Money Machine

British inflation beater

As the printers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing know only too well, one thing more inflation means is more paper money in circulation. To keep up with demand, the bureau last year worked three shifts a day, six days a week, cranking out 4 billion pieces of paper currency. With demand expected to grow at a rate of 5% annually even in the unlikely event that inflation falls to zero, the Government has gone shopping for ways to increase the productivity of its printing operation.

The best solution seems to be to phase out the bureau's old and cumbersome presses, which can print 8,000 32-bill sheets per hr. but on only one side of a sheet at a time. After the ink dries, the sheets have to be flipped over and run through the presses all over again. Instead, the bureau would prefer a press that can print on both sides at once, thereby effectively doubling output.

Paper currency the world over is printed by a process known as intaglio, which forces the ink directly into the paper under heavy pressure and thereby makes counterfeiting difficult. This gives the currency a texture and feel that ordinary presses cannot easily duplicate. Unfortunately, no printing-press manufacturer in the U.S. makes an intaglio press of the sort the bureau wants, so it has turned to Britain, a nation with enormous experience in printing inflated currency, to custom-design a press for the job.

Last month the bureau awarded a $225,000 feasibility study of the task to the venerable Bristol manufacturing firm of Masson Scott Thrissell Engineering Ltd. If a design can be perfected, the bureau hopes to begin phasing in as many as seven of the new presses, at a cost of $3 million each, as soon as 1983. That could add $21 million to the deficit side of the U.S. balance of payments, stimulate inflation--and, well, boost America's need for British presses. -

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