NationStates Jolt Archive

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1182209.php/Congressman_introduces_anti-penny_bill

As you can see here, the cost of a penny is outweighing the actual value of it. Leave it up to the democrats to try and spin this into an issue of tradition and how it will hurt the poor. How the fuck is it going to hurt the poor?! They're poor no matter what you do, why waste valuable resources on an obselete currency? It will cost 1.23cents by next year to make a penny. That's .23% more then the penny's worth!

My suggestion? Use a matiral that is dirt cheap but keep a one cent currency, infact, replace all coins with this matireal. The matter? Plastic. You know that plastic they make 2 liter bottles out of? That stuff.

Cause they can't figure out what to do with it. They melt it down and it just because a blob, it doesn't breakdown for thousands of years. Therfore, we need to make use of this nearly immortal substance. My suggestion is replace our coins with this currency. This will not only grant a use for this otherwise pollutive substance, but actually be benneficary to me and you, because the lightweight of the plastic will make carrying change a breeze, and it's not like our economy would change, and if it did, it'd be for the better. Cause this cheapass substance means we could afford tax cuts!

But I doubt the goverment will do that. Apparently the democrats and the dem-lites (oh sorry. "Republicans".) alike want to destroy our enviorment, rape our economy, and ambush us with taxes and incompetant leadership..

The thing is that it would be a whole lot easier to forge money then, no?

We should make pennies from human teeth.

America still has a 1c piece? You wait people will start melting them down for the extra .23 of a cent. You could always try mixing the plastic into the coin but I don't know whether that would work :confused:

Plastic wouldn't work. Too light, people would lose faith in the currency.

Look back to the 60's when they were debating removing silver from the currency.

Why would they do that when they can convert us to credit cards and make a world economy? They want power remember and that's the best way to do it.

We should make pennies from human teeth.
That's actually not a half a bad idea. Ripout the teeth of prisoners (there's deffinitely enough of them) and use them for our currency. I don't know about everyone else in here, but I'd enjoy knowing i'm holding the teeth of some child rapist who now is having to eat applesauce three times a day..

We should make pennies from human teeth.
????????

Seems like a decent idea.

Plastic wouldn't work. Too light, people would lose faith in the currency.

Look back to the 60's when they were debating removing silver from the currency.

Was there any negative impact after silver was removed from US coins???

Maybe then we can stop confusing the bloody things with the Canadian penny? :D

(I meant the OP seems like a decent idea, not the use if human teeth. The teeth idea is just bizarre)

That's actually not a half a bad idea. Ripout the teeth of prisoners (there's deffinitely enough of them) and use them for our currency. I don't know about everyone else in here, but I'd enjoy knowing i'm holding the teeth of some child rapist who now is having to eat applesauce three times a day..

Actually, I was just thnking of the cool rattling noise they'd make in my pocket.

Was there any negative impact after silver was removed from US coins???
Caused Nevada to have economic problems.

*snipo*

Did you also hear that the cost to produce a nickle is above a nickle?

...The teeth idea is just bizarre...

They laughed at Manson too.

Caused Nevada to have economic problems.
A blue state, this idea just keeps getting better and better.

And yes I heard about the nickel too but I figured they were in the same boat and people would assume for them both.

A blue state, this idea just keeps getting better and better.

And yes I heard about the nickel too but I figured they were in the same boat and people would assume for them both.

I think this is the first time about the nickle but there have been movements to do away with the penny before.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1182209.php/Congressman_introduces_anti-penny_bill

As you can see here, the cost of a penny is outweighing the actual value of it. Leave it up to the democrats to try and spin this into an issue of tradition and how it will hurt the poor. How the fuck is it going to hurt the poor?! They're poor no matter what you do, why waste valuable resources on an obselete currency? It will cost 1.23cents by next year to make a penny. That's .23% more then the penny's worth!

My suggestion? Use a matiral that is dirt cheap but keep a one cent currency, infact, replace all coins with this matireal. The matter? Plastic. You know that plastic they make 2 liter bottles out of? That stuff.

