News – The Treasury Department discriminates against millions of Americans who are blind or have poor vision by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish between denominations, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
Sorry. This court has no standing in the matter. The U.S. constitution gives CONGRESS the job of "coining" money and regulating the value thereof. Since the coining (or, presumably, printing) of money is a CONSTITUTIONAL matter, any law that seeks to undermine or modify that authority short of a Constitutional Amendment is ... unconstitutional. If CONGRESS decides that the current form of the money is unacceptable, then THEY have the authority to change it - NOT the courts. Since the A.D.A. and others acts designed to accommodate the crippled do NOT specifically mention money, we must presume that they do NOT apply to the currency. Anyway, that's my take.
WoW I nominate joeblowe as the next Supreme Court Justice! - a true constitutional scholar - oh wait a minute you don't have to know the constitution to be a justice - you can bend it anyway you want
They can, and do pretty much what they want these days. I assume that they ruled to have it go to DOJ to further discuss if the current currency is indeed unconstitutional to the blind, I doubt anything will come of it.
Or you could just carry all 1's and/or have a check card, which most all places except anyway. And you could fold larger bills a certain way from a bank teller if you need cash. You could cut a small portion of the corner at 45 degree angle or use a hole punch. I would think some perforated lines to denote amount, a large embossed number or heck, just make them different fruit smells.
Joe, my firm works with some of the controllers for the US Mint and this is truly a concern because of activist judges. However, remember, the ADA was the same bunch of morons who some how managed to get the Braille on the drive through cash machines. Banks found it was cheaper to rebuild the keyboards then try to fight this in the courts.
I have a friend who has been blind since birth and managed to get through and build a reasonably successful law practice. She is a gifted and independent person with a guide dog who assists her in many ways, but the two things she cannot do on her own is get herself somewhere that public transportation doesn't go and is beyond walking distance and handle her own money. Yes, she folds different bills in different ways, but she still needs someone to tell her which bill is which and she must "depend on the kindness of strangers" to insure that she has received the correct change.
I don't know if she's ever been ripped off, but I am sure that there are those out there who would steal from a blind person.
It is hard to be independent if you need someone else to count you money for you and tell you what you've got.
Because it's sort of silly?
OK - but I travel a lot & different size currencies that are used in other countries are pretty handy if you don't want to take out your wallet or show you money - you can tell the amount of the bill you want by just knowing its size. Forget about being blind - it's pretty handy as a safety feature
Handy? Do you realize of you go to this, there isn't a cash drawer, automated teller, bank, counters, scales or anything that deals with cash that will be able to use your "handy" solution. This change will cost billions of dollars to work around. Then again I will make money on you the dumb taxpayers. My firm has a divisions that handles factory automation and printing equipment. The mint will pay us to redesign the press controls and new machine tooling will be required to build replacement parts for everything.
This is possibly one of the dumber ideas to come out of our courts.
ace,
These guys have thin skins about having "their" government criticized, as if they believe they own it exclusively. Add to that, the criticism is always "liberal" in tone, logic be damned.
Loverman - thin skinned - nah just thin mental capacity - somehow all the countries that I have visited that had sized denomination bills all managed to figure out a way to work their cash registers, change makers & other currency related machinery - hey we can always outsource bill changing to India
ace,
Yeah.
The arguments and examples seem too trite for this issue's solution.
I know that many vision impaired people handle cash using various routines and I'd like to get their input about what they believe is best, something which nobody mentioned.
BTW, it's indicative of the hubris some of these so called conservatives have when there's criticism of the government. Wasn't their god-president Reagan that stated that "government is not the solution, it's the problem." and now they come to the government's defense? Why, because it's a GOP led government?
"A lack of planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on my part." I don't know who said that but it's evidently proper to this issue.
Since the Treasury Department has had several decades to plan the different bills to thwart counterfeiters, they forgot to plan for the blind. A simple embossing for each new bill would have taken care of the problem and it could have been done after printing before or after cutting from the sheets.
Now the ADA is in the unenviable position to have to sue, and we are in the also unenviable position to pay for that suit as well as the fix.
Not a member? Sign-up today!
jorgepratt19711962
LeftTurn
nopatacious
leeharris1969
adamhowe1980
PrettyWoman911
dokkyou08
SusanTucker
Hobbs524
EricSlocum
TamaraAshton
jeromeleash
JaniyaBla
gabriel19671968
mickoleon
onreact.com
Bigrocket
gamadrilikius
cocacolerrr
kubicheskiikub
newsarefree
ocenka
poppp47
Nowalive
loverman
pyuuuke
ginabrown
americasbestcompanies
Transsan
2jojoyo
tadaoundo
MidnightPrism
Wolfie2007
thousandsunny
dadesider
aceofspades1
cosmogenium
rbtburgess
totlespeed999
BronxBomber
Will1313
travel2548
mannatech
Mdiar
Goppy
gamahuche
dimplesing
joeblowe
quackpot
engineer
About Propeller | Frequently Asked Questions | Help
© 2003-2008 Propeller. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
25)
Vote
Like the new greeting cards, let's put a chip in it that "says "I'm a five spot" or "I'm a C note".
Ridiculous waste of time ...
But it would take care of the dishonest bass tards, who would sink to the level of taking advantage of the disadvantaged.
I don't think it's possible for currency to "discriminate." It's an inanimate object, after all.
I suppose braille might not be a bad idea. Some have suggested different size bills.