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money



  • Counterfeiting for Freedom in Colonial America

    by Zachary Dorner

    A lively trade in "coining," the creation of false Spanish coins, reflected both the multinational colonization of North America and the hardships created by a constricted money supply in the British colonies. Though illegal, "bad money" made commerce and taxpaying possible for many colonials.



  • Could a New Public Digital Dollar Enhance Democracy?

    by Jeffrey Sklansky

    The debate over the digital dollar is ultimately about whether the production of money should be a business run for private profit or a resource owned and operated by the public.



  • A Harriet Tubman $20? That’s Just the Beginning

    by Ellen Feingold

    The last hundred years have featured a stable roster of elite portraits on American banknotes. The longer history of paper currency, however, is more flexible and diverse, and should encourage creativity in using money to tell the nation's stories. 


  • Billionaires and American Politics

    by Lawrence Wittner

    Big money politics in America has always existed, but the influence of billionaires has become increasingly influential in recent years.



  • NC law ends pay raises for K-12 teachers with master's degrees

    A master’s degree in teaching costs about $6,400 a semester for a full-time North Carolina resident attending East Carolina University’s College of Education, meaning a four-semester program would cost about $26,000. But, according to the North Carolina state legislature, that doesn’t mean it’s worth anything.In the most recent state budget passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor last week, North Carolina lawmakers eliminated a provision – which exists in many states – that granted automatic pay raises to public school teachers who completed master’s degrees. It was one of several changes the budget made to teacher compensation and working conditions, including ending teacher tenure, but it is the one likely to have the largest impact on the state’s higher education institutions.The elimination of the benefit could have a significant effect on enrollment in education schools at North Carolina colleges and universities. And since many of those programs generate net revenues for the institutions, enrollment declines could affect their bottom lines....



  • Richard G. Doty, money expert and Smithsonian curator, dies at 71

    Richard G. Doty, a scholar of money who helped humanize coins and currency by showing how the objects might reflect the culture, values and history of a society, died June 2 at the Powhatan Nursing Home in Falls Church. He was 71.The cause was complications from lymphoma, said his wife, Cindi Roden.At the time of his death, Dr. Doty was the senior numismatic curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. “He was really a historian, more than a numismatic,” said Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “He interpreted the coins, and that made him very special.”...



  • Rare 1913 Liberty Head nickel to fetch millions at auction

    RICHMOND, Va. — A humble 5-cent coin with a storied past is headed to auction and bidding expected to top $2 million a century after it was mysteriously minted.The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five known to exist, but it’s the coin’s back story that adds to its cachet: It was surreptitiously and illegally cast, discovered in a car wreck that killed its owner, declared a fake, forgotten in a closet for decades and then found to be the real deal.It all adds up to an expected sale of $2.5 million or more when it goes on the auction block April 25 in suburban Chicago....