Goofy American Money and State License Plates Run Amok

For some reason, after all of this financial crisis, American money is gaining strength relative to other currencies. Even before the US Treasury started printing money like crazy to fuel the TARP fund, they had started to make incremental changes to the way the currency looks. Apparently this is being done to make the money less susceptible to counterfeiting. But, the mish-mash of changes have made the cash start to look ridiculous. Purple sans serif fonts combined with green traditional old-fashioned numbers with eagles everywhere and red areas blended in. The overall visual look is a mess and the colors and fonts don’t match. In fact, the changed font is very similar to the Canadian currency font. We can’t have that. By the time the U.S. Mint is done making these “improvements”, the money will end up becoming nearly worthless anyway from all this debt our government is in. I can only think that the cosmetic effect of the changes will only hasten the decline.

In the same vein as money, I have been noticing for a while all the new license plate designs that are out there. The designs are often not very aesthetically pleasing, probably because some state official’s child or friend always ends up “winning” the plate design contest. I remember the good old days when each state or province had one license plate design. They were usually plain and simple with unique colors, with simple fonts, and maybe a motto thrown on. Now, you can barely read the state name because the script gets too fancy to be legible. Growing up in Ohio, it was easy to spot a crazy Blue Plate Special, (read Michigan), driver weaving between cars without using turn signals. But now, each state uses plates as a revenue generator and that requires a wider variety of plate designs. I’m sure that there are states with over 20 designs available. I do like the fact that each car owner can display her or his loyalties and affinities by choosing a certain license plate, and many of the plates support worthy causes with the extra fees. But aren’t plates supposed to help us identify from afar the vehicle license plate number and the state it’s from? Now it has become nearly impossible. I feel sorry for the police… but then, maybe I don’t.

Comments

[Chris Morales]

The Canadian currency is more colourful to help identify the different amounts quickly. We need all the help we can get since our currency is worth less than the US $ and we really don't have anything else to brag about right now. Great post BTW :)

[UH2L]

Chris,

Thanks for stopping by and glad you liked the post. How did you find my blog?

Anyway, I like the Canadian idea of using different colors for different denominations. In India, they used to use different sized bills for the denominations.

Trust me, Canada has more to brag about right now than the U.S. does. We are the home of greed and the financial crisis. At least we have the PR strength of Obama.

[Patrick]

Let's face it, paper notes of different sizes and colors makes too much sense and borders on un-American. The U.S. Dollar should stay green forever. As for the proliferation of plate designs, I am with you but did you see my post where you can have special green plates if you drive something that gets over 40 mpg...
Great post Atul!