AM+A

In South Korea, the Seoul Design Market, published Customized Currency:
http://seouldesignmarket.com/news?sect=1&page=1&keyword=&order=1&cat=1&idx=734

I was interviewed by reporters for ABC’s “Evening News with Diane Sawyer” for possible broadcast.

The full proposal appears below.

iBucks: Steve Jobs Saves the USA, and So can You! Using the USA’s Own Money to Reduce the Deficit with Collectible Currency

Mr. Aaron Marcus, President
Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A)

Version of 19 October 2011
May be reprinted in whole or edited form, with citation.

The USA is  in a fiscal quandary and facing default. The deficit is soaring. US government tax revenue is only $2.2 billion per year (FY2010), but Federal spending is $3.5 billion (FY2010). The FY 2010 deficit ending in September 2011 was $1.3 trillion. Some estimates predict the accumulated deficit in ten years will be $14 trillion. Republicans have proposed a  $100 billion cut in spending. President Obama proposed to freeze government spending and save $400 billion over the next five years. Recent budget proposals propose to save $1.1 trillion over the next ten years. Even these proposals primarily concern discretionary funding, which accounts for only 20% of the budget; they don’t touch the majority 60% of Medicare, Social Security, and military expenses. The Chinese are beginning to shy away from supporting our financial irresponsibility. NPR reported that $1b in gold coins sits in the US Mint that no one wants, while Congress debates how to reduce the deficit…. Houston, we have a problem…

There is a simple solution that significantly can increase revenues and help reduce the deficit.

The USA’s Treasury could decide tomorrow to begin sponsoring the printing of the image of anyone on the front of the US one-dollar bill, and any corporate or organizational logo on the back… provided that any sponsor pay 100 million dollars for the privilege of this public-relations opportunity and/or ego trip. Each set of bills could be a collectible “limited edition” of 100,000 bills per set. The sponsor of each image could receive 10,000 bills. The US Treasury could distribute the remaining 90,000 bill randomly to US taxpayers with incomes at or less than $90,000. This collectible currency might even grow in value over the years, depending on who’s on the front, and what’s on the back. In a way, each of these special dollars would have $1,000 already invested in each of them.

This new design might allow USA currency to show the first non-Caucasians, the second occasion of a woman (Martha Washington was the first in the nineteenth century), the children or grandchildren of doting sponsors, or their spouses. Even people and companies/organizations outside the US could take part.

Steve Jobs and the Apple symbol might be a good place to start.

As many people well know, the USA’s currency has been undergoing graphic re-design, with the image of past presidents appearing on the left, rather than centered on the bill (a subtle political message?), with more colors, new typography, and new anti-counterfeiting techniques. The one-dollar bill is the remaining holdout in this campaign. Now is the perfect time to make this historic change in “outside funding” of the currency.

There are about three billion one-dollar bills in circulation, the most of any denomination, and they last about 21 months in circulation. That means, if the collectible currency first edition “sold out” to only 500 people images and 500 symbols/logos, the US government would raise $100 billion dollars over a two-year period. Two years later, it would be time to issue a new edition. In seven cycles, the US could raise $700 billion, or about half the current US deficit of approximately $1.3 trillion in September 2011. There are more than 400 billionaires in the USA, and Fortune 500 corporations are sitting on some of the largest cash reserves in their history. It is always challenging to tax the wealthiest individuals and companies. This simple suggestion gives sponsors a tangible benefit in return for their funds: something personal, valuable, concrete, enjoyable, and noteworthy. Worldwide interest in this project might even produce ten times as many sponsors for perhaps smaller editions that might have more value later as collectibles and produce ten times the immediate revenue.

Think about it. Wouldn’t our wealthiest individuals and corporations, or their fund-raising supporters, donate funds for the worthy cause of reducing the national deficit? Wouldn’t the wealthiest business leaders, politicians, media stars, or their public relations agencies, get behind this “Save the Nation” effort  through a Collectible Currency movement? Just one example: Stephen Colbert the Comedy Central television news announcer might mobilize each of his 1.3 million Colbert Nation “citizens” to donate $100 to come up with the cash to immortalize his face on the national currency, especially now that his portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery. In his typically modest way, Stephen Colbert could announce the “Stephen Colbert Saves the USA, and So Can You” initiative.

A more likely subject now would be all those who would like to pay tribute to Steve Jobs and Apple Computer.

The possibilities are numerous. The potential fund-raising capability is enormous. Remember: if the USA doesn’t do it, some other nation might, and use the USA’s very own icons to increase their treasuries.

Write to Apple Computer, Warren Buffett,  the President,  the US Treasury Department. Write to  Congressional leaders. The popular movements in the US currently and around the world show the power of people to accomplish great change. In this case, the USA’s budget and, in the end, all of the citizens of the USA could be the immediate beneficiaries.

Author Contact Data:

Mr. Aaron Marcus, President
Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A)
1196 Euclid Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94708-1640, USA
Tel: +1-510-601-0994, Fax: +1-510-527-1994
E-mail: “Marcus, Aaron” <Aaron.Marcus@AMandA.com>
Web: www.AMandA.com

Note: This is a unique current essay. Earlier related versions of Collectible Currency and Customized Currency ideas have been published on the American Institute of Graphic Arts Website, the Bay Citizens Website, on YouTube, in the San Jose Mercury News,  in the Financial Times, in the Omaha World-Herald, and in the South Korean Korean Design Market Website of September 2010. An ABC News crew has interviewed Aaron Marcus about his earlier proposal, Customized Currency. Some of the images below have never been published.

Figures: Sample one-dollar bills with images of Steve Jobs and the Apple symbol, President Obama, Warren Buffet, Lily Marcus (grand-daugher of Aaron Marcus), Aaron Marcus, and the AM+A corporate logo. (All Figures are copyright free and may be reprinted with the permission of the author.)

Author Bio: Aaron Marcus is President of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A), Berkeley, California, a firm that designs user-interfaces for products and services. He is a graphic designer, a Fellow of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and a member of the CHI Academy. He can be reached at aaron.marcus@amanda.com.

Author Credentials:
Aaron Marcus was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1943; attended Princeton (physics) and Yale (graphic design) Universities, and has taught at Princeton, Yale, University of California/Berkeley, Hebrew University/Jerusalem, and Bezalel Academy of Art and Design/Jerusalem. He has won design awards from the New York Type Directors Club, exhibited his work at the American Institute of Graphic Arts, written/co-written eight books and more than 300 articles, including an article in The New Republic analyzing the US fifty-cent coin honoring the US landing on the moon. He was the world’s first graphic designer to work full-time with computer graphics. His artwork is owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey.