Whether to take a small loss or consent to the devaluation of the US dollar

& (verbiage overflow) ⋅ ⋅ Sat 10 September 2011 ⋅ RSS ⋅ Search ⋅ Subscribe

I have a Swedish 1 krona coin that was passed to me in New York as a US quarter the other day.

Since it can't easily be exchanged for its current value (about 15¢) it represents a collective devaluation of the US economy by the full 25¢ value of a quarter coin.

The law prohibits me from passing the coin back into circulation, which means taking the whole 25¢ loss, myself. The alternative is to allow the devaluation to remain in effect by quietly and illegally passing the quarter along — perhaps as part of a tip, where the recipient is in the best position to launder the coin again quickly.

All articles

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  379. Two funerary practices and the end of a good story
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  389. Tinker Tailor remake
  390. Automated upward pricing spiral
  391. Break-in?
  392. Telephantasmia, one of the great gifts of Chinese culture
  393. September 11th sensations
  394. Whether to take a small loss or consent to the devaluation of the US dollar
  395. City checkpoint chaos
  396. Continuing opportunity for techno-elitism
  397. A worry of Donald Knuth's
  398. An opinion of TeX
  399. Advice on teaching English in China if you lack a TEFL degree
  400. "The Highline" Park
  401. Plutarch on the sensitivity and versatility of the human mind
  402. Plutarch's praise of the "fox" temperament
  403. Unagi hitsumabushi 鰻櫃まぶし
  404. My mother and me, at work on the Early China index, 20110526
  405. juémíngzǐ 決明子 tisane
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  410. Dr. Johnson on the "fox" temperament
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  414. Boris Veytsman's review of Kottwitz, LaTeX Beginner's Guide
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  416. Dr. Johnson on keeping a diary
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  418. Worrying about inadequate memory to hold program and debugger (1973)
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  420. The Internet and scripting languages
  421. Newton's own suffering at math
  422. Fresh turmeric-root tea
  423. Appreciation of awk
  424. "Computer Science, Modern Languages Most Gender-Polarized Majors"
  425. Food issues during the Siege of Leningrad
  426. Starting a blog