I wouldn't give you two cents for it

 

Maya Angelou to appear on new quarters as U.S. Mint launches American Women series

Currency in Circulation is up over 24% Oct 2019 to Oct 2021 and people wonder why there is inflation

 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CURRCIR

US Prints Record 3+ Billion $100 bills in 2012

The US Bureau of Engraving and Printing issued a record 3.0272 billion individual $100 bills in fiscal year 2012, according to its website here. Production problems with the new $100 bill for 2011 release as reported here resulted in only $72.32 billion in $100 bills being produced in fiscal 2011. The $100 note is the most produced paper currency in the US, averaging $173 billion worth annually for the last five years.

The $100 denomination's print run in fiscal 2012 alone is worth $302.72 billion.

The total production figures since 2008 for all paper money are as follows, averaging $216 billion annually:

2008 $154.2 billion

2009 $219.5 billion

2010 $239.5 billion

2011 $109.7 billion

2012 $358.9 billion.

Since over 90% of the notes replace money which is or has been in circulation, on average about $21 billion annually is actually being added to the currency supply, which is peanuts in a banking system with in excess of $10 trillion in deposits.

It is reported here that total circulating cash presently comes to about $1.175 trillion, so it would take about 6 years to replace all circulating currency at current production levels, perhaps a little longer as some currency effectively disappears because it is destroyed in accidents, sold on the collector market, or hoarded, the latter becoming more popular abroad. Currency in circulation, however, appears to be up about 26% since 2010 when $930 billion was reported to be in circulation. That's an increase of $245 billion in just over two years, which is curious if it's true since one might expect an increase of barely $50 billion over that short a time.

If that is thought to be highly inflationary, however, the figure actually pales in comparison to the real money increase in the country since 2008, namely total credit market debt outstanding, which is up $4.5 trillion to October 2012.

This is the Way Banks Go 'Round the QE Mulberry Bush

James Hamilton for Fortune here provides an excellent explanation and illustration of how the Federal Reserve "printed" money with which to buy assets from troubled banks, who in turn have kept the "cash" on deposit with the Fed, earning interest, in an effort to re-structure their balance sheets.

Here is an excerpt:

But if the Fed didn't print any money as part of QE2 and earlier asset purchases, how did it pay for the stuff it bought? The answer is that the Fed simply credited the accounts that banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold with the Fed. These electronic credits, or reserve balances, are what has exploded since 2008. The blue area in the graph below is the total currency in circulation, whose growth we have just seen has been pretty modest. The maroon area represents reserves.

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from the Fed, this operation is not designed to stimulate job growth or boost stock prices. It is designed to do one thing and one thing only: rescue the banks.

And don't even think about maintaining a strong dollar.

When that maroon area returns to an imperceptible sliver, if it ever does, you'll know things are back to "normal." Unlike George Bailey who had two dollars left from his two thousand dollar honeymoon stash at the end of that day when there was a run on his bank, the Federal Reserve can theoretically keep on  running this shell game indefinitely. But the consequences for the value of the dollar will be, and are, grave indeed, which makes Mr. Bernanke's warnings to Congress to get its spending under control almost amusing.


Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you 
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must 
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! 
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! 
Will't not off?


-- Lucio, in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, V, 1

A Hypothetical US Bank Run Exercise: How Much Would You Get?

According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, here, only about one third of US currency in circulation is thought to be held within the United States:

In April 2008, M1 was approximately $1.4 trillion, more than half of which consisted of currency. While as much as two-thirds of U.S. currency in circulation may be held outside the United States, all currency held by the public is included in the money supply because it can be spent on goods and services in the U.S. economy.

Current observations by The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, here, show that currency in circulation as of the end of December 2010 came to about $983.7 billion.

So let's ask hypothetically, just for the mental exercise, that if we had a bank run in America and we decided we would ration the available cash in equal shares to the adult population of, say, 228 million people, assuming of course each such person had some digits on a bank statement warranting cash claims, how much maximum could each claimant expect to get under such circumstances?

$1,438 each.