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Mysterious Surge in U.S. $100 Bills in Circulation, Possibly Linked to Global Corruption

posted by martyb on Friday March 01 2019, @12:43PM   
from the think-global-act-local dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The amount of $100 bills in circulation is surging. And it's leaving some economists scratching their heads.

The number of outstanding U.S. $100 bills has doubled since the financial crisis, with more than 12 billion of them across the world, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. C-notes have passed $1 bills in circulation, Deutsche Bank chief international economist Torsten Slok said in a note to clients this week.

[...] "By eliminating high denomination, high value notes we would make life harder for those pursuing tax evasion, financial crime, terrorist finance and corruption," [former Standard Chartered bank chief executive Peter] Sands wrote.

The global illicit money flows were "staggering" and fuel crimes from drug trafficking and human smuggling to theft and fraud, Sands said. He estimated that depending on the country, tax evasion robs the public sector of anywhere between 6 percent and 70 percent of what authorities estimate they should be collecting. And despite "huge investments in transaction surveillance systems, and intelligence, less than 1 percent of illicit financial flows are seized.

[...] "The Federal Reserve and Treasury make 99 dollars for every $100 dollar bill they print and sell offshore," Colas said. "There's a natural desire to keep printing these things — the U.S. government makes a lot of money selling them."

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/27/theres-been-a-mysterious-surge-in-100-bills-in-circulation-possibly-linked-to-global-corruption.html

Superbills?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar

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Original Submission

• banks want this, no one else banks want this, no one else (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:06PM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @03:06PM (#808698)

  This is literally insane.

  $100 is like $20 a few decades ago. They should be reintroducing *larger* bills at this point.

  Soon, $100 will be like $5. Getting rid of cash through backdoors (attrition) denies the voter a clean discussion about it.

  Of course, as always, look for the motive. I love how the US government is demonized here, meanwhile? Banks make SOOOOOOOOO much money off of non-cash usage. They are RICH from credit card fees, bank fees, you name it.

  It is banks that push, and push, and push again to get rid of cash. Fund studies showing how crime will be removed/eliminated.

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• Re:banks want this, no one else Re:banks want this, no one else (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @05:45PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 01 2019, @05:45PM (#808803)

  While I do find myself burning through $100 quite fast these days, it's still not like the $20. Here in the USA, they are met with too much suspicion to be used as ordinary currency. I actually had an ATM dispense me some $100s when I moved to the Bay Area and I thought, "expensive area, might not be too hard to spend". Nope. Hard to spend. I found another ATM that would give me the $20s I wanted. The convenience store owner on the 1st floor of my office knew me and I gradually broke them with that guy until I got rid of the last one.

  Parent

  • Re:banks want this, no one else (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 02 2019, @10:26AM (#809090)

    They don't have cash-check markers and lightbulbs in cali? Or are they too stupid to tell real from fake?

    Parent