Mitch Hedberg Quotes
I miss the $2 bill, 'cause I can break a two. $20, no. $10, no. $5, maybe, $2? Oh yeah. What do you need, a one and another one?
Hedberg, Mitch. Do You Believe in Gosh?. Comedy Central Records, 2008.
At the time, a bank note—paper money issued be a private bank—was not backed by any gold or silver and was not insured bym the government. A bank could print as much as they wanted, so it was always worth less as the further you were from the particular issuing bank, the less you could get your bank note, because no one knew whether or not the issuing bank would redeem the note or even be in existence. So every private bank note had diminished value for the public. However, carrying gold and silver around and making change for precious metals was difficult and often impractical. So people used banknotes. The same thing happens with credit cards today. The merchant has to pay a fee to the credit card company and the bank and therefore charges us more for whatever we buy. But most consumers and merchants are willing to pay the difference to obtain the convenience of the credit card,
Note the candor with which the Congress provided the truth to Americans about the financial situation of the nation. Despite the national crises and emergency of the war, the Congress told the truth and did not treat the citizens as children from whom bad news must be withheld. At the time, each state and many individual banks had their own paper currency, these could be easily counterfeited and were done so by the British to collapse the American economy. Because of this early traumatic experience with paper money, the United States did not use it for another 70 years.
America had a difficult early history with money—especially paper money which had been issued by private banks but were trusted by few. Paper money had for the first time had been issued by the Federal Government during the Civil War. Many saw it as a wartime measure but not a good practice to follow. Garfield, along with many other leaders thought that it was not constitutional for Congress to issue paper money. Others prevailed as the need for a lighter and more practical form of currency was necessitated by a growing economy. Coins for large transactions between businesses especially was very awkward when chests of coins had to be delivered to pay for cattle, produce or manufactured goods at the wholesale level.
During the Civil War, the U. S. Government printed paper money (specie) for the first time. 20 years afterward, the paper money was still controversial.
Mitchell Lee Hedberg was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and deadpan delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes mixed with absurd elements and non sequiturs.
