The latest idiocy from our hamfisted government...

[MKSheppard]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021202-85999624.htm

Greenbacks to get new colors
Published 12/2/2002

ASSOCIATED PRESS
The last time Andrew Jackson got a makeover, he ended up with a big head, slightly off-center. This time, he will get a little color.

The most noticeable features of the last redesign of U.S. currency — the oversized, off-center portraits — produced all kinds of derisive nicknames: funny money, Monopoly money, cartoon money.

Color is coming, and government moneymakers are hoping for a warmer reception for the changes. The new $20, with its public introduction set for spring, is supposed to be in circulation as early as next fall. An important goal is to help distinguish between genuine greenbacks and counterfeit bills.

Jackson is first in line for a makeover. After the new $20 makes its debut, the new $50 (Ulysses S. Grant) and the $100 (Benjamin Franklin) will follow within 18 months.

In the works is a five-year effort, costing up to $53 million, to educate people about the changes.

"If we learned anything from the issuance of the $20 in 1998, it is that things that we get used to here, because we see it and work on it, when it is first in the hands of the public it is seen as dramatic," said Thomas Ferguson, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. "Suddenly we are asking them to accept something else."

Portrait engraver Thomas Hipschen, who is working on the redesign, remembers spending countless hours during the last makeover meticulously cutting into steel by hand the portraits of Jackson, Franklin and Grant for the new bills.

Relieved at first when the work was done, he then worried about the public reaction.

"You worry about what the press is going to do," he said. "I have an old clipping file about all the horrible things they said about the portraits that I engraved. Some fun things, too."
Everyone is a critic.

"Well, you are not going to please everybody. This is a situation where everybody is going to weigh in on it," Mr. Hipschen said. "You really have to have a thick skin, I think. But I don't really take it to heart that much. When my artist friends come back and say, 'What were you thinking?' — that kind of hurts to the quick. But the general population, they are going to get on the bandwagon, one way or the other, and I'm just going to have to live with it."

To give the new bills color, the bureau has had to buy five printing presses, to operate in Washington and at a bureau facility in Fort Worth, Texas. To run the presses, Mr. Ferguson said, some workers are being retrained, and some more people have been hired. The Fort Worth plant is being expanded, providing room for the new presses and public tours, he said.

Adding color to the notes is a challenge.

"It is new, and anything that is new provides another opportunity to do well — or not," Mr. Ferguson said. "There can be color variations that we wouldn't get with a single-color ink, like when we use black or green. So there are additional inspection requirements."

The current green and black inks are used on neutral-color paper. With the makeover, color tints will be added in the neutral areas of the note.

Recent changes in money design have been driven by the desire to thwart high-tech counterfeiters. Over the years, counterfeiters have graduated from offset printing to increasingly sophisticated color copiers, computer scanners, color ink-jet printers and publishing-grade software.

Some anti-counterfeiting features included in the last redesign will be retained, the bureau said. They include watermarks that are visible when held up to a light; embedded security threads that glow colorfully when exposed to ultraviolet light; and minute images visible with a magnifying glass, known as microprinting.

*******************

Newsflash government, there's a feature ALREADY in the money
that allows me to tell if it's a fake or not instantly, that no script
kiddie with a 2400 DPI scanner can fake.....and that is the FEEL
of the money itself. Our money is made of something like 50%
cotton....and the supply of that special paper is strictly controlled,
the only source of it for counterfeiters being $1 bills that they
bleach white and then print a $20 or $100 image on...and that is
beyond the capabilities of some fucknut with a laser printer...

[Kuja]

....no kidding Shep. This is totally unnecessary.

[MKSheppard]

....no kidding Shep. This is totally unnecessary.

It's times like this when I feel like taking down the US Flag on our house
and breaking out the Battle Flag to show my displeasure with our government!

[Kuja]

It's times like this when I feel like taking down the US Flag on our house
and breaking out the Battle Flag to show my displeasure with our government!

Watch out there, you might get Asscroft and Ridge knocking on your door.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Hey, we still need to find bin Laden! Why don't we do tihs later!

Isn't it ironic that there is anti-homosexuality legislation in many states, yet the government has no problem making it's money look gay?

[TrailerParkJawa]

Isn't it ironic that there is anti-homosexuality legislation in many states, yet the government has no problem making it's money look gay?

LOL!

There is nothing wrong with our money. What a waste of time. About the only thing I would recomend is dumping the penny.

