On 10/13/2011 11:45 AM, Peter Irwin wrote:

On Oct 13, 11:08 am, Mike Benveniste wrote, in part:

Among the nuggets in the report are that it'll take until 2020
for the government to break even on the switch.

On 10/13/2011 11:45 AM, Peter Irwin wrote, in part:

They already have nearly enough coins minted for a good start
at phasing out the dollar bill, so a decent portion of the
initial cost has already been spent.

On Oct 13, 7:25 pm, Mike Benveniste wrote, in
part:

The GAO disagrees, stating "For the current analysis, we determined
that the Mint would need to make various investments to produce
substantially more new coins in relatively few years." *The numbers
aren't even close, because you need more than one coin to replace
one bill. *Canada used a ratio of 1.6:1. *The GAO wants to use a
ratio of 1.5:1 instead of 1.6:1, but even so that means the U.S. will
need over 13 billion additional dollar coins over 40 months.

Just for laughs, I put brass buck mintages on a spreadsheet using the
Red Book numbers and the Mint's website for circulating coins. There
are almost $4 billion ($3,996,931,110.00) in brass bucks right now
(through Hayes).just begging to be used. I'd say that's a fair start.

Jerry
P.S. - There were roughly 888 million Suzies and 682 million clad Ikes
struck that haven't been seen in years, either. I won't get into real
silver or gold dollar coins.