Taxpayers will have to pay to inspect, correct, produce, transport, and secure all the additional money that will replace the botched notes. Disposing of the bad bills? That’s on taxpayers, too, as are the additional hours spent making up for the mistake by employees of the bureau.
A possible greater cost of these scrip shenanigans is diminished confidence in the greenback. The situation is akin to a magician getting caught unloading a crate of bunnies from the back of his truck. It threatens to injure the aura—the almightiness—of the dollar that enables most people to go about their business without ever stopping to examine the bills in their hand or to contemplate what gives them value. The only thing conferring value on those dollars, of course, is trust in other people’s trust in them, which is both weird and magnificent.
Not weird or magnificent, I'd say.
that's what we're left with these days--
aura.
