This is basically the "theory" behind trump voters. "look he just went in and got it done", and yeah, that is something I think more people would appreciate when it comes to very specific issues....
This is basically the "theory" behind trump voters. "look he just went in and got it done", and yeah, that is something I think more people would appreciate when it comes to very specific issues.
We've had decades of political doublespeak and constant "well now's not the time" on issues that are very much within the purview of executive power or could at least have pressure applied (weed scheduling being a big one), so yeah, it makes sense that there's a lot of people who just want a president who's going to go in and actually do something.
Naturally what he's actually doing is quite literally throwing shit all over the place and seeing what sticks, and thus "broken clock" and all that, but this is the sort of thing where it's reasonable to ask "so why didn't we already do this?"
I doubt it. These same voters were largely incensed when Biden and Obama cut through red tape by executive action, or were told they had done so (remember the ridiculous flare-up over Obama's...
I doubt it. These same voters were largely incensed when Biden and Obama cut through red tape by executive action, or were told they had done so (remember the ridiculous flare-up over Obama's "czars"?).
Yeah, we keep assigning abstract beliefs of government principle to Trump voters but I don’t believe it exists. It doesn’t go much further than my team good, other team bad. It’s the kind of...
Yeah, we keep assigning abstract beliefs of government principle to Trump voters but I don’t believe it exists. It doesn’t go much further than my team good, other team bad.
It’s the kind of thinking that someone uses to conclude that Biden can’t forgive student loans via executive order but it’s totally fine for Trump to use an executive order shut down an agency that must exist by law.
It doesn’t make sense in the context of any specific principles about government or law but that’s not the level of abstraction that they are using to think about government.
This is the downstream effects of both education polarization and the senate filibuster paralyzing congress.
Kristi Noem stating that people can't trust the government and having the reporter say" you are the government" is perhaps the most recent example of how there is no logic to this process.
Kristi Noem stating that people can't trust the government and having the reporter say" you are the government" is perhaps the most recent example of how there is no logic to this process.
Checks and balances makes things slow... and no one wants to end up on the coin blank industries' naughty list! But the real reason is probably that change is expensive and disruptive. It doesn't...
"so why didn't we already do this?"
Checks and balances makes things slow... and no one wants to end up on the zinccoin blank industries' naughty list! But the real reason is probably that change is expensive and disruptive. It doesn't make sense for a government to be changing the rules every other day or no one will take it seriously.
Sure, but the problem is, that's always the case. There's always issues, there's always special interests, and there's always some excuse. I brought up banning the penny as a debate topic in 03...
Sure, but the problem is, that's always the case. There's always issues, there's always special interests, and there's always some excuse. I brought up banning the penny as a debate topic in 03 (and got told it was a bad topic only to see it for the rest of my debate career.......) and it's maybe just now going to happen.
It makes a lot of sense, especially as inflation has gotten worse and worse, and yet there's always something in the way of even the relatively easy options.
The reason he is able to do certain things is because he doesn’t care about details and doesn’t give a shit about long term costs. Maybe he was right about ending the penny, but probably not the...
The reason he is able to do certain things is because he doesn’t care about details and doesn’t give a shit about long term costs. Maybe he was right about ending the penny, but probably not the way he did it.
He appeals to simple people who like knee jerk responses to things they don’t understand.
It’s the same kind of solution as “just build a big wall to stop immigration” or “why not turn Gaza into a trump hotel”.
He kind of proof there are no alien craft at Area 51. He would have just blurted it out if there was.
I don't know, but I feel like in this day and age any questions people actually want answered can be researched in minutes. Allow me... ahh, what a convinient Wikipedia article:...
but this is the sort of thing where it's reasonable to ask "so why didn't we already do this?"
I don't know, but I feel like in this day and age any questions people actually want answered can be researched in minutes. Allow me...
Several bills introduced in the U.S. Congress would have ceased production of pennies, but none have been approved.
Kolbe responded to criticism that rounding system would increase prices that could hurt the consumer and stated that the it "favors neither the consumer nor the retailer because the probability of rounding up or down is 50 percent either way – it would all come out even in the end
Donald Trump said he had ordered the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending. This is despite the fact that Congress authorizes the Treasury on what coins mint, rather than the President.
he sole provider of zinc "penny blanks," Jarden Zinc Products of Greeneville, Tennessee, has hired lobbyists to make the case for preserving the penny and their sales.[37]
So, basically: Congress tried muliple times, but they either never bother voting to begin with, or consumer pressures over price increases add friction (and of course: lobbying by Big Zinc).
Trump did what he usually does, ignores laws and customs, and did a potential constitutional overreach. Any other president would risk impeachment, but Trump is apparently above the law for now (To be fair, the presidential immunity ruling was only wielded by Biden for a few months and now Trump).
Now of course, most people won't do this. and I imagine a bulk of his voter base will never understand that other presidents (say, Biden) couldn't do this because they'd very likely be impeached.
I'm well aware of basically everything surrounding this particular issue as it's been a pet one of mine for 20ish years, but I think you're still missing the point. Presidents can put pressure and...
I'm well aware of basically everything surrounding this particular issue as it's been a pet one of mine for 20ish years, but I think you're still missing the point.
Presidents can put pressure and focus on issues without violating their powers, and it's arguably one of the most important roles of the position. As congress has steadily gotten worse, this power has only become more and more important. I think there's good evidence that similar desires got both Trump and Obama elected (outsiders who will "change things"), and I'd say people have been disappointed with such hopes basically every election I've been alive for (even Trump's first term).
Some of that comes with the territory, but history is full of presidents who found ways to push major change, even against a hostile congress. One of the big complaints is that everything has gotten so "meta" that nothing ever is even tried. "Oh they'll block it, so better not waste time bringing it" has been something that has just become standard procedure, rather than "making them have it" and actually forcing congressmen to sit in session through filibusters or difficult bills, going on the record for their vote, and actually calling them out repeatedly for this behavior.
We are waaaaaaaay past the point where that kind of behavior could matter to some exttent, but Biden being "quiet" and pretty standard politically did not help for the people who find the perception of this issue frustrating. "You're too dumb or lazy to understand" is a very quick way to lose.
The penny is just another example of "god that sounds like a bunch of excuses" and trump violating basically every inch of the constitution is the outcome of that. The penny is just the least inflammatory example so I feel more comfortable at least discussing the symptoms that led to this, as it's touchy with just about every other subject because lots of people seem to equate criticism of the opposition as support for Trump, and that's very much not what any of this is.
I prefer we'd proper get congress aligned instead of just voting in people who want to push the envelope. It's a large ship and you need to steer carefully. Even if there's no accident you'll end...
As congress has steadily gotten worse, this power has only become more and more important.
I prefer we'd proper get congress aligned instead of just voting in people who want to push the envelope. It's a large ship and you need to steer carefully. Even if there's no accident you'll end up freaking out everyone on board. Obama made some changes, but still went through the process (and as you expect, congress slowed him down). Trump seems to be full gung ho to tear everything down by compairon.
Some of that comes with the territory, but history is full of presidents who found ways to push major change, even against a hostile congress. One of the big complaints is that everything has gotten so "meta" that nothing ever is even tried.
This was a long time coming, and I argue we are in unprecedented times. Since post-reagan there's been a growing polarization within the parties, a throwing out of traditions within the presidency and a growing feeling of treating congress as a honeypot rather than a public servant.
This partisan gridlock It came full force by the time W Bush came in, but it was delayed by a moment of nationalism due to 9/11 (another unprecedented event, given American's history and geography). So Obama really felt this gridlock the most when sworn in. This kind of utter partisan push back is arguably unprecedented. So I wouldn't compare older presidents to what's happening now. The New Deal from this kind of congress would be called communism, Watergate would be dismissed as a minor operational error, The Vietnam war would be this odd point of pride in America. This isn't how people would react to such events back then.
