This whole rant misses the whole problem. We have a monetary system that has turned pennies into worthless pieces of metal. We are doing the same thing to our dollar right now.
Rather than rant about pennies, he should be ranting about a suicidal monetary system and the politicians that facilitate it.
My two (almost three) year old loves pennies. “Monies!!!” she exclaims every time she sees one. I support our government wasting $70MM a year if it means I get the joy of watching her put pennies she finds in her bank.
We got rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins several decades ago here in Australia and we’re going just fine. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we got rid of the five cent pieces soon.
How much would it cost our economy to rewrite price lists/databases of every retailer in America? How could you pay the .06 cent tax on the dollar in Maryland? How could you sell those souvenir pennies at theme parks?
1) We’re constantly changing our prices. If you ever work in any retail or food service place, you will know that signage is constantly being replaced anyway. Nothing new.
2) We already round up to the penny (or to the dollar on tax returns… in bigger cases to the thousands of dollars). Six cents on the dollar sounds clean and needing of the penny, but it’s actually 6% which ends up as fraction of cents on those $9.99 items we love so much. This would simply be rounding to a different number rather than .01.
We could keep the one cent denomination at no cost if we just eliminated cash altogether; we could make our purchases by simply displaying the mark on our hand or forehead.
This whole rant misses the whole problem. We have a monetary system that has turned pennies into worthless pieces of metal. We are doing the same thing to our dollar right now.
Rather than rant about pennies, he should be ranting about a suicidal monetary system and the politicians that facilitate it.
Do you think it’s realistically possible to stop inflation entirely?
Yes!!! End the Fed! The Federal Reserve System is responsible for all the inflation that exists.
http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historicalinflation.aspx
Notice the chart only goes back to 1914. What happened in 1913? The Fed.
So countries without the Federal Reserve are completely without inflation? Amazing.
Wait… then why hasn’t our dollar become basically worthless in other countries by now? Heyyy, I think you might be a little wrong.
But that date thing. That is quite the coincidence. I mean there wasn’t any inflation before then either, right? Conspiracies all around, it seems.
That is HILARIOUS. I lol’ed.
I don’t know… he sure used a lot of big words…
My two (almost three) year old loves pennies. “Monies!!!” she exclaims every time she sees one. I support our government wasting $70MM a year if it means I get the joy of watching her put pennies she finds in her bank.
p.s. BRING BACK SUSAN B. ANTHONY DOLLARS!!!!
Ah, so then you are one of the sentimentalists of which he speaks :)
Whoa! Who you calling ‘mental’?
I would support that political platform.
“Disks of Suck that fail to facilitate commerce”
nice.
I always knew my two cent was worth more…
Yeah, all my best ideas would’ve been worth 5 – 27 times more if I’d thought of them years earlier.
Why would your ideas have been worth -22 times what they are now? All the math involved in this post and its comments is making me dizzy…
We got rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins several decades ago here in Australia and we’re going just fine. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we got rid of the five cent pieces soon.
How much would it cost our economy to rewrite price lists/databases of every retailer in America? How could you pay the .06 cent tax on the dollar in Maryland? How could you sell those souvenir pennies at theme parks?
1) We’re constantly changing our prices. If you ever work in any retail or food service place, you will know that signage is constantly being replaced anyway. Nothing new.
2) We already round up to the penny (or to the dollar on tax returns… in bigger cases to the thousands of dollars). Six cents on the dollar sounds clean and needing of the penny, but it’s actually 6% which ends up as fraction of cents on those $9.99 items we love so much. This would simply be rounding to a different number rather than .01.
We could keep the one cent denomination at no cost if we just eliminated cash altogether; we could make our purchases by simply displaying the mark on our hand or forehead.
Wow, that’s a slippery slope you’re standing on.
Clearly you already have NERO tattooed to your forehead. Just admit it.
I love this. Great points… and quite passionately put.
I’m throwing away all of my pennies!
Seriously I am ready for the dollar to get better than the Euro but I don’t think it will ever happen.
It is difficult living off of the dollar when I have to convert it into the Euro. If getting rid of pennies would help then let’s do it. :-)