbitrary rare metal limits the tools of monetary policy that now prevent inlfation spikes and worse. the rapid deflationary cycles common 100 years ago. Without the gold standard, we are able to add more money supply when demand for our currency spikes, this prevents spikes and crashes in prices. In case you aren't familiar with business planning, large price fluctuations are bad, very bad. If prices are falling, people stop buy (counter intuitive right?) because they put off purchases until they can get a cheaper future price. Then demand slacks, and companies lay off workers. Then demand slack further due to unemployment. Contemporary monetary policy allows us to constrict money supply and adjust interest rates to prevent price collapses. A gold standard arbitrarily prevents these actions. TL:DR; The gold standard is an arbitrary limitation on an already abstract system, that offers us nothing. Historical revisionism is the only reason the gold standard looks appealing. *edit for readability
mpyne 13y ago
Same thing it was worth before, I would imagine. Money, like anything else, is worth exactly what people think it's worth, nothing more or less.

forgottenpass 13y ago

"It's a sign of the times," Rudd said. It's a sign that the States doesn't keep up with the times. We should have ditched Crane's cloth for polymer banknotes ages ago. In general our currency reflects a stuffy and uptight attitude. Canada seems like a guy that says "fuck it, we're doing birds for 15 years"[0] or "How about Hockey, eh?"[1]. They've put the CanadaArm on the $10 [2], we've been to the fucking moon and only have the Eisenhower dollar where there is some moon [3], but not without that damn eagle, again. Instead we get "in god we trust," pictures of buildings and the only hint of changing anything more than shuffling the layout is occasional rumblings to put St. Reagan on a bill. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Canadian_dollar#1986_Birds_of_Canada_Series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Canadian_dolla... [1] http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/images/Journey/2002_005b.jpg http://www.cdnpapermoney.com/images/Journey/2002_005b.jpg [2] http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8694157272_a1323d9017_o.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8542/8694157272_a1323d9017_o.j... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1974S_Eisenhower_Reverse.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1974S_Eisenhower_Reverse.j...

Naga 13y ago
Polymer banknotes are not necessarily better. I find the new Canadian bills to be much harder to count, since they are so slippery. Also there have been reports of them melting in the heat and breaking in the cold.
nate_meurer 13y ago
No, the choice to use natural fibers is a deliberate defense against counterfeiters. Forgive me for pasting such a large portion of the Esquire article cited in another comment: "In the late 1980s, a new counterfeit hundred, the most perfect counterfeit yet made, began appearing in circulation. It looked identical to the real thing, betrayed visually, at least, under only the most rigorous forensic testing. (Some minor flaws were visible after enormous copies of the bills were made, but these were probably purposeful. Its makers didn't want to be suckered by their own handiwork.) Although the counterfeit came to America mostly on boats from gangs in China, it was eventually traced to North Korea, where it was believed to have been manufactured by the North Korean government on its own presses. Since then, new generations of the same counterfeit have appeared, including a big-head version, mimicking the redesigned hundred that entered circulation in 1996. This family of bogus notes has been given its own title, one that befits its almost mythical stature: the North Korean supernote. Some stories about the supernote sound more like legend than fact — like its being laundered by a bank in Macao called the Banco Delta Asia, or several thousand of them somehow appearing overnight in Lima, threatening to tip over the entire Peruvian economy. But there remains one truth in the supernote's history that has never been forgotten: It was first detected at the Central Bank of the Philippines by a teller, given pause only by the same nebulous flaw that betrays the majority of counterfeits. It just didn't feel right."

jrockway 13y ago

Flagging this for the ridiculous title.