So I think it's the opposite. Obama, Trump 45, and Biden tried realllly hard and they were met with unheard of friction. They all managed to pass bills anyway, but it should not have been this hard. By Trump 47, all that changed is that his opposition is in the minority, and the people more polarized than ever. It's not a problem we just ignore and work around. We should try and resolve that for a proper govcernment.
The penny is just another example of "god that sounds like a bunch of excuses" and trump violating basically every inch of the constitution is the outcome of that.
That's like saying we're asking to be stolen from, the door didn't have 3 padlocks. I'm not going to excuse breaking the law because "they had it coming". Especially since we all know the result of this:
The courts will cancel his order in a matter of weeks, it will either be dropped and nothing changes (even though yes, he broke the constitution), or we enter our hundreth legal battle this month bashing the president for not following the rules (impeachment being not off the table, but relatively unlikely). So we're not actually going to be getting rid of the penny either way. How did this help anyone out in the long term?
I agree. Sadly, Congress—despite consistently having lower approval ratings than presidents at their nadir—has a 90+% re-election rate. People love their local representatives. Every other...
I prefer we'd properly get Congress aligned
I agree. Sadly, Congress—despite consistently having lower approval ratings than presidents at their nadir—has a 90+% re-election rate. People love their local representatives. Every other district and their wasteful makework is the problem.
Interesting. Souds like more people need to pay attention to their local news. There's still decent coverege or senate elections, but it won't compare to the billion dolllar media blitz of...
Interesting. Souds like more people need to pay attention to their local news. There's still decent coverege or senate elections, but it won't compare to the billion dolllar media blitz of national elections.
Reps are definiely harder to research if you're a larger state. I be few people can even name their reps. That's where local community is important but that's something that's only collapsed among people today. especially the youth. Unfortunate because many people would be surprised how close those more local elections can come down to. We're talking dozens of votes at times.
You’re correct that more people need local news. However, I think people legitimately like their local representatives and find every other district in the nation to be a worthless roadblock to...
You’re correct that more people need local news. However, I think people legitimately like their local representatives and find every other district in the nation to be a worthless roadblock to good policy.
“Congress is dysfunctional, but my guy is one of the ones trying to fix it.”
Regardless of whether it's ultimately a good idea in theory, this is still executive overreach, and I don't understand ignoring that because you agree with the outcome. It perpetuates the idea...
Regardless of whether it's ultimately a good idea in theory, this is still executive overreach, and I don't understand ignoring that because you agree with the outcome.
It perpetuates the idea that he can do anything. Congress controls currency
Ive been pondering on executive overreach a lot lately, for obvious reasons, but specifically in the context of the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln is my favorite president only because he...
Ive been pondering on executive overreach a lot lately, for obvious reasons, but specifically in the context of the emancipation proclamation.
Lincoln is my favorite president only because he didn’t live long enough to screw it up. I’ve thought a lot about it and I’m really happy that he decided to use his power for good. He certainly didn’t have to, no one else was, and he did actually make things worse temporarily, but it was from a place of actually wanting a better life for people.
I wish I could have lived through a time where a president made some insane power grabbing executive decision that was actually a good move and for the betterment of the people.
Yeah, Executive overreach could be argued for unprecedented situations as long as the executive has good intentions at heart (AKA preserving the nation and its republic). Lincoln made his...
Yeah, Executive overreach could be argued for unprecedented situations as long as the executive has good intentions at heart (AKA preserving the nation and its republic). Lincoln made his decisions trying to prevent a country from fragmenting at the seams and focusing on advancing together rather than punishment.
It's sadly very much not the case with Trump's EO's. He has all 3 branches and is using that to ransack the nation. Who don't care as long as their pet peeves are dismantled along the way. At the end of the day, the people overall will lose as halff the country cuts their nose off.
I kinda cant believe it lasted as long as it did. We really just relied on common voters to make sure that only someone with good intentions became president. I definitely wish that some of the...
I kinda cant believe it lasted as long as it did. We really just relied on common voters to make sure that only someone with good intentions became president.
I definitely wish that some of the presidents never held office, but this is really the first time we’ve managed to elect someone who wants to destroy the United States.
That's part of the issue. I didn't know if that was legal (a common thing as of late), and only now do I look it up and realize that Congress is the one who controls production and circulation of...
That's part of the issue. I didn't know if that was legal (a common thing as of late), and only now do I look it up and realize that Congress is the one who controls production and circulation of legal tender.
Most people won't look it up (and magically ignore the very important presidential immunity ruling) and think "it was always this easy? Why didn't Biden/Obama do this?". Trump in many respects gets away with stuff over his platform's ignorance. And of course, congress' unwillingness to stop him.
It's also just the complete willingness of Congress to cede all of their power to him, forever. It's madness. But I do hold Tildes to a higher standard than either Congress or the explicitly...
It's also just the complete willingness of Congress to cede all of their power to him, forever. It's madness.
But I do hold Tildes to a higher standard than either Congress or the explicitly ignorant Trump base you describe, and I'm still being disappointed IMO.
Canada eliminated the penny in 2012. It's about time that the US did away with it as well. Due to inflation, a penny is beyond useless these days. The US half-cent was discontinued in 1857 because...
Canada eliminated the penny in 2012. It's about time that the US did away with it as well.
Due to inflation, a penny is beyond useless these days. The US half-cent was discontinued in 1857 because it wasn't worth enough to be of any practical use. With inflation, that half-cent is now worth more than a 2025 US dime. Let's just get rid of everything smaller than a quarter.
Personally, I haven't carried coins in over a decade. I always have a few bills in my wallet in case I need to spend cash, but as soon as I get home, the coins just go straight into a coin jar, from where (in theory) I'll take them to the bank one day. Maybe it'll just end up being a really expensive heirloom.
I certainly agree that if you’re going to get rid of the penny, make sure you get rid of everything else in that same order of magnitude. Australia got rid of 1¢ and 2¢ coins ages ago but kept the...
I certainly agree that if you’re going to get rid of the penny, make sure you get rid of everything else in that same order of magnitude.
Australia got rid of 1¢ and 2¢ coins ages ago but kept the 5¢ and honestly I think that was a mistake. Get rid of the entire order or magnitude at a time, and keep currency calculation at the checkout easier as a result. If the smallest denomination after the change is an order of magnitude, that keeps things simple.
Of course that’s easier with Australian currency, because everything follows the 1/2/5 pattern, but by having a quarter you’ve left yourself in the situation where you have a denomination that can’t be made with the other denominations (e.g. if your total is $x.21 but you don’t have nickels anymore, then you can either pay with two dimes or a quarter, and one side or the other gains a tiny fractional benefit, but you can’t change a quarter for 2.5 dimes at the till)
I have a simple three step plan to deal with this: Eliminate all cash denominations smaller than a quarter. Legislate that all stores must post after-tax and after-fee prices. No extra fees when...
I have a simple three step plan to deal with this:
Eliminate all cash denominations smaller than a quarter.
Legislate that all stores must post after-tax and after-fee prices. No extra fees when ringing up - everything is included in the price of the item.
Legislate that if a customer wishes to pay cash and the price is not a multiple of 0.25, it rounds down. (Alternatively, it rounds to the nearest $0.25.)
Realistically, this will result in all posted prices being a multiple of 0.25, and we won't actually have to perform any rounding. There are a handful of things that cost less than a quarter right now, but I think it would be easy enough to allow a mandatory minimum purchase, simply so that people aren't pumping 12 cents of gas at a time into their car.
