This "Death To Pennies" video is well-crafted, though the arguments it presents are nothing new. The same viewpoint was presented in depth in text form in a New Yorker piece ("Penny Dreadful") that I bookmarked way back in 2008.
The video is a bit misleading, btw, when it implies that half-penny coins were and are worthless. Those of you who have any please feel free to send them to me.Luhrman, who had previously owned a company that refined gold and silver, devised a method of rapidly separating pre-1982 pennies from more recent ones, which are ninety-seven and a half per cent zinc, a less valuable commodity. His new company, Jackson Metals, bought truckloads of pennies from the Federal Reserve, turned the copper ones into ingots...
There are problems, though. One is that many people are quite attached to one-cent coins. Another is that some people fear that merchants in a penny-free economy, when making change on cash purchases, might be more inclined to round up than to round down, thus penalizing consumers. A third is that eliminating pennies would increase our reliance on nickels, which now cost almost ten cents to manufacture and so generate even more negative seigniorage, per coin, than pennies do...
One of the biggest challenges of coin design is portraying realistic-looking three-dimensional facial features on a metal surface that is nearly flat. This difficulty explains why the faces on coins are almost always shown in profile: doing so keeps noses recognizable. The 2006 nickel, which features a likeness of Jefferson and was sculpted by Menna’s former colleague Donna Weaver, is the first circulating U.S. coin to have a forward-facing portrait; it is considered by coin aficionados to be an engraving tour de force....
The bill’s opponents in real life also included Lincoln-loving people from Illinois, along with people who hold “penny drives” for charity, people who would prefer that everything remain the way it is now, and, of course, Americans for Common Cents...
In 1940, an average one-pound loaf of bread sold for eight cents... a penny in those days bought enough bread to make a good-sized sandwich. These days, a penny doesn’t buy much more than a bit of crust...
i'm a penny hunter, have been my whole life.
ReplyDeleteNothing better then getting handed a bunch of change with a random wheat penny in the pile.
http://coins.about.com/od/uscoins/tp/errorvarieties.htm
like to smash pennies at tourist traps?
http://www.pennycollector.com/AreaList.aspx
I have long said that pennies only have one use -- not getting more pennies.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, it said that the hennypenny was worth more than today's dime when it was retired...
ReplyDeleteThe (temporary) answer would be to eliminate the cents position altogether, i.e., $2.2
ReplyDeleteWe could get by nicely with only three coins- a dime, a half and a $2. We did fine in the forties and fifties when a penny was worth about what a dime is today.
The main point against it is fractional sales taxes, but fraction amounts of 0-4 would be rounded down and 5-9 would be rounded up.
I suppose we could always bring back the old three cent piece...
ReplyDeleteAustralia got rid of their one and two cent coins years ago. It was quite literally, a non-event. At the check out they round up or down and return change in five cent units. People got used to it and accepted it almost overnight. I never heard a complaint or read a letter to the editor whingeing about the loss of one or two cent coins.
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