“The penny is worth less than any other currency.”
Uh, yeah. It should warm your heart to know this gem comes from our very own Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Don’t get me wrong, pennies irritate me, but if we were going to eliminate them because they’re worth less than everything else, well, you get my point. Still, last time I checked, 100 of the little irritants still added up to a whole dollar. I suppose the issue is you really can’t get anything for the penny. You do need a bunch of them to matter.
One good argument for its banishment–the U.S. Mint estimated that by the end of last year it began to cost more than its actual worth to produce the penny. Sad.
One good use–Snoopy my cat loves to play with the penny jar. You know, the jar that needs to get filled up with pennies so you can get a dollar. Or two. In the meantime, It’s one of the less expensive cat toys in the house.
Can’t they find some other material to manufacture pennies instead of getting rid of them all together? Pennies are annoying. However, it will give places like grocery stores and gas stations the opportunity to charge to the nearest nickel…and they are not going to round down. It might not seem like much…adding 3 cents a gallon or 2 cents for bread. However, it does add up quickly, which creates even more of a loss of funds to the consumer.
Two of my cats love to play with beer bottle caps. Convenient, since ther always seems to be a lot of them in my house.
I am one of those people who will pick a penny up from the floor. I do not like having to pay a bill of $2.02 with a $20 bill.
This is what happens when currency is not backed by anything. The only reason it is still being used is because the public believes it holds value when in reality, it’s worthless.
Hutsutraw, ANYTHING is worth only the value people give it, including whatever might supposedly “back” a currency. Nothing has “inherent” value independent of the market for it. You say the currency is worthless: the market says it has value. Guess who’s right?
For the record, the “penny” is an English denomination. In America, we have “cents”, not “pennies”.
With the rising price of copper, the mint switched from copper to copper-coated zinc in 1982.
While we’re griping, how about the ages old practice of oil companies charging gasoline “2.99.9” or “two ninety-nine and nine-tenths of a cent” per gallon. Why the hell not just make it simple, round numbers? Let’m round it up a tenth of a cent. Jeez. Hello? Or are we too resistant to common sense change? If pennies are obsolete, why not eliminate them? Or will the bureaucrats not be able to make it happen without a billion dollar expenditure? Hmmm. Probably not.
It would be wonderful if something in our horrendous society could be simplified…
I’ll pick up ANYTHING that says “In God we trust” off the floor. If it’s a penny, I say it once to myself. If it’s a dime, I say it ten times. If it’s a quarter….well…..
My Dad used to tell me not to poo-poo pennies. He said “You can’t make a dollar without a penny”.
Call me sentimental.
Dave J,
Who runs the market? …the people do. You agree with me and you don’t even realize it.
Here are two relevant articles that I hope you read:
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2854
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=3251.1657.91.0
Like the old adage goes: An ounce of Gold back in the early 1900’s will buy a nice suit, shoes, tie, and a belt. Today an ounce of gold will buy a nice suit, shoes, tie, and a belt.
The penny has been rising in cost and falling in value because the Fed pumps so much money conjured out of thin air into the economy that the currency’s value is diminished. The penny was made of copper until 1982, and switched to zinc. Now zinc is $1.17 per pound (a pennyweight is 1/100th of a pound)zinc is less dense than copper so 100 is less than a pound. Copper by the way is close to $4.00/Lb. so a real, pre 1983 penny is worth about 4 cents. This devaluation is not new. The Romans devalued the one- ounce gold soveriegn by calling the coins back to make commemerative coins which were diluted, or made smaller, or finally made of copper. We will eventually go the way of Rome if we don’t wake up. Think it can’t happen here? I saw a guy buy lunch for four in Zimbabwe. The tab was $600,000 ZD. The Zimbabwe dollar was once on par with the modern Peso, about 10 to the dollar. When you crank up the printing press to pay for what you can’t afford, this is what happens.