I think the effort and time required to pump $0.12 and then walk into the gas station to “pay” and then walk out again and pump another $0.12 again... let them have that, my time is worth more...
I think the effort and time required to pump $0.12 and then walk into the gas station to “pay” and then walk out again and pump another $0.12 again... let them have that, my time is worth more than that, and petrocompanies make more than enough to cover that
I cant say I've missed using pennies, but I do get a bit sentimental when I see a small jar of them tucked away in my garage. It seems odd that my grandkids will grow up never using them or even...
I cant say I've missed using pennies, but I do get a bit sentimental when I see a small jar of them tucked away in my garage. It seems odd that my grandkids will grow up never using them or even knowing what they are. But then again 'penny candy' hasn't been a thing at the convenience store for a long time (I still gag when I see a chocolate bar for $3 at 7-11) and if I saw one laying in the street, I dont think Id bother to pick it up, so really, what use is a penny anymore? Unless you want to tile your floor with them: https://www.tiktok.com/@ilse.interior.finishings/video/7345601292103847198?lang=en
I think if Biden had tried to eliminate the penny he would’ve been crucified over the inflation issue. It still baffles me that the Democrats never tried to pin inflation of Trump (call it...
I think if Biden had tried to eliminate the penny he would’ve been crucified over the inflation issue. It still baffles me that the Democrats never tried to pin inflation of Trump (call it Trumpflation), I mean under him the economy crashed and debt exploded. If I were a politician, I’d be hammering this as a sign that the value of your dollar was going to keep sinking.
I think a lot of this reason is relatively simple: we're in the middle of a paradigm shift on how we communicate. And the last remnants of traditional media are going out swingining. The current...
I think a lot of this reason is relatively simple: we're in the middle of a paradigm shift on how we communicate. And the last remnants of traditional media are going out swingining. The current younger generations are on platforms that aren't necessarily dedicated to politics, so anything short of something that immediately affects their everyday will not register the same way to them as some 55+ YO watching hours of Fox News.
This will "fix itself" in a few decades as the last of the boomers die out and traditional media completely flickers out as social media becomes this melting pot of news, as opposed to 2-3 big stations (all under control by the same owners). And as the old voterbase shifts more towards the older millenials/youngest Gen X. Ideally a voterbase that is more stable and doesn't need to worry about working 2+ gigs or part time jobs to afford rent.
In short: "old people care more than young people, or rather have more time to care. and their media consumption makes them easier to ignite than a social media feed decentralizing news". I wish there were ways to make people care more, but it just seems to naturally happen as people age.
That seems a little to close to Demographics as Destiny for me to be comfortable with it, especially since there’s reason to believe that the younger generation seems to be more conservative by...
That seems a little to close to Demographics as Destiny for me to be comfortable with it, especially since there’s reason to believe that the younger generation seems to be more conservative by the nature of the pendulum swinging back. Not saying that it won’t trend one way or the other, more that there’s always going to be an audible opposition and it’s not going to just be the olds.
I wish it was that easy, but you're right. Traditionally you grow more conservative as you age. Not necessarily full Far Right levels, just "I focus on social security and lower property tax"...
I wish it was that easy, but you're right. Traditionally you grow more conservative as you age. Not necessarily full Far Right levels, just "I focus on social security and lower property tax" kinds of conservative. That will include more kinds of modern news shifting as well (you've probably seen a few examples with your own eyes).
My main optimism is that I feel that
there won't be a 3-way gridlock on how you get information by that time. So while there will be conservative shifts, Less will necessarily feel locked on a single source to consume info and
an aging millenial voter base will at least (hopefully) sympathize a bit more with various other fiscal policies. Unlike Boomers, Millennials had a whiplash of economic shifts in their lives, so those will be in mind when factors like "raise federal minimum wage" or "lower full-time hours to 32 hours a week".
Of course, I could still be way too optimistic and we repeat the cycle. But I do believe those life experiences will change how they think of America when it comes time to make policy.
Not saying that it won’t trend one way or the other, more that there’s always going to be an audible opposition and it’s not going to just be the olds.
I mostly just focus on the olds because that's one of the few statistics that has been steady over the century. That 18-29 demographics simply doesn't turnout when the time comes. I was hoping the information age would help in bucking such a trend, but the last 2 decades of turnout hasn't fundamentally shifted such trends. Obama spiked the youth vote but that seemed to be a one-off, despite Obama being elected right before the social media explosion.
Scope down to state and city policy and this contrast is even more stark. I do feel that will be an interesting technological shift as well over the decades. Maybe a bi-weekly forum at 1PM on a Tuesday won't be the only way to reach out to these smaller community leaders.
You might be interested to know that America has adopted some of your old pennies. I handle cash in my line of work and every now and then a Canadian penny is mixed in among the American ones. I...
You might be interested to know that America has adopted some of your old pennies. I handle cash in my line of work and every now and then a Canadian penny is mixed in among the American ones. I will often just hand it out in change, and no one has ever handed one back and said “hey this penny’s no good here or anywhere, it’s got a leaf on it!” They just take it and go and probably spend it or lose it or put it in their own jar, to eventually be rejected by a coinstar machine.
We have dollar coins, but they are semi-rare. Some people can legitimately go throughout life without ever seeing one in person. We also used to have a half dollar coin, but those went ouf of...
We have dollar coins, but they are semi-rare. Some people can legitimately go throughout life without ever seeing one in person.
We also used to have a half dollar coin, but those went ouf of circulation decades ago. I've only seen a handful of those in my life.
This idea that the cost to manufacture a coin should be somehow related to the worth of the coin is pretty much nonsense - we don't use gold or silver coin anymore, so it's just a token. The...
This idea that the cost to manufacture a coin should be somehow related to the worth of the coin is pretty much nonsense - we don't use gold or silver coin anymore, so it's just a token. The manufacturing cost should be split across all the transactions that use the token.
My guess is that the cost of manufacturing coins is very little compared to the labor and equipment businesses need to securely handle cash. It would be interesting to know how much that is and how it compares to other payment systems.
In fairness, we could have eliminated the penny 20 years ago with a simple "round everything down to nearest 5." The human cost of the penny is huge, dwarfing manufacture cost...ask every retail...
In fairness, we could have eliminated the penny 20 years ago with a simple "round everything down to nearest 5."
The human cost of the penny is huge, dwarfing manufacture cost...ask every retail worker that still has to deal with them.
And the primary reason to keep coinage below manufacturing cost is to prevent people from illicitly melting them down.
As I just commented a moment ago elsewhere in this thread, I think leaving the 5¢ coin in place was a mistake, and the world would be a better place if they just got rid of the entire order of...
As I just commented a moment ago elsewhere in this thread, I think leaving the 5¢ coin in place was a mistake, and the world would be a better place if they just got rid of the entire order of magnitude in one go
Which was absolutely happening in case anyone was wondering. I don't know about recently but within the last few decades people have been caught moving boatloads of pennies.
And the primary reason to keep coinage below manufacturing cost is to prevent people from illicitly melting them down.
Which was absolutely happening in case anyone was wondering.
I don't know about recently but within the last few decades people have been caught moving boatloads of pennies.
Was it? I can't find actual articles about it, only questions about the legality of melting pennies for art or profit but no actual evidence of it happening. Which seems to track for me because...
Was it? I can't find actual articles about it, only questions about the legality of melting pennies for art or profit but no actual evidence of it happening.
