[nabs-l] money rights

Arielle Silverman arielle71 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 21 23:02:04 UTC 2008


Hi  all,

At the risk of igniting another fiery debate about the accessible
currency issue, which to an extent has already been decided for us, I
just want  to make a couple of technical points about how blind
people handle money. First of all, I have never heard of an ATM giving
anything but $20 bills. I suppose it's possible, but it's never
happened to me or to any other blind people I know. Has it ever
happened to any of you? Since I think I can pretty safely assume the
money I get from an ATM is all in $20 bills, I use ATM's independently
as long as they're accessible. Also, when I get money in a store I am
in the habit of quickly asking which bill is which. I ask, which just
takes a few  seconds and then I fold the money, put it away and don't
worry about it. It would seem like blind people would be cheated a lot
more than they actually are by cashiers when they give change. I've
been handling money since I was a preteen and have never been cheated,
and I have  never heard of any other blind people being cheated
either. Again, if there were a lot of blind people being cheated I
would be more supportive of moving forward on changing the currency to
make it accessible, but since this problem seems so rare I  feel like
it's just not a huge priority--compared to other issues like the low
Braille literacy rate.

The only reason I would actively promote making currency accessible is
because this might make it easier for blind people to get jobs as
cashiers and bank tellers. But even then, I'd imagine that
inaccessible cashier or bank equipment might present an additional
barrier to blind people getting those jobs.

The bottom line, though, is if the court has already ruled that the
money must be changed, we as blind consumers need to be actively
involved in the process of developing a currency that is truly
accessible and not cost-prohibitive to make.

Cheers
Arielle

On 11/22/08, Peter Donahue <pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Good afternoon everyone,
>
>     All the while performing financial transactions successfully with our
> currency as it now is. What happened to the need to first ensure more of us
> have paying jobs so we have money to spend before worrying about how paper
> bills can be distinguished from one/another. This is a classic case of
> "Putting the cart before the horse."
>
> Peter Donahue
>
> From: "brianna snyder" <briannasnyder90 at gmail.com>
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:54 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] money rights
>
>
> I agree with you, Priscilla. It would be best if we didn't have to rely on
> others about things having to do with money.
>
> Brianna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Beth" <thebluesisloose at gmail.com>
> To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] money rights
>
>
>> Interesting stuff there, Prescilla.  I agree with you.
>> Beth
>>
>> On 11/20/08, priscilla <priscillagarces1987 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> hey all listers,
>>> How are you all doing.
>>> I was googling ways of reading credit cards, and I came across this
>>> interesting article on making accessible currency.
>>> It appears that bush was the one giving us problems because he is found
>>> to
>>> have appealed the jurisdiction of making it accessible providing the
>>> argument that states that we shouldn't change the currency since we have
>>> accessible ways of identifying money through the use of electronic
>>> gadgets.
>>> I really think this is very unfair first of all because not all of us can
>>> afford spending hundreds of dollars on such device.
>>> Second of all, I am a college student who lives independently at a dorm
>>> and
>>> everyone is not always there when I need to identify money so whenever I
>>> go
>>> to the ATM's, I have to go with a friend to verify if the money I am
>>> getting
>>> is a 20 and fold it along ways.
>>> I have methods of folding money but trust me, they are not always
>>> reliable
>>> and are not accurate because you still have to rely on someone to tell
>>> you
>>> what it is if you forget the denomination.
>>>
>>> I am very frustrated about this because like everyone else, I want to be
>>> able to handle money myself and not trust other total stranger because
>>> when
>>> it comes to money, I have some doubts about certain people these days.
>>> We hear a lot of fraud going on, even in the news and its happening a
>>> whole
>>> lot in food places.
>>> beware of restaurants because some people can be very dishonest and steel
>>> from you especially change.
>>>
>>> this is just my personal thoughts and opinions.
>>> anyhow, the following link is :
>>> http://www.wkms.org/programming/fuhrmann.htm
>>>
>>> thank you very much.
>>>
>>> Priscilla
>>>
>>> Ps. I really hope president Obama can really change this since president
>>> bush was greedy enough to appeal the case.
>>> Please reply on the list with any opinions of the article.
>>> .
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