Wouldn't this be an excellent way for the government to curb inflation and make the US Dollar go up!?

Question

Information you should know before I start:

"Inflation can be thought of as a decrease in the value of the unit of currency." - Wikipedia

Currency decreases in value when there is a lot of money "in the people's hands"

So here we go:

In the last several years, the US government has given out several different forms of US Currency. These forms of currency I am talking about are the State Quarters and Susan B Anthony Dollars.

People save both of these forms of US currency. I have never even seen people spend Susan B Anthony dollars. Why is the government giving its people currency that they aren't going to spend?

If the US government were to stop giving out these forms of currency, would the people spend more?

...or would this have very little affect, since its only quarters and dollars?

Answer 1

Very little affect. The best way known to man to curb inflation is to constrict the money supply (which is NOT the amount being printed).

Answer 2

Obviously the best way to reduce the money supply is to tax the money out of peoples hands, and yes you have to tax the rich because nobody else has any money.

Answer 3

The government doesn't 'give out' currency to anyone.  The Federal Reserve sets reserve ratio requirements for banks and lends them money.  Which they then accordingly lend out to businesses that pay people with new jobs.

If anything creating a collectible form of currency can just be viewed as a minor form of incentive for people to save.  The coin thing with are government is just idiocy.  They've tried several times now to replace the dollar bill with a coin but don't stick to the plan when people start saving them.  In Canada nobody spent the dollar coins when they first came out either, but the government kept retiring the bills and issuing coins.