Which seems to track for me because it's stupid expensive energy-wise for very little profit
Oh man... I can't find anything either. When we scrapped the penny in Canada there were some articles or podcasts that discussed at least one bust where someone was moving TONS of them to melt...
Oh man... I can't find anything either.
When we scrapped the penny in Canada there were some articles or podcasts that discussed at least one bust where someone was moving TONS of them to melt down. It probably wasn't too common TBH but it is something to be worried about once the value gets too out of whack.
All I could find was the worry that it would be possible that people would start doing it, but for the US penny at least I found multiple articles saying that the value of the copper has never...
All I could find was the worry that it would be possible that people would start doing it, but for the US penny at least I found multiple articles saying that the value of the copper has never been high enough to actually make money, and that since they switched to mostly zinc it really wasn't an issue (all the concerns were about old pennies)
So yeah I think it's gotta be an urban legend barring future evidence
Ya, fair enough. I thought I'd be able to find it but Google/DDG are completely slammed with content about the current penny situation. The story I recall would be over a decade old then and I'm...
So yeah I think it's gotta be an urban legend barring future evidence
Ya, fair enough. I thought I'd be able to find it but Google/DDG are completely slammed with content about the current penny situation. The story I recall would be over a decade old then and I'm fairly certain was a podcast or radio... so I'm likely not finding that.
Related not exactly but the cost of manufacturing should definitely not be higher than the value. You end up with a net loss of value in the world if you do: the only value currency has is for the...
Related not exactly but the cost of manufacturing should definitely not be higher than the value. You end up with a net loss of value in the world if you do: the only value currency has is for the simplicity of exchange of value; otherwise it’s pure waste. So if its value in exchange is lower than its cost of manufacture and storage, it ends up being a net negative.
The purpose of currency isn't to have inmate value but rather to facilitate trade, which I believe is @skybrian's point. If a penny spurs more economic activity over the course of its lifetime...
The purpose of currency isn't to have inmate value but rather to facilitate trade, which I believe is @skybrian's point. If a penny spurs more economic activity over the course of its lifetime than the cost to manufacturer it, then arguably the penny is worth it.
If you were to offer a random passerby the choice between a penny or its constituent metals, only an economist would pick the latter.
Edit: I realized I basically just repeated what @skybrian said, so let me put it slightly differently.
The "economic value" of a penny, so to speak, is not given by
Economic value = (Nominal value [e.g. 1¢]) - (cost to manufacture)
but rather
Economic value = (Value of trade generated) - (cost to manufacture)
where Value of trade generated is some intractable, nonlinear function of the nominal value of the currency (as well as all other available means of trade).
For instance, if a penny generates $100 of economic activity over its lifetime (a number I admittedly pulled out of my ass), then whether it costs 0.5 cents or 3 cents to manufacture a penny is basically a negligible difference. But then again, perhaps pennies have a large opportunity cost (e.g., maybe people would conduct more trade if prices were rounded to the nearest 5 cents instead), so it might be worth eliminating pennies for that reason.
Or to give another example: people often pay for things by card, despite the fact that card transactions often take a flat percentage of the total transaction. It obviously doesn't take 100 times more "manufacturing cost" to process a payment 100 times more expensive, yet vendors still choose to accept card payments since it increases their total sales and consequently their profits.
At a 3 cent difference, you're probably right. That only holds to a certain point though. There is a reason we no longer make quarters out of silver. Every quarter made before 1964 is worth on the...
At a 3 cent difference, you're probably right. That only holds to a certain point though.
There is a reason we no longer make quarters out of silver. Every quarter made before 1964 is worth on the order of $400.
A silver quarter only has about $5.83 worth of silver, however. Most of its value comes from its rarity, not its constituent metals. (Of course, if the nominal value of a coin is much less than...
A silver quarter only has about $5.83 worth of silver, however. Most of its value comes from its rarity, not its constituent metals.
(Of course, if the nominal value of a coin is much less than the value of its constituent metals, then there's an opportunity for arbitrage by melting the coin down. So yes, you probably don't want quarters to be 90% silver!)
I guess they actually increased the cost to manufacture it because the cost of materials was high enough that people were melting them down for a profit, so the fix was the zinc core. More...
I guess they actually increased the cost to manufacture it because the cost of materials was high enough that people were melting them down for a profit, so the fix was the zinc core. More expensive to manufacture and not worth melting.
True but at the same time, how often is a single penny even necessary? The euro's smallest coin denomination is 5c for a few years now and that works just fine
True but at the same time, how often is a single penny even necessary? The euro's smallest coin denomination is 5c for a few years now and that works just fine
Correction: This is not true, only some countries with the Euro currency round their prices to 5c, e.g. Germany doesn't. 1c and 2c is still legal tender in all Euro countries. See also...
Correction:
This is not true, only some countries with the Euro currency round their prices to 5c, e.g. Germany doesn't. 1c and 2c is still legal tender in all Euro countries. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_coins#Price_rounding.
Pennies are famously worth less as coins than their value in scrap metal. This is bad because the mint literally makes a loss printing money, and everyone will just take the coins and melt them...
Pennies are famously worth less as coins than their value in scrap metal. This is bad because the mint literally makes a loss printing money, and everyone will just take the coins and melt them down for scrap unless they're specifically prevented from doing so by law enforcement.
And all of that is a waste of time, because the metal coins are made from is cheap, and if the cost of the coin is somehow cheaper than that then the value of the coin will be lower than the transaction friction, thus making it pointless for commerce because it's cheaper to just not use the coins.
On the plus side, pennies technically aren't fiat currency.
It (allegedly) happened for a bit to the old copper ones until the government stepped in to stop it. I've heard of people shipping them to Canada to melt down for raw copper, but couldn't quickly...
It (allegedly) happened for a bit to the old copper ones until the government stepped in to stop it. I've heard of people shipping them to Canada to melt down for raw copper, but couldn't quickly find a reliable source stating that it actually happened.
Not a DJT fan, but I am kinda ok with this. I remember having a giant jar in my car that would fill up every couple years, and then would magically end up being a whole...60 bucks?
Not a DJT fan, but I am kinda ok with this. I remember having a giant jar in my car that would fill up every couple years, and then would magically end up being a whole...60 bucks?
I am very okay with getting rid of the penny, but I'm not okay with the president (any president) doing it unilaterally. I don't think this is one of the powers that he's supposed to have, and I'm...
I am very okay with getting rid of the penny, but I'm not okay with the president (any president) doing it unilaterally. I don't think this is one of the powers that he's supposed to have, and I'm very uncomfortable with the presidential usurpation of powers that are supposed to belong to other branches. If we had president Bernie Sanders I don't think I would want to see him doing this in this way either.
Yeah, that's a good point. It is another example of the orange clown pushing the envelope and trying to get away with things he shouldn't be able to :/
Yeah, that's a good point. It is another example of the orange clown pushing the envelope and trying to get away with things he shouldn't be able to :/
According to the latest annual report from the US Mint, each penny cost 3.7 cents to make, including the 3 cents for production costs, and 0.7 cents per coin for administrative and distribution costs. But each nickel costs 13.8 cents, with 11 cents of production costs and 2.8 cents of administrative and distribution costs. These figures are for the government’s fiscal year, which ends on September.
During that fiscal year, the Mint tried to cut those losses by making far fewer nickels — only 202 million, down 86% from the 1.4 billion nickels it minted in each of the two previous years. That’s also far less than the 3.2 billon pennies it made in 2024 and the 4.1 billion it made in 2023 and 5.4 billion it made in 2022.
Even if the Mint has to make only 850,000 additional nickels in 2025 to meet demand from retailers, that would wipe out the savings of eliminating the penny. If goes back up to making 1.4 million nickels a year, that would cost $78 million more than the cost of pennies it is no longer making.
