Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff on Josh, there's Chuck.
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there. Let's get going. This is short stuff
Speaker 1: about shortages of coins. Shortly. Yeah, hey, can you spare
Speaker 1: some change? Uh? No? Why not? Um? What was it?
Speaker 1: I can't remember who said? Think the line is? Haven't
Speaker 1: your head? Is a coin shortage? Okay, let's try this again. Hey,
Speaker 1: Mr Keney spares some change? No? Why not? Haven't you heard?
Speaker 1: There's a what line? Coin shortage? There's a coin shortage?
Speaker 1: And that summarizes our TV show success quite nicely, and
Speaker 1: scene and scene, so we're there. Really is a coin shortage?
Speaker 1: Or dramatization was a real one or based on real life,
Speaker 1: a true story in the United States. Um our listeners
Speaker 1: in Australia and New Zealand and UK and Germany who
Speaker 1: knew you know, Um, did we hear from a German?
Speaker 1: Is that what happened? Uh? They said, yes, we're listening
Speaker 1: to you in Germany, okay, And they said cryptically and watching.
Speaker 1: And what what some of you guys who are in
Speaker 1: America might not realize is that if you went into
Speaker 1: a store, the stores that are open right now during
Speaker 1: the pandemic here in the United States, you might find
Speaker 1: a sign that says, please pay with exact change or
Speaker 1: use a credit card because we ain't got no change
Speaker 1: for you, uh, if you need it. And it's actually
Speaker 1: kind of becoming a bit of a problem and a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory over here. Yeah, so there are coins out there. Um.
Speaker 1: The U. S. Treasury says that there were almost forty
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars worth of coins in circulation in April
Speaker 1: of this year, which is about four million more than
Speaker 1: last year. But the deal is is those those coins
Speaker 1: aren't moving there. They got no movement going on like
Speaker 1: they usually do for a few reasons. Obviously, when businesses
Speaker 1: closing and banks sort of closing and reducing their hours,
Speaker 1: and things like arcades and laun dramats and public transit
Speaker 1: where you use a lot of coins, and convenience stores,
Speaker 1: when all that stuff closes up, it's gonna put a
Speaker 1: serious dentt in the coin flow. It is because I mean,
Speaker 1: all of these these businesses that are especially coin heavy, Um,
Speaker 1: they they act as kind of like part of the
Speaker 1: circulatory system that moves coins through the economy. And if
Speaker 1: they're not closed, meaning they're not accepting coins, you can't
Speaker 1: let the coins pass through them, so instead they go
Speaker 1: back home to people's houses, which is where a lot
Speaker 1: of them are right now. Um. Also, simultaneous to that,
Speaker 1: Chuck the U s Mint was like, well, we don't
Speaker 1: want to put our people at risk, so we're actually
Speaker 1: gonna slow production and furlough a bunch of people because
Speaker 1: we don't want them on the job giving COVID to
Speaker 1: one another, which is kind of sensible. And then beyond that,
Speaker 1: even if you do have a business, a lot of
Speaker 1: people are saying, you know, they want like contact lists,
Speaker 1: they don't want cash passing back and forth. They'll maybe
Speaker 1: shove a credit card reader in your face from a
Speaker 1: poll that it's attached to and they'll say, stick your
Speaker 1: credit card in that. Um not doing a lot of
Speaker 1: cash or asking for exact change. And again that just
Speaker 1: means there are coins out there, they're just not flowing
Speaker 1: through the economy like they normally do. Right, So for
Speaker 1: all these reasons, there is an actual a coin shortage,
Speaker 1: not a coin shortage, and that they don't exist, but
Speaker 1: a coin shortage, and that they're not flowing through like
Speaker 1: they're supposed to. Like you were saying, which I mean,
Speaker 1: if you were, um, a thinking person you might buy
Speaker 1: this time, have thought who cares? It doesn't matter, but
Speaker 1: it does for a lot of reasons. And at first
Speaker 1: is that UM. There are a lot of stores, kinds
Speaker 1: of stories like you said, UM transit, public transit UM,
Speaker 1: you know, the public transit store where you go to
Speaker 1: buy public transits and coins UM, and then laundromats. There
Speaker 1: are certain kinds of businesses that heavily rely on the
Speaker 1: free and open flow of coinage UM for their businesses
Speaker 1: to function. And if you go into one of those
Speaker 1: businesses and they say you need to pay with exact change,
Speaker 1: is that okay? Some of their customers are gonna be like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not okay. I want I don't have exact change,
Speaker 1: and I want my change back. Some of those stores
Speaker 1: have tried to get creative and have said, how about
Speaker 1: rather than us give you change back, we donated on
Speaker 1: your behalf to a charity, like you kind of round
Speaker 1: up your bill to have some of that donated. That
Speaker 1: makes sense, But if you're kind of going through hard times,
Speaker 1: which a lot of us are, you want that change back.
