Now I’m Obsessed with Coin Shortage
After doing a little more research, it appears that the minted coin to population ratio is not abnormally low in Argentina, so why the coin shortage?
(I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I’ll be looking into this more in the future!)
This bears repeating as I wasn’t sure I made it clear on my last post on the subject: “Why is the coin shortage such a big issue?” Because YOU CANNOT RIDE THE BUS WITHOUT COINS. Literally. Period. There is no way to use a bill to ride the bus. They will boot you off if you don’t have change.
As a result, we are often faced with a dilemma when we are with Ian because we either have too many people for a single cab ride (since only four can ride in a cab) or we don’t have enough change for all five of us to ride the bus!! (That would be 4.50 pesos total for all five of us to travel the equivalent of one zone.)
You probably wonder why they don’t institute some sort of bus pass system that would bypass change altogether (such as the money cards they have for the subway in Baires)? Well, here in Good Air, there are about a billion separate city bus lines that are privately owned (I believe they receive some sort of government subsidy), so instituting a centralized pass system is rather complicated–but I believe they are supposed to be working on it.
Yes, that means that our Gollum-like coin hoarding has begun in earnest, as we croon over our coins, “my precious!”
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