…
Nickels made of 75% copper and 25% nickel, while pennies, despite their reputation of being a copper coin are copper-plated zinc, meaning they are only 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc.
While all metal prices can be volatile, zinc prices are essentially where they were in late 2016, while copper and nickel prices are roughly double the price they were then.
The idea that more nickels will be required in day-to-day transactions if the penny disappears is superficially seductive, but it's wrong. That's because the removal of pennies does not require that nickels do any more transactional work than before.
First, let's rebut it with a real-life example. In 2012, Canada abolished its one-cent piece and implemented five cent rounding. No nation is more similar to the U.S. than Canada, so it serves as a great foil. Did Canada experience a doubling or tripling in nickel production in order to fill the gap left by the penny? Below is the Royal Canadian Mint's nickel production from 2005 to present:
...
No, the amount of nickels didn't jump in 2013 or 2014, the year after the penny's abolition. In fact, since the penny ban in 2012, Canadian nickel production has remained well-below its pre-2012 level of 200 million to 250 million.
I agree, (recently moved to Europe from US), but that's a much bigger change than getting rid of the penny. For one, would probably require state action in each individual states.
I agree, (recently moved to Europe from US), but that's a much bigger change than getting rid of the penny. For one, would probably require state action in each individual states.
This was an argument I'd been wondering about, and its CGP grey, so an interesting video on the discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1KgxqEQn0A
This was an argument I'd been wondering about, and its CGP grey, so an interesting video on the discussion:
Well, not straight away and only if this sticks. Even if so, it would only impact cash transactions. There’s no need to round when everything is electronic.
Well, not straight away and only if this sticks. Even if so, it would only impact cash transactions. There’s no need to round when everything is electronic.
I'm just thinking that if we do not round out the accounts now, then there will need to be a bunch of offsets to make up for at each financial institution. Example being, 15 years from now I am...
I'm just thinking that if we do not round out the accounts now, then there will need to be a bunch of offsets to make up for at each financial institution. Example being, 15 years from now I am going to close my account and it's balance is 115.12 , either the bank or the person will need to take a loss. Which will it be? Maybe I'm overthinking it. But there are always challenges with things like this in the accounting world.
Typically, they’d give you a cashier’s check anyway - if you don’t just transfer it electronically. Either option doesn’t require rounding. This seems like a trivially easy problem to solve with...
Typically, they’d give you a cashier’s check anyway - if you don’t just transfer it electronically. Either option doesn’t require rounding.
This seems like a trivially easy problem to solve with some defined rules - but you’re talking about a few cents either direction at most.
It's why for all of the weird praise in this thread agreeing with removing the penny or cutting through red tape, it's a bad idea to just wing it and not plan for the outcomes Bureaucracy can be...
It's why for all of the weird praise in this thread agreeing with removing the penny or cutting through red tape, it's a bad idea to just wing it and not plan for the outcomes
Bureaucracy can be annoying but it also understands consequences.
I am not advocating for the executive order, but this is not even close to a hard problem to solve in the grand scheme of things. Other countries have successfully done it, and their economies...
I am not advocating for the executive order, but this is not even close to a hard problem to solve in the grand scheme of things. Other countries have successfully done it, and their economies were/are just fine without using pennies in cash transactions.
Yes, it needs to go through Congress and this executive order should get torpedoed by the courts. I don’t think it’s weird that people like the idea, however.
It's not weird to like the idea of the change, it's weird to praise this specific change being especially as cutting through bureaucracy. I agree. It's quite frankly probably way past time for us...
It's not weird to like the idea of the change, it's weird to praise this specific change being especially as cutting through bureaucracy.
I agree. It's quite frankly probably way past time for us to get rid of the penny. But it's why you should do it the right way. This is still executive overreach and part of a pattern of the sapping of the other two branches of our government.
To be clear I wasn't referring to you but to others with my initial comment.
Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone was grossly underestimated. Some were dissatisfied with its progressive politics, others wanted it to be Black Mirror, while Jordan followed the lead of Rod Serling....
Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone was grossly underestimated. Some were dissatisfied with its progressive politics, others wanted it to be Black Mirror, while Jordan followed the lead of Rod Serling. In the episode called The Wunderkind, a petulant child becomes president. I am often reminded of that episode. This post did it this time. I highly recommend it.
I think the spirit of the law more or less agrees with you, but the letter of the law is ambiguous. The Constitution grants Congress the authority to mint coins. That doesn't necessarily mean that...
I think the spirit of the law more or less agrees with you, but the letter of the law is ambiguous. The Constitution grants Congress the authority to mint coins. That doesn't necessarily mean that they choose which coins to mint, just that they're in charge of creating the coins.
Additionally 31 U.S.C. § 5112 says the Treasury "may" mint specific coins, not that they must mint them.
Seems to me they would have been more specific if they didn't want to be ambiguous, given how simple those changes would be.
A lot of the laws in government run on good faith. Good faith that the people wouldn't vote in a dictator into every electable position, and good faith of checks and balances when overreach...
A lot of the laws in government run on good faith. Good faith that the people wouldn't vote in a dictator into every electable position, and good faith of checks and balances when overreach occurs. And you know, the idea that the president isn't immune from the actions of his consequences.
We all know if Biden did this that there's be chaos in congress.
This is basically the "theory" behind trump voters. "look he just went in and got it done", and yeah, that is something I think more people would appreciate when it comes to very specific issues.
We've had decades of political doublespeak and constant "well now's not the time" on issues that are very much within the purview of executive power or could at least have pressure applied (weed scheduling being a big one), so yeah, it makes sense that there's a lot of people who just want a president who's going to go in and actually do something.
Naturally what he's actually doing is quite literally throwing shit all over the place and seeing what sticks, and thus "broken clock" and all that, but this is the sort of thing where it's reasonable to ask "so why didn't we already do this?"
I doubt it. These same voters were largely incensed when Biden and Obama cut through red tape by executive action, or were told they had done so (remember the ridiculous flare-up over Obama's "czars"?).
Yeah, we keep assigning abstract beliefs of government principle to Trump voters but I don’t believe it exists. It doesn’t go much further than my team good, other team bad.
It’s the kind of thinking that someone uses to conclude that Biden can’t forgive student loans via executive order but it’s totally fine for Trump to use an executive order shut down an agency that must exist by law.
It doesn’t make sense in the context of any specific principles about government or law but that’s not the level of abstraction that they are using to think about government.
This is the downstream effects of both education polarization and the senate filibuster paralyzing congress.
Kristi Noem stating that people can't trust the government and having the reporter say" you are the government" is perhaps the most recent example of how there is no logic to this process.
Checks and balances makes things slow... and no one wants to end up on the
zinccoin blank industries' naughty list! But the real reason is probably that change is expensive and disruptive. It doesn't make sense for a government to be changing the rules every other day or no one will take it seriously.Sure, but the problem is, that's always the case. There's always issues, there's always special interests, and there's always some excuse. I brought up banning the penny as a debate topic in 03 (and got told it was a bad topic only to see it for the rest of my debate career.......) and it's maybe just now going to happen.
It makes a lot of sense, especially as inflation has gotten worse and worse, and yet there's always something in the way of even the relatively easy options.
The reason he is able to do certain things is because he doesn’t care about details and doesn’t give a shit about long term costs. Maybe he was right about ending the penny, but probably not the way he did it.
He appeals to simple people who like knee jerk responses to things they don’t understand.
It’s the same kind of solution as “just build a big wall to stop immigration” or “why not turn Gaza into a trump hotel”.
He kind of proof there are no alien craft at Area 51. He would have just blurted it out if there was.