Speaker 1: So then some stores have said, okay, all right, we
Speaker 1: don't actually have physical coins here to give you change,
Speaker 1: But we can give you a store gift card with
Speaker 1: that amount on it. How about that? And some customers said,
Speaker 1: that's fine, whatever, But I can't imag magine how much
Speaker 1: of a dent in a store's efficiency. Stopping and adding
Speaker 1: like thirty eight cents to a gift card for every
Speaker 1: third customer who wants to pay with cash is doing
Speaker 1: to to The stores in the United States that are,
Speaker 1: by the way, are already struggling because they have opened
Speaker 1: up in this pandemic um simply because they need to
Speaker 1: to keep the lights on. Yeah, or some stores are saying,
Speaker 1: how about in lieu of the thirty seven sins, I
Speaker 1: compose a poem in which I integrate the words thirty
Speaker 1: seven cents and I will sing it to you, right,
Speaker 1: or maybe it takes a lot of time. Maybe our
Speaker 1: head cash, your Bucky will give you thirty eight cents
Speaker 1: where the pot from his stash. I wonder what thirty
Speaker 1: eight since where the pot looks like? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably that's a lot, right, sure, from everything I've read.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break? Yes, all right, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more coin shortage. Well, now we're on
Speaker 1: the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a
Speaker 1: thing or two from Josh man Chuck and stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. All right, all right, so we got a
Speaker 1: coin shortage and ain't flowing. The National Grocer's Association and
Speaker 1: some other retail trade groups sent a letter to Jerome Powell,
Speaker 1: the Fed Reserve chair and Steve how do you pronounce
Speaker 1: that hard nucan the manuch? No, that's the mooch Scar
Speaker 1: Moucci that you're thinking of. Oh, that's right. Uh. He's
Speaker 1: the Treasury Secretary. And they sent a letter in June saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you're rationing these coin shipments to the banks, and that's
Speaker 1: really threatening our business because it's you know, we come
Speaker 1: from a place of privilege to be able to sit
Speaker 1: around a joke about this because I'm like, oh, I'll
Speaker 1: just put everything on my m X because I get
Speaker 1: sky miles that are now useless. But here's the deal.
Speaker 1: If you have a household income below twenty dollars, you
Speaker 1: are paying for cash. Uh, you're paying for of your
Speaker 1: transactions and cash. Right. This is why finally we reach
Speaker 1: why it really actually matters, because there's a significant number
Speaker 1: of Americans out there who depend on having cash handy.
Speaker 1: Because the banks have said we don't think you're worthy
Speaker 1: of having a bank account, and the credit card companies
Speaker 1: have said, we're not going to extend you any credit.
Speaker 1: So all you've got is cash. That's your only option.
Speaker 1: And so if you aren't if the store is trying
Speaker 1: to give you some some business or run around about
Speaker 1: domint donating your thirty eight since the charity, no, you
Speaker 1: probably want that thirty eight cents back, and not having
Speaker 1: that thirty eight cents in circulation is a big problem
Speaker 1: for a large number of people. Yeah, here's a couple
Speaker 1: of other stats that may be surprised zing if you
Speaker 1: always just throw down your credit card. Uh, forty five
Speaker 1: to sixty of sales at all grocery stores and comedian
Speaker 1: stores or cash, and uh for ten dollars or less.