Cause they can't figure out what to do with it. They melt it down and it just because a blob, it doesn't breakdown for thousands of years. Therfore, we need to make use of this nearly immortal substance. My suggestion is replace our coins with this currency. This will not only grant a use for this otherwise pollutive substance, but actually be benneficary to me and you, because the lightweight of the plastic will make carrying change a breeze, and it's not like our economy would change, and if it did, it'd be for the better. Cause this cheapass substance means we could afford tax cuts!

But I doubt the goverment will do that. Apparently the democrats and the dem-lites (oh sorry. "Republicans".) alike want to destroy our enviorment, rape our economy, and ambush us with taxes and incompetant leadership..
You're thinking plastic in the wrong way. As said you implementation lends itself to easy forgery. Instead, plastic may replace cash in the debit and credit card form.

It's already got its sight set on the check. Companies hate checks, they lose allot of money due to fraud. My store (my particular store, not the chain) lose around $17,000 due to checks. Debit on the otherhand cost the store very little. My store's entire chain plans to phase out the acceptance of checks over the next 10-15 years.

After that, there could be pressure on to make debit the legal tender. Many companies would prefer it. Debit, and credit, is much cheaper for the company than regular cash. It does not need to be transported to the bank saving both time and labour.

No more credit cards, I'd rather deal with the risk of forgery then a police state.

Besides, criminals will just implement more iddenity theft, infact, iddenity theft is more common then forgery right now. And it will probably be more common even if we implemented more cash. It pays off more then fraud..

A blue state, this idea just keeps getting better and better.

Blue? NEVADA?!!! Sir, there are three things that are blue about my home state. Nevada blue sky of the high desert. The deep, crystaline blue of Lake Tahoe. And the colors of the University of Nevada, Reno.

Methinks you're either very uninformed or a troll, and I lean towards the later.

You should also go back and re-read what I was replying to.

After that, there could be pressure on to make debit the legal tender. Many companies would prefer it. Debit, and credit, is much cheaper for the company than regular cash. It does not need to be transported to the bank saving both time and labour.
It's very strange, Japan is a cash country so I had to get used to carrying around cash and I've come to appriciate not having to deal with credit cards all the time. The extra time it takes to print and sign. The chances of issues stopping you from computer hicups to bank errors. And let us not forget going somewhere and trying to figure out of said place will take a credit card.

Nope, I'd still like to keep some cash on me. Makes it easier to hide when you buy a present for your wife's borthday anyway when she gets the statements. ;)

Read The Gulag Archipelago and learn why I will never support abolishing the penny.

Honestly, I think the cost of requiring all transactions be rounded off to 5 cents is going to be far greater than the savings from eliminating the penny. Plus, people will love it when they have to pay up to 4 cents more for a gallon of gas or any other small purchase just for the convenience of not having the penny.

Why not just use something cheaper? We did it before by switching from copper to zinc in 1982 so we could just move down the line to another, cheaper metal.

I think we should get rid of the Penny, it it virtually useless in today's enviorment! I mean what the hell can you buy with a penny nowanddays??

Honestly, I think the cost of requiring all transactions be rounded off to 5 cents is going to be far greater than the savings from eliminating the penny. Plus, people will love it when they have to pay up to 4 cents more for a gallon of gas or any other small purchase just for the convenience of not having the penny.

Why not just use something cheaper? We did it before by switching from copper to zinc in 1982 so we could just move down the line to another, cheaper metal.
Up four cents? 90% of all prices end in a 99c or a 98c. Having the whole number lower by 1 makes the product seem cheaper than it actually is, so you'd probably see most things reduced to 95c, save either 4c or 3c per purchase.

I mean what the hell can you buy with a penny nowanddays??
Your mom.

The penny is vital for collecting sales tax.

I think we should get rid of the Penny, it it virtually useless in today's enviorment! I mean what the hell can you buy with a penny nowanddays??

Well.. I certainly wouldn't pay a nickel for your thoughts.