I don't know, but I feel like in this day and age any questions people actually want answered can be researched in minutes. Allow me...
ahh, what a convinient Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_States
So, basically: Congress tried muliple times, but they either never bother voting to begin with, or consumer pressures over price increases add friction (and of course: lobbying by Big Zinc).
Trump did what he usually does, ignores laws and customs, and did a potential constitutional overreach. Any other president would risk impeachment, but Trump is apparently above the law for now (To be fair, the presidential immunity ruling was only wielded by Biden for a few months and now Trump).
Now of course, most people won't do this. and I imagine a bulk of his voter base will never understand that other presidents (say, Biden) couldn't do this because they'd very likely be impeached.
I'm well aware of basically everything surrounding this particular issue as it's been a pet one of mine for 20ish years, but I think you're still missing the point.
Presidents can put pressure and focus on issues without violating their powers, and it's arguably one of the most important roles of the position. As congress has steadily gotten worse, this power has only become more and more important. I think there's good evidence that similar desires got both Trump and Obama elected (outsiders who will "change things"), and I'd say people have been disappointed with such hopes basically every election I've been alive for (even Trump's first term).
Some of that comes with the territory, but history is full of presidents who found ways to push major change, even against a hostile congress. One of the big complaints is that everything has gotten so "meta" that nothing ever is even tried. "Oh they'll block it, so better not waste time bringing it" has been something that has just become standard procedure, rather than "making them have it" and actually forcing congressmen to sit in session through filibusters or difficult bills, going on the record for their vote, and actually calling them out repeatedly for this behavior.
We are waaaaaaaay past the point where that kind of behavior could matter to some exttent, but Biden being "quiet" and pretty standard politically did not help for the people who find the perception of this issue frustrating. "You're too dumb or lazy to understand" is a very quick way to lose.
The penny is just another example of "god that sounds like a bunch of excuses" and trump violating basically every inch of the constitution is the outcome of that. The penny is just the least inflammatory example so I feel more comfortable at least discussing the symptoms that led to this, as it's touchy with just about every other subject because lots of people seem to equate criticism of the opposition as support for Trump, and that's very much not what any of this is.
I prefer we'd proper get congress aligned instead of just voting in people who want to push the envelope. It's a large ship and you need to steer carefully. Even if there's no accident you'll end up freaking out everyone on board. Obama made some changes, but still went through the process (and as you expect, congress slowed him down). Trump seems to be full gung ho to tear everything down by compairon.
This was a long time coming, and I argue we are in unprecedented times. Since post-reagan there's been a growing polarization within the parties, a throwing out of traditions within the presidency and a growing feeling of treating congress as a honeypot rather than a public servant.
This partisan gridlock It came full force by the time W Bush came in, but it was delayed by a moment of nationalism due to 9/11 (another unprecedented event, given American's history and geography). So Obama really felt this gridlock the most when sworn in. This kind of utter partisan push back is arguably unprecedented. So I wouldn't compare older presidents to what's happening now. The New Deal from this kind of congress would be called communism, Watergate would be dismissed as a minor operational error, The Vietnam war would be this odd point of pride in America. This isn't how people would react to such events back then.
So I think it's the opposite. Obama, Trump 45, and Biden tried realllly hard and they were met with unheard of friction. They all managed to pass bills anyway, but it should not have been this hard. By Trump 47, all that changed is that his opposition is in the minority, and the people more polarized than ever. It's not a problem we just ignore and work around. We should try and resolve that for a proper govcernment.
That's like saying we're asking to be stolen from, the door didn't have 3 padlocks. I'm not going to excuse breaking the law because "they had it coming". Especially since we all know the result of this:
The courts will cancel his order in a matter of weeks, it will either be dropped and nothing changes (even though yes, he broke the constitution), or we enter our hundreth legal battle this month bashing the president for not following the rules (impeachment being not off the table, but relatively unlikely). So we're not actually going to be getting rid of the penny either way. How did this help anyone out in the long term?
I agree. Sadly, Congress—despite consistently having lower approval ratings than presidents at their nadir—has a 90+% re-election rate. People love their local representatives. Every other district and their wasteful makework is the problem.
Interesting. Souds like more people need to pay attention to their local news. There's still decent coverege or senate elections, but it won't compare to the billion dolllar media blitz of national elections.
Reps are definiely harder to research if you're a larger state. I be few people can even name their reps. That's where local community is important but that's something that's only collapsed among people today. especially the youth. Unfortunate because many people would be surprised how close those more local elections can come down to. We're talking dozens of votes at times.
You’re correct that more people need local news. However, I think people legitimately like their local representatives and find every other district in the nation to be a worthless roadblock to good policy.
“Congress is dysfunctional, but my guy is one of the ones trying to fix it.”
Regardless of whether it's ultimately a good idea in theory, this is still executive overreach, and I don't understand ignoring that because you agree with the outcome.
It perpetuates the idea that he can do anything. Congress controls currency
Ive been pondering on executive overreach a lot lately, for obvious reasons, but specifically in the context of the emancipation proclamation.
Lincoln is my favorite president only because he didn’t live long enough to screw it up. I’ve thought a lot about it and I’m really happy that he decided to use his power for good. He certainly didn’t have to, no one else was, and he did actually make things worse temporarily, but it was from a place of actually wanting a better life for people.
I wish I could have lived through a time where a president made some insane power grabbing executive decision that was actually a good move and for the betterment of the people.
Yeah, Executive overreach could be argued for unprecedented situations as long as the executive has good intentions at heart (AKA preserving the nation and its republic). Lincoln made his decisions trying to prevent a country from fragmenting at the seams and focusing on advancing together rather than punishment.
It's sadly very much not the case with Trump's EO's. He has all 3 branches and is using that to ransack the nation. Who don't care as long as their pet peeves are dismantled along the way. At the end of the day, the people overall will lose as halff the country cuts their nose off.
I kinda cant believe it lasted as long as it did. We really just relied on common voters to make sure that only someone with good intentions became president.
I definitely wish that some of the presidents never held office, but this is really the first time we’ve managed to elect someone who wants to destroy the United States.
That's part of the issue. I didn't know if that was legal (a common thing as of late), and only now do I look it up and realize that Congress is the one who controls production and circulation of legal tender.
Most people won't look it up (and magically ignore the very important presidential immunity ruling) and think "it was always this easy? Why didn't Biden/Obama do this?". Trump in many respects gets away with stuff over his platform's ignorance. And of course, congress' unwillingness to stop him.
It's also just the complete willingness of Congress to cede all of their power to him, forever. It's madness.
But I do hold Tildes to a higher standard than either Congress or the explicitly ignorant Trump base you describe, and I'm still being disappointed IMO.
Canada eliminated the penny in 2012. It's about time that the US did away with it as well.
Due to inflation, a penny is beyond useless these days. The US half-cent was discontinued in 1857 because it wasn't worth enough to be of any practical use. With inflation, that half-cent is now worth more than a 2025 US dime. Let's just get rid of everything smaller than a quarter.
Personally, I haven't carried coins in over a decade. I always have a few bills in my wallet in case I need to spend cash, but as soon as I get home, the coins just go straight into a coin jar, from where (in theory) I'll take them to the bank one day. Maybe it'll just end up being a really expensive heirloom.
I certainly agree that if you’re going to get rid of the penny, make sure you get rid of everything else in that same order of magnitude.
Australia got rid of 1¢ and 2¢ coins ages ago but kept the 5¢ and honestly I think that was a mistake. Get rid of the entire order or magnitude at a time, and keep currency calculation at the checkout easier as a result. If the smallest denomination after the change is an order of magnitude, that keeps things simple.