Id like a 2 dollar coin like the canadians but I doubt it would be popular here.

[Mr Bean]

Let em make new Money, Hell I wish they would just go with hard money agian, I loved the Doller Quaters and its pretty bloody hard to fake metal objects

IMO if you have the Paper shep you can make the feel and not even script kiddie is using 2400 DPI Scanners, Few months back they found conifiters using proffesional 200k DPI Scanners and printers, though they weight in at $10k each those suckers can spit off 100K$ worth of fiftys in a few hours

[beyond hope]

I think that's what the big push for electronic money is all about... get the paper out of circulation to shut down counterfeiters (and incidently save Uncle Sam the expense of printing it.) Of course, as soon as that happens data fraud will really take off.

[Sea Skimmer]

*******************

Newsflash government, there's a feature ALREADY in the money
that allows me to tell if it's a fake or not instantly, that no script
kiddie with a 2400 DPI scanner can fake.....and that is the FEEL
of the money itself. Our money is made of something like 50%
cotton....and the supply of that special paper is strictly controlled,
the only source of it for counterfeiters being $1 bills that they
bleach white and then print a $20 or $100 image on...and that is
beyond the capabilities of some fucknut with a laser printer...

Actually I believe they've now include a chemical outline which causes the word FAKE to appear if the paper gets bleach on it.

[Cal Wright]

I don't really have a problem with the changes they make. The redesigned bills look fine, and I'm sure these colored ones will too. However, I do not think it's necessary for this to occur. Bean is right as well about coins. The dollar coin should have been pushed harder. Although, I usually have a pocket full of $1 bills so turning that into coins could suck. Oh well.

[Dalton]

We spend more money *making* money than the money's actually worth!

[neoolong]

Isn't it ironic that there is anti-homosexuality legislation in many states, yet the government has no problem making it's money look gay?

LOL!

There is nothing wrong with our money. What a waste of time. About the only thing I would recomend is dumping the penny.

Id like a 2 dollar coin like the canadians but I doubt it would be popular here.

But then everything would have to be rounded to the nearest 5 cents. I'm too cheap to do that.

I think that if there is a real problem with money now, they should make the new bills. If not, and with the stuff in it now I don't see a real problem, they shouldn't.

[Ghost Rider]

We spend more money *making* money than the money's actually worth!

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thank you Dalton...ah what I need right before I go home to watch what else the world has screwed over...and kill some hapless terrorist and seduce some super assassin in Nightfire

[Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader]

53 million bucks to 'educate' people about the changes to the fucking money!!?? This the last straw. Im moving to Canada with the rest of you nuts.
PS, why don't they use the fucking monye for the damn war!?
PSS; Why do all of you seem to live in Canada?
PPSS: Pardon me French.

[CmdrWilkens]

Newsflash government, there's a feature ALREADY in the money
that allows me to tell if it's a fake or not instantly, that no script
kiddie with a 2400 DPI scanner can fake.....and that is the FEEL
of the money itself. Our money is made of something like 50%
cotton....and the supply of that special paper is strictly controlled,
the only source of it for counterfeiters being $1 bills that they
bleach white and then print a $20 or $100 image on...and that is
beyond the capabilities of some fucknut with a laser printer...

Shep you've never worked Retail have you?

Feel is a subjective analysis technique that requires the cashier accepting the money to be able to recognize the difference. this is no simple task, a counterfeier doesn't have to produce a perfect replica they only have to get so clsoe that the cashier is unsure..that's because refusal to accept valid US currency is grounds for a lawsuit and probably federal felony charges. In other words a person accepting the money if they reject it and it turns out to be real will be out a LOT of cash, the subjective nature of "testing by touch" i such that major retailers would laugh in your face if you told them it was the bes way for them to determine if currency is counterfeit or not. They need something that can be easily measured objectively and which is highly difficult to copy, minus that they will acept a few hundred thousand close-counterfeits rather than be bogged down in a multi-milion dollar legal faux pas.

[Raptor 597]

It's times like this when I feel like taking down the US Flag on our house
and breaking out the Battle Flag to show my displeasure with our government!

Watch out there, you might get Asscroft and Ridge knocking on your door.

And they'd be thanking him for showing heritage & patriotism.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

We spend more money *making* money than the money's actually worth!

Eventually we probably will; that's why the Gold Standard is so attractive.