I think we should get rid of the Penny, it it virtually useless in today's enviorment! I mean what the hell can you buy with a penny nowanddays??
You can almost buy a penny with a penny.

Well.. I certainly wouldn't pay a nickel for your thoughts.

Well good, because it cost a dollar for my thoughts nowanddays. So pay up bucko!

You can almost buy a penny with a penny.

Whoo one worthless coin for another!

Your mom.

Well at least she requires you to pay up, unlike your mom who is basically a rotating door.

Whoo one worthless coin for another!
Well, actually it would take two worthless coins to buy a coin and then somehow you would get change. Probably you would get paid with expired Free Big Mac tickets that have a value of 1/200 of a cent.

Up four cents? 90% of all prices end in a 99c or a 98c. Having the whole number lower by 1 makes the product seem cheaper than it actually is, so you'd probably see most things reduced to 95c, save either 4c or 3c per purchase.

Probably not.

Given the additional cost on the wholesale level, retailers would have to pass it on by rounding up four cents for purchases rather than down. Even more complications would arise on the commodity level since copper, gasoline, heating oil, cotton, corn, natural gas, grain and hundreds of other products are all priced to the cent or even hundredths or thousandths of a cent.

Was there any negative impact after silver was removed from US coins???
In Bangladesh they introduced bank notes made of thin plastic rather than paper a few years ago. The result? People kept all the notes for themselves and stopped spending them.

Apparently there was a lot of confusion about the stuff.

The penny is vital for collecting sales tax.
Which should be abolished anyway.

Why don't we start a war with somebody to provide funds to pay for our pennies?

We should just switch to poker chips.

Why don't we start a war with somebody to provide funds to pay for our pennies?

"NO WAR FOR ZINC" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

What if we made the pennies smaller? Say the size of a dime?


(Why have I started to seriously think about this problem. Curse you, General. Curse you.)

What if we made the pennies smaller? Say the size of a dime?


(Why have I started to seriously think about this problem. Curse you, General. Curse you.)

You are hung up on pennies size.

You are hung up on pennies size.
That took too long for me to figure out...

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/northamerica/article_1182209.php/Congressman_introduces_anti-penny_bill

As you can see here, the cost of a penny is outweighing the actual value of it. Leave it up to the democrats to try and spin this into an issue of tradition and how it will hurt the poor. How the fuck is it going to hurt the poor?! They're poor no matter what you do, why waste valuable resources on an obselete currency? It will cost 1.23cents by next year to make a penny. That's .23% more then the penny's worth!

My suggestion? Use a matiral that is dirt cheap but keep a one cent currency, infact, replace all coins with this matireal. The matter? Plastic. You know that plastic they make 2 liter bottles out of? That stuff.

Cause they can't figure out what to do with it. They melt it down and it just because a blob, it doesn't breakdown for thousands of years. Therfore, we need to make use of this nearly immortal substance. My suggestion is replace our coins with this currency. This will not only grant a use for this otherwise pollutive substance, but actually be benneficary to me and you, because the lightweight of the plastic will make carrying change a breeze, and it's not like our economy would change, and if it did, it'd be for the better. Cause this cheapass substance means we could afford tax cuts!

But I doubt the goverment will do that. Apparently the democrats and the dem-lites (oh sorry. "Republicans".) alike want to destroy our enviorment, rape our economy, and ambush us with taxes and incompetant leadership..
We should follow in New Zealand's footsteps and abolish the penny. That's right, you heard me. Sales taxes just get rounded off a few more cents.

What if we made the pennies smaller? Say the size of a dime?

Theoretically, if we made the penny 23% smaller we would break even.

(Why have I started to seriously think about this problem. Curse you, General. Curse you.)

All the cool kids are discussing the solutions to the rising cost of US cent production at 2 AM on a Thursday.

Recycle - Bottle Caps!

Turn inflation around and into deflation so that a penny once again has more value than it costs to produce.

Theoretically, if we made the penny 23% smaller we would break even.



