We don't have enough paper dollars to cover all the money out there. Most of the money out there is actually just numbers in a computer. If you go to the bank and get cash, they give you the cash then make the number in the computer smaller accordingly.
New bills get printed and stored at the Fed which will ship dollars and coins to banks who will then ship back old beaten up dollars to be destoryed.
Look at it another way:
You get a Credit Card. You rack up $5000 of debt on it. None of the purchases were made with dollars. You make payments each month by check, once again no dollar in the transaction at all. The bank made electronic payments to the companies you bought stuff from. No cash to them either. When the government gives out money, once again it is not done with cash, but checks or direct deposits.
Cash is the old way of doing business.
Originally posted by highdrawI have a couple. I figure if we can say how many we each have at RHP we can get a better understanding of how many more there are. All I know is that apparently the US has much more debt than money printed. Go figure. That would then put the range from $4 dollars to around $14 trillion.
I own a couple.....
