Roughly two-thirds of all $100 bills are living outside of the U.S and are the choice currency in places where there is distrust for the government and the money it prints, The Consumerist reported on Friday.
The currency people want the most in foreign counties is $100s and the U.S. has been printing more of the bills to satisfy the demand. The number of $100 bills in circulation has grown much faster than the number of bills in small sizes over the past 20 years. More than half a trillion dollars' worth of $100 bills are in countries besides the U.S.
But the demand for American money outside of the U.S is not necessarily a bad thing. When foreigners hold dollars, they are essentially giving the U.S. government a loan without interest and making it a little bit of money. It's also a sign that people in the rest of the world still see the United States as one of the more stable economies if they're turning to the currency in times of crisis, according to Planet Money.
Still, others are advocating for the eradication of the bill altogether. Richard Strattor, a former drug smuggler, benefited from the difficulty of tracking $100. In one instance, Stratton brought 15,000 pounds of hashish into the U.S. He had to figure out a way to get all the cash into his bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, and $100 bills made the job easier and less likely to be tracked. Human traffickers, weapons dealers and other criminals enjoy using the bills as well.
Ken Rogoff, a Harvard University economist, said $100 help criminals and would like to see the extinction of the bills.
"Think about countries like Mexico, Colombia, where they're really at war with the drug money, where the United States is not only buying the drugs but it's providing this resource that very much helps the drug dealers," Rogoff told NPR.
