And we aren't those countries.

Not sure what your point is. "Concepts that have been proven in other countries are irrelevant here"? Or just "We have nothing to learn from what others have done and should start every idea from scratch"?

Your snarky summaries are actually extremely close to the sentiment I hear a lot.

A shocking amount of "political" thinking in the us that I've been involved with STARTS with "we're the best at everything" and then explores things to do from there

We collectively have this fragile ego that would rather feel tough and "self made" rather than admit any kind of deficit compared to others, even at the expense of our own growth. It reminds me of a ceo I used to work for that I flippantly described as happier to feel like a big fish in a small pond than to put his ego to the side in exchange for the ability to improve and expand the business.

Maybe we should try, as a nation, to stop being so intensely stupid and close minded.

Presumably we could come up with a reformulated nickel that is much less costly to produce. It hasn't been changed outside of war issues in a long time.

The reformulated penny didn't take too long to be accepted. A new nickel would probably be accepted well too.

> The reformulated penny didn't take too long to be accepted. A new nickel would probably be accepted well too.

Part of the problem is with how vending machines detect valid currency

Story about when the dollar coin was updated https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2000/06/13/vending-chan...

Pennies aren't accepted by vending machines generally.

I can't imagine nickel fraud for snacks and beverages is particularly lucrative.

The issue isn't a much fraud for nickels as it would be failure to accept the coin, and just taking your money.