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."
Superbills?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 01 2019, @04:07PM
You are absolutely right, however, as little as I care for our local, state and federal protection rackets, I do prefer them to any others that I have gotten to know in the last 50 years.
Remember the two things that are certain in life. Unless we expand into the universe where you have a choice to live independently without potentially infringing on the rights of others, taxes will continue to be a certainty. For those who cannot, or choose not to re-wire their brains to not crave social contact, I would say that taxes will continue to be a certainty much longer than death will.
🌻🌻 [google.com]