All the cool kids are discussing the solutions to the rising cost of US cent production at 2 AM on a Thursday.
Then I say make the penny 24% smaller! Trick them all! HA! HA HA HA! HA!







HA!

Turn inflation around and into deflation so that a penny once again has more value than it costs to produce.

We could just buy our pennies from China.

Well at least she requires you to pay up, unlike your mom who is basically a rotating door.
You say rotating door, I hear liberated.

Then I say make the penny 24% smaller! Trick them all! HA! HA HA HA! HA! HA!

With a 1% profit we could make millions of dollars without anyone noticing!

With a 1% profit we could make millions of dollars without anyone noticing!
And then we could make a shitload of pennies!

And then we could make a shitload of pennies!

And then it hits us: We just spent a million dollars to make one hundred million pennies that can't even be used in a vending machine.

We could sell advertising space on the back of each penny.

We could sell advertising space on the back of each penny.

Actually, during the Civil War, when stamps were used as a replacement for small coins due to hoarding companies would place advertisements on the backs of the metal holders used to protect them from wear and tear.

We could sell advertising space on the back of each penny.
Holy mother of God. That is brilliant. It could say things like, "In (corporate brand name) We Trust".

Holy mother of God. That is brilliant. It could say things like, "In (corporate brand name) We Trust".

In Pod We Trust?

We should follow in New Zealand's footsteps and abolish the penny. That's right, you heard me. Sales taxes just get rounded off a few more cents.

Unfortunatley, now they're doing away with the 5c coin.

I like them:(

Probably not.

Given the additional cost on the wholesale level, retailers would have to pass it on by rounding up four cents for purchases rather than down. Even more complications would arise on the commodity level since copper, gasoline, heating oil, cotton, corn, natural gas, grain and hundreds of other products are all priced to the cent or even hundredths or thousandths of a cent.

How would this impose additional cost on retailers? It would be less as there will be one less coin to have to deal with in your cash drawer. NZ manages it quite well, no reason why we couldn’t. You use a simple rounding method - for purposes of making change, 2.5 cents and up rounds to 5, less than 2.5 cents rounds down to zero.

I think you have a slightly skewed idea of what were talking about. Do we have a coin for hundredth of a cent? The concept is not that we will refuse to recognize amounts less than 5 cents - we are only going to stop minting the coin itself - not attempt to abolish the concept of one cent altogether. Thats just silly.

Um, is it just me, or are people here not really thinking very well? Getting rid of the penny would -not- mean gas prices would have to change, or that money markets would go into some crazy dive... Right now, gas in downtown Portland is usually about $2.999/gallon. If I buy 5 gallons though, they're not going to give me half a cent change on 15 dollars. Why? Because half-cent pieces aren't in circulation. They'll either round down and give me a penny, or up and keep the extra, depending, and the meter will show the price to match what they charged. So, if there are no pennies, he'd either have given me a nickle, or nothing. The change? I -might- save money, but if I did, it would be very little, and the change would easily be passed on to consumers through price changes as needed.

On the other hand, electronic transfers can use fractions of a cent, so those could continue doing so, and you'd just be stuck unable to withdraw those last 4 cents from your bank account until they accumulated enough interest to become a nickel!

Um, is it just me, or are people here not really thinking very well? Getting rid of the penny would -not- mean gas prices would have to change, or that money markets would go into some crazy dive... Right now, gas in downtown Portland is usually about $2.999/gallon. If I buy 5 gallons though, they're not going to give me half a cent change on 15 dollars. Why? Because half-cent pieces aren't in circulation. They'll either round down and give me a penny, or up and keep the extra, depending, and the meter will show the price to match what they charged. So, if there are no pennies, he'd either have given me a nickle, or nothing. The change? I -might- save money, but if I did, it would be very little, and the change would easily be passed on to consumers through price changes as needed.

On the other hand, electronic transfers can use fractions of a cent, so those could continue doing so, and you'd just be stuck unable to withdraw those last 4 cents from your bank account until they accumulated enough interest to become a nickel!
Who here asked for logic?:rolleyes:

It's a pity that a government that spends billions on WMDs it'll never use has people trying to get rid of a coin that costs a little over a cent.

