Why are we shuffling these worthless bits of metal around? I’m sure it’s to enrich some medium size companies in a few important Congressional districts.
> If the price ends in a one, two, six, or seven it gets rounded down to 0 or 5; and rounded up if it ends in three, four, eight or nine.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-penny-withdrawal-all...
Because the Left would be galvanized by a million blog posts and academic papers (basically the same thing these days), arguing that it's racist because people of color are more likely to be underbanked and use cash. Yes I realize that's nonsense, but it wouldn't matter.
Because the Right would probably be galvanized too, by complaints that the government was meddling too much in the familiar and somehow ripping people off. Yes I realize that's nonsense, but it wouldn't matter.
It's so hard to make anything happen in U.S. politics today... eliminating pennies, nickels, and dimes wouldn't even make my Top-10,000 list of priorities.
It would be about inflation. Just as only Nixon could go to China, it's probably only Republican initiative that can nix the penny--they could brand it as thriftiness.
Unfortunately, zinc is mined in red states and districts [1]. A President would have to lead the charge.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_mining_in_the_United_Stat...
It's quite easy to pass laws that no one cares about. Congress passed a law modernizing duck hunting permits. Maine was very happy.
I'd argue politics in this country is angry and seems to lack respect for opposing political stances. I found the parent's post perfectly adequate
This is true for issues with national currency. Pennies aren't in this category. Instead, it's more subject to the interest-group problem [1].
The only reason it wasn't already abolished is lobbying by Zinc producers.
It's the zinc lobby [1]. Maybe the solution is to mint a zinc quarter?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Common_Cents
(Even gunmetal which used to be used instead of steel is listed as only 2-4% zinc)
coinnews.net/2022/01/18/penny-costs-2-1-cents-to-make-in-2021-nickel-costs-8-52-cents-us-mint-realizes-381-2m-in-seigniorage/
"Two Scotsmen fighting over a penny."
cost to manufacture > fiat value of coin > cost of materials
It's worth keeping cash around.
Not that worthless coins are anywhere near the top of the list of bad and wasteful policies. But if we can’t even solve the obvious low-hanging fruit, we’re not solving those bigger problems either.
It seems like saying if you won’t bother bending over to pick up a penny, how can anyone expect you to bend over and pick up a one hundred dollar bill - one is worth the effort and one isn’t. People regularly make efforts and propose laws to solve bigger issues - the issue isn’t effort as much as adversarial disagreement.
It’s also neither here nor there - an implication that not solving a really, really small problem says anything about an ability or desire to solve bigger problems is clearly incorrect.
Keep the 50 cent and $1 pieces though. And $2 bills. I LOVE handing those to people who don't realize they are real.
Didn't realize quite how uncommon they were until I tipped someone a couple of them and they angrily asked me for 'real money'!
I don't know why the US is uniquely(?) in this stasis around the denomination of money in circulation. Of course, at this point, it's pretty academic.
Pennies should have been gone decades ago. And it's still hit or miss to use anything above a $20 especially in a smaller store.
This is also true of pennies.
It's not corruption. It's what I'll call the interest-group problem.
Pennies are an issue a few people care deeply about and most people don't. It's electorally thrifty to accomodate those few, and so electeds do. It's an easy win, particularly in a partisan environment that punishes consensus building as betrayal of one's base.
Put another way, keeping the penny won't piss anyone off enough to get one primaried. Killing the penny might.
With the currency pegged to a standard, a penny would actually have more value, than it does now.
I disagree on your mortgage point. The whole reason for rebasing to a standard, is to avoid those issues. Where I think the rub is for most people, is they’d have to disavow themselves of the notion, that a property should go up in value.
To put it another way, if gold was money, there wouldn't be enough new money every year to buy all the stuff we come up in a year.
By decreeing gold to be money and money to be gold, we would be interfering with the market in a major way: artificially giving the value of gold a massive boost and cutting the value of all other things.
That's literally deflation.
I already get annual pay cuts thanks to inflation.