Of course that’s easier with Australian currency, because everything follows the 1/2/5 pattern, but by having a quarter you’ve left yourself in the situation where you have a denomination that can’t be made with the other denominations (e.g. if your total is $x.21 but you don’t have nickels anymore, then you can either pay with two dimes or a quarter, and one side or the other gains a tiny fractional benefit, but you can’t change a quarter for 2.5 dimes at the till)
In Canada, when you pay with cash, they just round the transaction to the nearest 5-cent increment.
I have a simple three step plan to deal with this:
Realistically, this will result in all posted prices being a multiple of 0.25, and we won't actually have to perform any rounding. There are a handful of things that cost less than a quarter right now, but I think it would be easy enough to allow a mandatory minimum purchase, simply so that people aren't pumping 12 cents of gas at a time into their car.
I think the effort and time required to pump $0.12 and then walk into the gas station to “pay” and then walk out again and pump another $0.12 again... let them have that, my time is worth more than that, and petrocompanies make more than enough to cover that
I cant say I've missed using pennies, but I do get a bit sentimental when I see a small jar of them tucked away in my garage. It seems odd that my grandkids will grow up never using them or even knowing what they are. But then again 'penny candy' hasn't been a thing at the convenience store for a long time (I still gag when I see a chocolate bar for $3 at 7-11) and if I saw one laying in the street, I dont think Id bother to pick it up, so really, what use is a penny anymore? Unless you want to tile your floor with them: https://www.tiktok.com/@ilse.interior.finishings/video/7345601292103847198?lang=en
I think if Biden had tried to eliminate the penny he would’ve been crucified over the inflation issue. It still baffles me that the Democrats never tried to pin inflation of Trump (call it Trumpflation), I mean under him the economy crashed and debt exploded. If I were a politician, I’d be hammering this as a sign that the value of your dollar was going to keep sinking.
I think a lot of this reason is relatively simple: we're in the middle of a paradigm shift on how we communicate. And the last remnants of traditional media are going out swingining. The current younger generations are on platforms that aren't necessarily dedicated to politics, so anything short of something that immediately affects their everyday will not register the same way to them as some 55+ YO watching hours of Fox News.
This will "fix itself" in a few decades as the last of the boomers die out and traditional media completely flickers out as social media becomes this melting pot of news, as opposed to 2-3 big stations (all under control by the same owners). And as the old voterbase shifts more towards the older millenials/youngest Gen X. Ideally a voterbase that is more stable and doesn't need to worry about working 2+ gigs or part time jobs to afford rent.
In short: "old people care more than young people, or rather have more time to care. and their media consumption makes them easier to ignite than a social media feed decentralizing news". I wish there were ways to make people care more, but it just seems to naturally happen as people age.
That seems a little to close to Demographics as Destiny for me to be comfortable with it, especially since there’s reason to believe that the younger generation seems to be more conservative by the nature of the pendulum swinging back. Not saying that it won’t trend one way or the other, more that there’s always going to be an audible opposition and it’s not going to just be the olds.
I wish it was that easy, but you're right. Traditionally you grow more conservative as you age. Not necessarily full Far Right levels, just "I focus on social security and lower property tax" kinds of conservative. That will include more kinds of modern news shifting as well (you've probably seen a few examples with your own eyes).
My main optimism is that I feel that
there won't be a 3-way gridlock on how you get information by that time. So while there will be conservative shifts, Less will necessarily feel locked on a single source to consume info and
an aging millenial voter base will at least (hopefully) sympathize a bit more with various other fiscal policies. Unlike Boomers, Millennials had a whiplash of economic shifts in their lives, so those will be in mind when factors like "raise federal minimum wage" or "lower full-time hours to 32 hours a week".
Of course, I could still be way too optimistic and we repeat the cycle. But I do believe those life experiences will change how they think of America when it comes time to make policy.
I mostly just focus on the olds because that's one of the few statistics that has been steady over the century. That 18-29 demographics simply doesn't turnout when the time comes. I was hoping the information age would help in bucking such a trend, but the last 2 decades of turnout hasn't fundamentally shifted such trends. Obama spiked the youth vote but that seemed to be a one-off, despite Obama being elected right before the social media explosion.
Scope down to state and city policy and this contrast is even more stark. I do feel that will be an interesting technological shift as well over the decades. Maybe a bi-weekly forum at 1PM on a Tuesday won't be the only way to reach out to these smaller community leaders.
You might be interested to know that America has adopted some of your old pennies. I handle cash in my line of work and every now and then a Canadian penny is mixed in among the American ones. I will often just hand it out in change, and no one has ever handed one back and said “hey this penny’s no good here or anywhere, it’s got a leaf on it!” They just take it and go and probably spend it or lose it or put it in their own jar, to eventually be rejected by a coinstar machine.
But if we follow Canada we’d have to bring the two dollar bill back into real circulation and there aren’t enough slots in cash registers for that.
Introduce a $2 coin that goes in the old penny slot?
We don’t use two dollar bills, we use two dollar coins, and you just got rid of your pennies so…
We have dollar coins, but they are semi-rare. Some people can legitimately go throughout life without ever seeing one in person.
We also used to have a half dollar coin, but those went ouf of circulation decades ago. I've only seen a handful of those in my life.
Dollar coins are nice. I used to bring them on trips when I traveled for tips.
This idea that the cost to manufacture a coin should be somehow related to the worth of the coin is pretty much nonsense - we don't use gold or silver coin anymore, so it's just a token. The manufacturing cost should be split across all the transactions that use the token.
My guess is that the cost of manufacturing coins is very little compared to the labor and equipment businesses need to securely handle cash. It would be interesting to know how much that is and how it compares to other payment systems.
In fairness, we could have eliminated the penny 20 years ago with a simple "round everything down to nearest 5."
The human cost of the penny is huge, dwarfing manufacture cost...ask every retail worker that still has to deal with them.
And the primary reason to keep coinage below manufacturing cost is to prevent people from illicitly melting them down.
And in Australia, this was done 20+ years ago (33 years ago, in fact), so it's proven to work, so the US really has no excuse.
As I just commented a moment ago elsewhere in this thread, I think leaving the 5¢ coin in place was a mistake, and the world would be a better place if they just got rid of the entire order of magnitude in one go
A mix of Congress gridlock, lobbying by zinc production companies, and public FUD about rising costs.
Which was absolutely happening in case anyone was wondering.
I don't know about recently but within the last few decades people have been caught moving boatloads of pennies.
Was it? I can't find actual articles about it, only questions about the legality of melting pennies for art or profit but no actual evidence of it happening.
Which seems to track for me because it's stupid expensive energy-wise for very little profit
Oh man... I can't find anything either.
When we scrapped the penny in Canada there were some articles or podcasts that discussed at least one bust where someone was moving TONS of them to melt down. It probably wasn't too common TBH but it is something to be worried about once the value gets too out of whack.
All I could find was the worry that it would be possible that people would start doing it, but for the US penny at least I found multiple articles saying that the value of the copper has never been high enough to actually make money, and that since they switched to mostly zinc it really wasn't an issue (all the concerns were about old pennies)
So yeah I think it's gotta be an urban legend barring future evidence
Ya, fair enough. I thought I'd be able to find it but Google/DDG are completely slammed with content about the current penny situation. The story I recall would be over a decade old then and I'm fairly certain was a podcast or radio... so I'm likely not finding that.
Related not exactly but the cost of manufacturing should definitely not be higher than the value. You end up with a net loss of value in the world if you do: the only value currency has is for the simplicity of exchange of value; otherwise it’s pure waste. So if its value in exchange is lower than its cost of manufacture and storage, it ends up being a net negative.