I eat pennies for breakfast. I really do. I'm very poor and I can only afford to eat pennies. I think I'm going blind because of it. Blind with whales. Or I'm just being poisoned by all the coins I ingest every day.

They can't take away my pennies. Even if they're no good as money they can still be put in a sock. Or I can use them to pay my debts to people I really hate. Have you ever gotten $500 in pennies? I can actually get away with some of the money too because there's no "weigh" anyone will sit there and count all the pennies.

Or I can use them to pay my debts to people I really hate. Have you ever gotten $500 in pennies?
You know in Canada that's illegal. I assume the punishment is getting sent to sodomy camp (aka prison).

The thing is that it would be a whole lot easier to forge money then, no?

Oh dear, somehow I doubt the idea that the American economy is going to flooded with counterfeit pennies...

You know in Canada that's illegal. I assume the punishment is getting sent to sodomy camp (aka prison).

...So...What if I do it with Canadian change here in Michigan? I swear, literally 25% of my change is Canadian.

They actually made a law against that?

It's a pity that a government that spends billions on WMDs it'll never use has people trying to get rid of a coin that costs a little over a cent.
I don't think America is still making WMDs. Not because we've reformed or anything, just because we have so many that making any more would just be stupid. When you can already kill the entire planet, what's the point?

I don't think America is still making WMDs. Not because we've reformed or anything, just because we have so many that making any more would just be stupid. When you can already kill the entire planet, what's the point?

We could've killed the entire planet a while ago. I think we can do it several times over now.

America still has a 1c piece? You wait people will start melting them down for the extra .23 of a cent. You could always try mixing the plastic into the coin but I don't know whether that would work :confused:
Actually, the value of the metal in a penny is only worth like .83 cents the rest of the cost comes from labor/paperwork/other.

We could've killed the entire planet a while ago. I think we can do it several times over now.
The official quote I've heard is that between us and Russia, we could kill the entire world 5 times with nucklear weapons, and something like 30 times with biological weapons.

...So...What if I do it with Canadian change here in Michigan? I swear, literally 25% of my change is Canadian.

They actually made a law against that?
Anything over 50 cents cannot be paid soley in pennies. I assume ten thousand pennies and a nickle is fine....

America still has a 1c piece? You wait people will start melting them down for the extra .23 of a cent. You could always try mixing the plastic into the coin but I don't know whether that would work

Actually, the value of the metal in a penny is only worth like .83 cents the rest of the cost comes from labor/paperwork/other.Ha ha!

I laugh because somewhere out there, some idiot is surely going to do what DL said and melt down all his change--and there'll be a sorry surprise when he gets to the scrap metal dealer :D

Oh dear, somehow I doubt the idea that the American economy is going to flooded with counterfeit pennies...I wouldn't be surprised if there was a surprisingly high level of forging, if they were made of common plastic! All it'd take is an injection-molding die and access to a molding machine that could do about 100 per go, and it'd be possible to make about 2 or 3 bucks/minute. Run that thing all night on the night shift at a plastic plant, with a boss that's either absent or in on it. That's $960/night. Quite tempting enough, for a crook. And don't forget the people who would do it "just for."

A person could do small batches of illicit 2-liter soda-bottle recycling on their own, if they could make a good enough die to melt it into. No need for misappropriating a factory's machinery, if the person's satisfied with "making" a couple of bucks or so a day.

There was a guy who forged bottle return slips for a couple of years (a store I was working in at the time was among those hit). He'd come in and foist off fake slips "worth" between 40 and 60c. He made a circuit of all the local grocery stores and stuck them each with one or two of these every day or so.

IIRC According to our local paper, he ended up getting $50,000 in real money out of those stores (collectively) before he finally got busted.

Even little forgeries add up to worthwhile amounts if the forger is persistant enough. Or nuts enough (I think the bottle-slip guy *must* have spent more in gas than he got out of it)! But in any case, if the Mint didn't do something to make that plastic unique, there'd almost certainly be a lot of fake pennies around soon.