Speaker 1: About half of all transactions period in the US are
Speaker 1: paid in cash if they're ten dollars or less. Yes.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean there's a plenty of like gas
Speaker 1: stations and convenience stores out there that have us a
Speaker 1: longstanding policy that you know, nothing under five dollars or
Speaker 1: three dollars or whatever can be put on a card
Speaker 1: because as credit cards piece can can really add up
Speaker 1: for a store like that. Um So now they have
Speaker 1: no choice. If they don't have change to give out,
Speaker 1: they have to take that credit card payment. So that's
Speaker 1: dending their bottom line to the little um small business
Speaker 1: owners as well. It's just a huge cluster that needs
Speaker 1: to be fixed, Chuck. Yeah, and the fixed sort of
Speaker 1: there isn't a real fix right now because everything that's
Speaker 1: going on. You can't just put some artificial You can't
Speaker 1: just like flood the market with coins because the problem
Speaker 1: is they're not flowing anyway. It's not that they aren't there.
Speaker 1: So the real solution is just eventually things will slowly
Speaker 1: return to normal as far as coin circulation goes, just
Speaker 1: like everything else returning to normal. Um. But they are
Speaker 1: ramping up production of coins because they, I guess heard
Speaker 1: the letter and they don't want to short change the
Speaker 1: banks at least, and I think the usual is a
Speaker 1: billion coins a month. They're now producing one point two
Speaker 1: billion coins a month at least in June, and then
Speaker 1: one point three five billion a month for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. Yeah, which I mean that's a substantial
Speaker 1: increase for sure. Yeah, um, because yeah that we're talking
Speaker 1: about three hundred and fifty million additional coins a month
Speaker 1: for the rest of that's a huge uptick, so they're
Speaker 1: definitely responding, But it seems like what everybody's saying is, hey,
Speaker 1: you with the coin jar and you're cupboard, like you're
Speaker 1: you're the problem, Like go take your coin jar to
Speaker 1: the coin star. I think they um the FED actually
Speaker 1: specifically aimed coin star as a place where you should
Speaker 1: take your coins and trade them in for a gift
Speaker 1: card or some cash or something like that. Or if
Speaker 1: you don't want to pay whatever fee coin star um charges,
Speaker 1: you can actually go into the bank take your coins.
Speaker 1: They will be happy to see you for the first
Speaker 1: time in their entire banking history showing up with a
Speaker 1: jar full of coins, being like, can I have this
Speaker 1: in exchange for some bills UM? That will help get
Speaker 1: it back into circulation as well. Or you could just
Speaker 1: start spending them like pay in coins um out of
Speaker 1: your your coin jar that you have at home, reintroduce
Speaker 1: it into the economy, in fact, is another way to
Speaker 1: put it. Yeah, I can't remember when we talked about this,
Speaker 1: but we talked about coins before and taking into the
Speaker 1: bank and the fact that Emily and I when we
Speaker 1: were first together and just broke as you could imagine,
Speaker 1: would go on change dates, because we would go to
Speaker 1: that coin star machine and dump them in there. And
Speaker 1: I think that's when you said that you didn't do
Speaker 1: coin star because of the fee. If I'm not mistaking,
Speaker 1: the sounds like something I would say, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a long time ago though, yeah, well still the same.
Speaker 1: It's it'll be etched on my tombstone. He wouldn't pay
Speaker 1: the fee. Um, So you can do something by spending coins.
Speaker 1: That's a big one. Um. And there's actually a hashtag
Speaker 1: that this coin task force that got put together came
Speaker 1: up with called get coin Moving, not even coins, get
Speaker 1: coin Moving, brick love lamp. It's it's pretty bad. Um.
Speaker 1: And here's a little tidbit for you to chew on
Speaker 1: while you're going through your coin jar um, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what you're gonna buy first with it. A
Speaker 1: coin in the United States remains in circulation for up
Speaker 1: to thirty years, So all those coins that are pumping
Speaker 1: full of the economy with they're going to be around
Speaker 1: for a while, whereas the paper bills that we have
Speaker 1: usually only last about a year and a half. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's it for sure, stuff, chuck, don't you think I
Speaker 1: think so? Well? The short Stuff says everybody Giddeah. Stuff
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