Abolish the (paper) dollar

This is where you get to see the radical side of me. I want to abolish the dollar. Really. Shut down the printing presses and smash the engraving plates. You know the old adage about spending money to make money? We're spending too much money to make money, and it's time we stopped.

A dollar bill wears out in about 18 months, and at a production cost of approximately four cents per bill, it's not exactly a cheap replacement. Over the course of 10 years, it costs us 27 cents to keep a dollar bill circulating. Think about that. A full quarter of its value is blown in production and reproduction.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland released a paper in 2004 that indicated an annual savings of $450-500 million by switching to one dollar coins. Pardon the pun, but in the bigger picture, that's not small change. On the high end, not adjusting for inflation, that's $5 billion every ten years.

And don't worry. The girls at the strip clubs like Heartbreakers and On the Border will adjust.