Where's the NEW money?

[whiteguy]

I am fortunate enough to have recently earned a couple large amounts that weren't part of my regular income, $18,000 total. I know there are some that will advise against this, but I got all $18,000 in cash, mostly hundreds, some fiftys, and some twentys. I also bought a "tax cheat" stamp from a website soon after Geithner was installed and have kept my eye out for any new bills, large or small, with his name on them. I haven't seen a single bill yet with Geithner's name on it, and I thought it was because i mostly deal with smaller bills in my normal activities. So ithought for sure when I got $18,000 in cash i mostly hundred dollar bills that I would see at least a few new bills. I went through all of the bills and didn't see a single bill from 2009 or with Geithner's name on it. MY question is, if Obama is printing all of this money we've heard about, why haven't I seen any new bills? My "tax cheat" stamp is gathering dust!!!

[Esox]

Defaced bills are routinely taken out of circulation.

[chevy4x4]

i haven't seen no new one either

[sideview]

The money is in the form of Treasury certificates and for the most part it is just ledger entries within exchanges and bank transfers. It takes time to filter down and the rate it does varies based on the amount of economic activity.

It will be some time before you are likely to see Geithner's signature on a bill. That’s a separate issue based on regional currency demands.

[chris13]

Actually, it's because they're not putting that money into circulation.
Think about this. They've increased the money supply by 120%, but yet inflation is incredibly low. Now I take you back to the late 70s, when the government increased the money supply by a mere 13%, and yet we ended up with terrible inflation.
To offset the inflation, the interest rate jumped to 20% to get all that cash out of the "stream."
The banks got all of that money, but will not loan it out. Once they do, inflation will skyrocket. It's called the "velocity of currency."
So think about this. How high will interest rates have to go to get all that money out of circulation and bring down inflation?

Scary, ain't it?

[brent1165]

Most new money "printed" is in the form of ledgers entries on computers. Since it really isn't printed but created you will not see most of the new money on the street.

[natalie addict]

What follows is a description of the timeline required to get new bills in circulation.

With the change of Presidential administrations, it's time once again for a new currency series. In the not-too-distant future, we should see Series 2006 begin to give way to (what will presumably be called) Series 2009.

But don't get your hopes up too quickly; the transition process takes a while.... For those of you who weren't around for the last time (or who'd just like a refresher ), here's what experience tells us to expect:

Before a new series can go into production, both of the officials who'll sign it (the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Treasurer of the U.S.) have to be installed in office. This time around, the new Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was sworn in on January 26, and the new Treasurer, Rosa Gumataotao Rios, was sworn in on August 6.

Now that we've finally got both signers in office, it'll take the BEP about three months to engrave new master printing plates with the new signatures, copy working plates from them, and get the first print run of the new series through the presses. So we'll probably see the first of the Series 2009 currency appearing in the BEP reports in either October or November.... Most commonly the $1 is the first denomination printed in the new series, but not always. In any case, once the first denomination of Series 2009 comes off the presses, additional denominations will probably appear at a rate of one every month or two.

Then we'll have to wait another month or several for that newly printed currency to make its way into circulation. Some lucky area of the country will likely see Series 2009 within a month after the first production, but unlucky areas will probably have to wait half a year or longer before any significant number of the new notes start to turn up. Thus it's very possible that you won't see a single 2009-dated note during 2009....

Meanwhile, Series 2006 will remain in production for a few months yet, bringing joy to the block-letter-bingo fans who are watching those $1 suffix letters in every month's production report. If I had to guess, I'd estimate that the 2006 $1 block letters will top out somewhere around T, though that could vary by a letter or so either way.

On the upper-denomination notes, we'd expect Series 2009 to carry a serial prefix letter of J. However, if the Kodachrome redesign of the $100 is delayed so long that there are current-design $100's printed with the new signatures, then the pattern set by Series 2006 would seem to require a prefix of J on those $100's, and K on all other 2009 notes.... Hopefully the Kodachrome $100 will be ready to go soon enough that this will not become an issue.

Even after the printing of Series 2009 begins in earnest, there'll probably still be a few trailing print runs of Series 2006 star notes; that's what the BEP typically does in order to get the last bits of life out of its old-series printing plates (since stars are commonly printed in short/irregular runs anyway). It would not be too surprising to see one or two such 2006 runs printed clear into 2011, even. So the good old Cabral-Paulson series will still be with us for quite some time.