The purpose of currency isn't to have inmate value but rather to facilitate trade, which I believe is @skybrian's point. If a penny spurs more economic activity over the course of its lifetime than the cost to manufacturer it, then arguably the penny is worth it.
If you were to offer a random passerby the choice between a penny or its constituent metals, only an economist would pick the latter.
Edit: I realized I basically just repeated what @skybrian said, so let me put it slightly differently.
The "economic value" of a penny, so to speak, is not given by
but rather
where
Value of trade generatedis some intractable, nonlinear function of the nominal value of the currency (as well as all other available means of trade).For instance, if a penny generates $100 of economic activity over its lifetime (a number I admittedly pulled out of my ass), then whether it costs 0.5 cents or 3 cents to manufacture a penny is basically a negligible difference. But then again, perhaps pennies have a large opportunity cost (e.g., maybe people would conduct more trade if prices were rounded to the nearest 5 cents instead), so it might be worth eliminating pennies for that reason.
Or to give another example: people often pay for things by card, despite the fact that card transactions often take a flat percentage of the total transaction. It obviously doesn't take 100 times more "manufacturing cost" to process a payment 100 times more expensive, yet vendors still choose to accept card payments since it increases their total sales and consequently their profits.
At a 3 cent difference, you're probably right. That only holds to a certain point though.
There is a reason we no longer make quarters out of silver. Every quarter made before 1964 is worth on the order of $400.
A silver quarter only has about $5.83 worth of silver, however. Most of its value comes from its rarity, not its constituent metals.
(Of course, if the nominal value of a coin is much less than the value of its constituent metals, then there's an opportunity for arbitrage by melting the coin down. So yes, you probably don't want quarters to be 90% silver!)
I think you misplaced a decimal somewhere. Silver quarters contain about $4 - $5 worth of silver.
Oop, yep. But yea point holds. You can smelt metals in your microwave.
You just knocked the first domino in a chain that will burn my house down six months from now
That seems like a really, really bad idea.
Yea I wouldn't recommend doing so using your primary microwave on a wooden surface. But it's not as bad as it would seem
I guess they actually increased the cost to manufacture it because the cost of materials was high enough that people were melting them down for a profit, so the fix was the zinc core. More expensive to manufacture and not worth melting.
True but at the same time, how often is a single penny even necessary? The euro's smallest coin denomination is 5c for a few years now and that works just fine
Correction:
This is not true, only some countries with the Euro currency round their prices to 5c, e.g. Germany doesn't. 1c and 2c is still legal tender in all Euro countries. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_coins#Price_rounding.
Tell that to all the 1 and 2 cent euro coins in my wallet! The Euro's lowest denomination is still 1 cent.
It's never necessary.
Pennies are famously worth less as coins than their value in scrap metal. This is bad because the mint literally makes a loss printing money, and everyone will just take the coins and melt them down for scrap unless they're specifically prevented from doing so by law enforcement.
And all of that is a waste of time, because the metal coins are made from is cheap, and if the cost of the coin is somehow cheaper than that then the value of the coin will be lower than the transaction friction, thus making it pointless for commerce because it's cheaper to just not use the coins.
On the plus side, pennies technically aren't fiat currency.
People really melt down pennies? Any examples?
It (allegedly) happened for a bit to the old copper ones until the government stepped in to stop it. I've heard of people shipping them to Canada to melt down for raw copper, but couldn't quickly find a reliable source stating that it actually happened.
Not a DJT fan, but I am kinda ok with this. I remember having a giant jar in my car that would fill up every couple years, and then would magically end up being a whole...60 bucks?
I am very okay with getting rid of the penny, but I'm not okay with the president (any president) doing it unilaterally. I don't think this is one of the powers that he's supposed to have, and I'm very uncomfortable with the presidential usurpation of powers that are supposed to belong to other branches. If we had president Bernie Sanders I don't think I would want to see him doing this in this way either.
Yeah, that's a good point. It is another example of the orange clown pushing the envelope and trying to get away with things he shouldn't be able to :/
Your savings strategy is ruined!
Getting rid of the penny introduces a new problem: nickels (CNN)
…
Here's a claim that this is wrong:
Ending the penny won't lead to more nickels
...
Gotta love when you can’t tell if he’s just randomly bullshitting or if he’s actually serious…
Next up, mandate prices to only be in 5 cent increments?
taxes still fuck with the totals, unfortunately.
Mandate including tax into prices. It works just fine in Europe.
I agree, (recently moved to Europe from US), but that's a much bigger change than getting rid of the penny. For one, would probably require state action in each individual states.
One year from now: Donald Trump declares Bidenomics "over" as he orders triumphant revival of the penny
This was an argument I'd been wondering about, and its CGP grey, so an interesting video on the discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1KgxqEQn0A
I'm super nervous what this means for financial institutions that now have to round up or down. I'm assuming this would be the case right?
Well, not straight away and only if this sticks. Even if so, it would only impact cash transactions. There’s no need to round when everything is electronic.
I'm just thinking that if we do not round out the accounts now, then there will need to be a bunch of offsets to make up for at each financial institution. Example being, 15 years from now I am going to close my account and it's balance is 115.12 , either the bank or the person will need to take a loss. Which will it be? Maybe I'm overthinking it. But there are always challenges with things like this in the accounting world.
Typically, they’d give you a cashier’s check anyway - if you don’t just transfer it electronically. Either option doesn’t require rounding.
This seems like a trivially easy problem to solve with some defined rules - but you’re talking about a few cents either direction at most.
It's why for all of the weird praise in this thread agreeing with removing the penny or cutting through red tape, it's a bad idea to just wing it and not plan for the outcomes
Bureaucracy can be annoying but it also understands consequences.
I am not advocating for the executive order, but this is not even close to a hard problem to solve in the grand scheme of things. Other countries have successfully done it, and their economies were/are just fine without using pennies in cash transactions.
Yes, it needs to go through Congress and this executive order should get torpedoed by the courts. I don’t think it’s weird that people like the idea, however.
It's not weird to like the idea of the change, it's weird to praise this specific change being especially as cutting through bureaucracy.
I agree. It's quite frankly probably way past time for us to get rid of the penny. But it's why you should do it the right way. This is still executive overreach and part of a pattern of the sapping of the other two branches of our government.
To be clear I wasn't referring to you but to others with my initial comment.
Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone was grossly underestimated. Some were dissatisfied with its progressive politics, others wanted it to be Black Mirror, while Jordan followed the lead of Rod Serling. In the episode called The Wunderkind, a petulant child becomes president. I am often reminded of that episode. This post did it this time. I highly recommend it.
Something something broken clock twice a day.
<S>If we get 'no more DST' maybe everything will be worth it. We can begin to heal.
<\S>
The trains will run on time again!
I LLOLed
Except for the fact that even when he's right he's still wrong. This is something that congress must do. Doing it this way is unlawful.
I think the spirit of the law more or less agrees with you, but the letter of the law is ambiguous. The Constitution grants Congress the authority to mint coins. That doesn't necessarily mean that they choose which coins to mint, just that they're in charge of creating the coins.
Additionally 31 U.S.C. § 5112 says the Treasury "may" mint specific coins, not that they must mint them.
Seems to me they would have been more specific if they didn't want to be ambiguous, given how simple those changes would be.
A lot of the laws in government run on good faith. Good faith that the people wouldn't vote in a dictator into every electable position, and good faith of checks and balances when overreach occurs. And you know, the idea that the president isn't immune from the actions of his consequences.
We all know if Biden did this that there's be chaos in congress.