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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29354 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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The penny is due to be eliminated in 2026. I think that does not go far enough. Here is my proposal for reforming the cash system:

  1. Eliminate all coins other than the quarter. Inflation has made pennies, nickels, and dimes worthless. Half dollars are extinct, and every attempt the government makes to introduce a dollar coin ends in failure because there is already a perfectly good dollar bill. But the quarter is still useful to pay for laundry.

  2. Pass a law that businesses must advertise after-tax prices, not before-tax prices. The United States is stuck in a shitty equilibrium where businesses advertise a fake price but nobody can break out of it because if you advertise the actual price your prices look higher and you lose costumers. Other countries have arrived at the correct equilibrium of advertising true, after-tax prices. Since coordinating the move from shitty equilibria to good equilibria is what the government is for, let's do that. As a corollary, prices must be advertised as multiples of $0.25. If for some reason a price ends up indivisible by quarters (e.g. a 30% off sale on a product worth $1.25), then round.

  3. Introduce a $200 bill. Inflation means that the $100 bill is no longer as useful as it once was. It is time to acknowledge this by creating a higher denomination note. Whose face should go on the bill? My preference would be Ronald Reagan, but if we absolutely must have a woman on the bill, let's go with Ayn Rand.

Thoughts?

  • Declare goldbacks legal tender alongside the dollar

  • Introduce a $250 bill with Trump on it, but completely change the dollar bills- there should be bills of different sizes(physical length) to help the blind. A nice set of decorations in bright colours might be good- celebrate US achievement(moon landing and stuff). Put, like, Bessie Coleman on one of them but keep Andrew Jackson. None of these ‘literally who?’ Activist women like they’ve got on quarters now, though.

  • Pennies are stupid but dimes and nickels are useful for irregularly priced items. I’d say keep em.

  • Pass a law requiring prices and salaries to be advertised after tax.

Pass a law requiring prices and salaries to be advertised after tax.

The difference is that Starbucks charges everyone they sell a coffee to the same sales tax, but different employees are very likely to pay different income taxes. In Germany, you get tax credits for being married to someone without much income (Ehegattensplitting, also known as Herdpraemie (stove bonus)) and having kids. Depending on circumstances, you can also deduct a lot of different expenses from your taxes.

The closest practical solution to your proposal I can see is that jobs are required to advertise what a fictional reference employee (18yo, able-bodied, single, no kids, no other sources of income or deductible expenses) would get as a paycheck. Of course, for a single parent who already has another part time job, the amount they will make will likely be different.

Andrew Jackson belongs on US currency for irony's sake because he'd be dead set against the existence of the institution that prints it.

Jackson was one of the worst US presidents ever, he was a racist even for his own time, which is saying something. He shouldn't be on any US currency and ideally his grave and memorials get turned into spots commemorating his victims instead of him, a bit like what was done here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nrATA8gWdaQ

  • -30

Andrew Jackson secured US expansion both on the battlefield before his presidency and as president. He is both the only president to have completely paid off the national debt and the only president to need to be physically restrained from killing his own would-be assassin.

Easily top ten President.

If unclear, my suggestion is that putting Jackson on the most popular bill issued by a bank of the United States is pretty close to pissing on his grave rhetorically. His vociferous opposition to the (second) Bank of the United States is well-documented. A choice quote of his (although the provenance is questionable, it's at least aligned in sentiment with official speeches):

Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!

Was he a bad president in the sense that he was guilty of the grave moral failing of racism or in the sense that his actions sabotaged the interests and conditions of the nation? Also, in what sense of the word was his racism seen as severe?

Depends on who you include in "nation". If it's including the Native Americans then yes he sabotaged the interests and conditions of the nation.

Manifest destiny, while it as a term was only coined well after the Jackson presidency arose from and was a labeling of what Jackson was doing. It is undoubtedly severely racist, see the aftermath of the trail of tears for example.

no, the indians were not part of the American nation because they were part of the various indian nations

the indians could stay, but they would be treated as individuals and would have to renounce their indian nations and any claim of sovereignty or right to the land

his speeches and writings make pretty clear he wanted to remove the indian nations because the alternative was escalating conflict, that Americans would win it, that it would result in "utter annihilation" for the indian nations, and the only way to stop that was to raise an army to shoot Americans and even go to war against at least Georgia, which he would not do

it is the opposite of "racist even for his own time"

you don't really have a clue what you're talking about, huh?

Nah, he hated central banks and had a huge wheel of cheese in the Whitehouse on his inauguration. One of the coolest presidents.

Moreover, duels.

Put, like, Bessie Coleman on one of them but keep Andrew Jackson. None of these ‘literally who?’ Activist women like they’ve got on quarters now, though.

Coleman is definitely a "literally who." How about, like, Louisa May Alcott or something?

Everyone learned about Bessie Coleman in school and a negligible number of people think she’s not worth celebrating/learning about.

I never heard of her before today. But I had elementary school in one of the older states, not Texas. Maybe they were too busy.

Literally who? I've never heard of this bitch. And I paid more attention in school than most.

Okay, one Google search later, I now know who she is. But she is definitely not well-known. If you want a female American aviator, why not Amelia Earhart? Everybody has heard about her.

Also, judging by Wikipedia, it was not even in the US that Coleman gained fame for herself but in Europe.

Thirteen years in Californian K-12 and I've never heard of this woman in my life.

I have never heard of Bessie Coleman before today educated in the public school system of Texas, and learning who she is, I think she is not worth celebrating or learning about.

But part of the US bargain is we celebrate random black women for repeating the achievements of more capable people. Bessie Coleman seems like an unobjectionable example- using a different non-activist mildly notable black woman doesn't make much difference.

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