I have wasted money on some good or service, but I have never wasted money on money...Confused? Read this and you won't be confused but will be angry...

Wasting money on money. Who gets to say that? Well, some politicians and a bureaucratic structure that probably knew this was a bad idea but did not act, gets that distinction. I guess it is a stupid question to ask if anyone lost a job/election over this. Nice example of unintended consequences that really could have been avoided by resisting someone's pet project or idea.  Gee Whiz--please be better stewards of the peoples money...

Got this from Greg Mankiw:

""On today's Planet Money, we visit an underground vault that's full of money nobody wants.


The money — bags and bags of dollar coins — is the result of a 2005 law that requires the U.S. Mint to print a series of coins bearing the likeness of each U.S. president.

The problem is, people don't really like dollar coins. And there aren't enough people who are fired up about, say, Rutherford B. Hayes, to make much of a difference.

So more than 1 billion dollar coins are now sitting, unwanted, in Federal Reserve vaults around the country. By the time the program wraps up in 2016, the Fed will be sitting on 2 billion unwanted coins, according to the Fed's own estimates.

The total cost to manufacture those unwanted coins: $600 million.""