Counterfeiting: Were In The Money

Counterfeiting: We're In The Money

A frequently asked question by a customer is "Can you break a hundred dollar bill?" If this request has been granted, why do the cashiers take the bill and turn it into a biology experiment? Between pouring a liquid on the note and/or holding it up to the light to check for authenticity, is our currency system in danger? As of the beginning of 1996, the Chairman of the Federal
Reserve and the Secretary of the United States Treasury, prove their economic wizardry by making the new one hundred dollar bill nearly impossible to counterfeit in attempt to protect our economy. This is just the first step in improving our currency system.
Counterfeiting U.S. currency is an illegal practice that has has been around for years and, unfortunately,is getting worse. "Last year, ...the Secret
Service cooperated with the Italian authorities' seizure of $43.8 million in counterfeit U.S. currency, Germany's capture of more than $19 million in counterfeit cash, and the Canadian authorities; seizure of than $129 million in counterfeit U.S. currency." (Gomez, Bertha. "Officials Say..") In a small town north of Chicago, two high school seniors were arrested for the use of counterfeit bills. With the use of the internet and a color printer, these two teenagers were able to create and pass their counterfeit twenty dollar bills through the high school cafeteria but were later arrest by police after trying to use their money at a local Taco Bell. If teenagers are finding ways to counterfeit money, that should tell someone that we need to do something to protect our economy for the future.
In attempt to enhance our currency system, the one hundred dollar bill was completely redesigned last year and released at the beginning of this year.
This new bill contains a security thread, a watermark, a larger portrait, varriable-color ink and infrared fibers. It is called the 1996 series. Next year the fifty dollar bill will change and so forth. At first, economist talked about recalling all of US currency, but later this idea was ruled out o keep a smooth transition and to honor the new bills at current face value.
If our economy is at its strongest, who paid for the creation of the series 1996? The Federal Reserve, under the direction of Alan Greenspan, paid for this currency improvement. When t...

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...bject, someone will try to copy it. But, what if our currency system was strictly based on a credit? This will be the United States currency of the future. Our world has advanced so far with the aid of the computer. Ten years ago, computers were for only a weak version of typing. We have come so far from the past. Technology will improve in the years to come. The money in our wallets is just a special type of paper with a special type of ink. It does not back gold like it use to. In the future, we will have two cards in our wallet. A credit card, if we so choose to own one, and a currency card. Our treasury and federal reserve will design a feasible system where paper money is something of the past.

Work Cite

"Fed Moved Too Slow On Increasing Rates." Wall Street Journal 11 April 1994.

"Who Controls The Fed?." Investors Business Daily 19 August 1996

Gomez, Berta "U.S. Officials Say Currency Counterfeiting Remains Small." USIA
Staff Writer (1996) WWW Internet Access.

Moreau, Ron and Russell Watson. The Hard-Up North Koreans are suspected of making nearly perfectly fakes of U.S. $100 bills.