I eat pennies for breakfast. I really do. I'm very poor and I can only afford to eat pennies. I think I'm going blind because of it. Blind with whales. Or I'm just being poisoned by all the coins I ingest every day...


Dosuun, that is at least the third nonsensical reference you've made about whales in the last 2 days. What the hell are you smoking, and do you have extra?

dont you have to earn a penny to save it?

that statement has always confused me

The thing is that it would be a whole lot easier to forge money then, no?


Who in thier right mind would counterfiet pennies?

You'd have to make so many of them to make money doing it, the kind of volume would assuredly get you caught.

Oh dear, somehow I doubt the idea that the American economy is going to flooded with counterfeit pennies...
He wasn't only talking about pennies though, was he?

Who in thier right mind would counterfiet pennies?
in fact, replace all coins with this matireal.
Not just pennies.

Probably not.

Given the additional cost on the wholesale level, retailers would have to pass it on by rounding up four cents for purchases rather than down. Even more complications would arise on the commodity level since copper, gasoline, heating oil, cotton, corn, natural gas, grain and hundreds of other products are all priced to the cent or even hundredths or thousandths of a cent.

Well, you've just succeeded in proving exactly the opposite of your point: Right now, those things are priced to the hundredth or thousandth of a cent, and yet we don't have currency of hundredths or thousandths of cents. They simply multiply the cost per liter by the number of liters, then round it up to the nearest cent, and charge that. If they rounded it before multiplying, then what would be the point in having a price that precise in the first place? So without pennies, all they have to do is round it to the nearest nickel - which they won't even have to do anyway, because who pays for heating oil with cash? I know I don't.

And to rebut your first point, I'll repeat what the poster before you said: Most retailers lower prices from $1 to $0.99 for a reason: the prices 'appear' lower, and so more people are willing to buy it. If the nickel were abolished, the retailers would simply knock the price down to $0.95, because they will still make more money at that price than at $0.99. And seriously, when was the last time you saw something priced at .51 or .36?

And to rebut your first point, I'll repeat what the poster before you said: Most retailers lower prices from $1 to $0.99 for a reason: the prices 'appear' lower, and so more people are willing to buy it. If the nickel were abolished, the retailers would simply knock the price down to $0.95, because they will still make more money at that price than at $0.99.They've stopped using the 1 and 2 eurocent around here, but prices for things in the supermarket still have prices like .99 or .98. It doesn't get rounded untill the final total is made at checkout, and then only if you pay in cash. So I wouldn't necessarily expect retailers to knock prices down to .95; there isn't a need if people can accept the total will be rounded. And of course smart buying can even save you a few cents that way (Based on shopping once a day, it's a staggering 6 euros a year!!! Of course in the worst case you'd loose that much).

Read The Gulag Archipelago and learn why I will never support abolishing the penny.

Help me to understand please. I tried reading Gulag Archipelago and I was so appaulled by the human rights violations that I could not read it. Coincidentally the only other book Iever got so depressed over was Cancer Ward by the same author. Now do not get me wrong, I am not saying that either of these books were poor quality, they just made me so sad that I could not keep going.

So please, what is it about Gulag Archipelago that made you not want to abolish pennies?

over here in the uk there was the same problem with 2 pence coins from about 15 years ago which are now worth about 3 pence as raw materials, but not that anyone can do anything about this as its illegal to melt down the coins as they depict the queen, but to solve the problem of the coins costing too much over here they quiet simple jsut changed the compound the coin was made out off, putting more cheaper lower quality metals in the coin, and so they still look the same, but they cost less to make

If the cent was made before 1982 they are actually worth about 2.4 cents each. Rising copper costs caused the US mint to switch to the current copper-plated zinc composition mid way through '82.

In 1974 several million cents were made out of aluminum as an experiment to reduce the cost of manufacture, but nothing ever came of it, other than a few very rare collector peices.