It’s a waste of tax dollars by definition, because pennies and nickels cost about twice as much to make as they are worth. Our overbearing sentimentality about pennies then continues to generate costs in terms of the time spent transacting, sorting, transporting, and exchanging them–or the money we have to pay others to do it for us. Of course long-term historic inflation has played a huge role here, but the way to fight inflation is sound monetary policy. In that regard pennies are beside the point.
That won’t fly in the U.S., and it has nothing to do with sentimentality. We by and large reject the idea that the government is allowed to do things against our wishes. We view what happened in Canada as being anti-democratic.
Seriously, you’ve just finally given me a reason besides the weather not to want to live in Canada. I don’t believe in the idea of government by experts.
What I don’t get is why no one just floats the idea of making them out of something cheaper.
The government killed one dollar coins by keeping both one dollar bills and one dollar coins in circulation.
Surely you would not suggest that there should be an opinion poll every time any government agency (e.g the army) wants to make any change that might improve efficiency.
The bottom line is that the USPS is a union success story, therefore the right will do anything to destroy it, see here. Destroying another union is the motive for the onerous congressional requirements on the USPS.
This is utterly baffling to me. Could you please explain this?
I’m half American (born and raised there, one American parent) and half Canadian. I can’t imagine wanting to be governed by people who were less than experts. I don’t have time to research every little issue that comes across the plate. That’s why I elect people to do it for me. I fully expect them to either be experts (in, say, the law and lawmaking) or consult with them (on the specifics of an issue, on science, etc.). That’s my biggest complain about American government: their “experts” are lobbyists, and they basically listen to money over knowledge. That’s obviously not what you’re suggesting, but what ARE you suggesting?
I can think of a couple of good reasons. First, they’d probably have to go to plastic, or some sort of ferrous alloy, the latter being likely magnetic just as many pre-Euro coins were. (I don’t know if any contemporary Swiss, EU, or UK coins are ferromagnetic.) I’m thinking the public might well be even less receptive to the idea of magnetic pennies than to the idea of eliminating them altogether.
The second reason is more fundamental. To make them out of cheaper materials might seem to be a logical approach on its face, but in this we abandoned any pretense of logic many years ago. What’s a penny worth, anyway? Walmart is currently offering four-packs of Tic Tacs candy for $2.88; at 36 Tic Tacs per box that works out to a price of 2c per Tic Tac. Ideally, our tax dollars should be used to solve problems, but finding a cheaper way to manufacture a coin that’s worth half a Tic Tac isn’t solving any problem. It’s kowtowing to a fond delusion that has long since outlived its usefulness. We don’t need a denomination that is worth so little.
Notwithstanding my earlier post, I believe I did read that they are looking into this.
I’d rather have that than government by lobbyists and corporate interests.
My wife scolds me that it is bad luck:p
We cannot reasonably ignore the fact that postal service buildings also occupy prime real estate in many cities: financial pressure placed on the USPS will force them to sell off these golden locations to balance their short-falls.
As I understand it, pennies can’t be made a whole lot cheaper, as it costs more than one cent just to take metal and turn it into a coin.
I don’t know exactly what properties coin-counting machines (Coin Star, bank counters, vending machines, toll booths, self-serve checkouts, change dispensers, fareboxes, etc) depend on, but if you change the composition of the penny, you have to keep in mind that you might break all of these machines.
Unlike most paper bill counters where you can just update the optical recognition software/firmware, most coin counters depend on electro-mechanical coin sorting.
While we’re at it, what’s with the obsession over whether or not a penny costs more than a penny to make? It’s not like we use coins once and then throw them in the trash. It’s also not like anybody expects the US Mint to be a self-sustaining business venture. It’s a part of the government. So why does anybody, except a handfull of people in the Treasury derpartment, know or care how much it costs to make a penny?
Basically, I’m asking if this is a fake “problem” created to have an argument in favor of eliminating the penny. Which, as I said before, I’m actually in favor of. But I’m in favor of it because the penny is a worthlessly small amount of money these days, not because of whether a penny can be made for less than a penny or not.
At this point, we could replace the penny, nickel and dime with the “bit” (a quarter has always been “two bits”) and most people would be okay with that. Except of course, for the retailers, who would no longer be able to post “$9.99” for a ten dollar item.
Actually this has been expected of mints since the earliest days of manufactured coins; it’s called seigniorage. It’s fundamental to the business model of a mint.
The USPS is an independent federal agency that is the modern successor to the former executive branch, cabinet level Department of the Post Office.
Except in many cases, the Post Office is a significant factor into making the neighborhood desirable.
Actually, the Post Office is considering offering basic financial services, with modest fees, as a means to help bolster its bottom line. It has locations in every major metropolis and tiny hamlet, and has the trust of many lower income individuals who need services such as check cashing or wire transfers.
I was under the impression that retailers did not carry dollar coins because the armored trucks that transport money to and from businesses would have to manufacture a whole bunch more trays to properly carry the heightened use of dollar coins. Coin counter machines would also need to be updated to include the new size and material. If the register trays didn’t have a convenient spot for the dollar coins then new register trays would need to be bought.
Basically, nobody wants to be the one to personally pay for the trays and machinery to hold and count all these coins in order to get them into common circulation when the dollar bill is “good enough”, traditional, and completely accepted.
Yes, but, you know, private business could do such a better job! Think of all the person who could make a healthy profit from handling those services. The USPS is stealing money from the hand of private citizen by having a government run monopoly! They must be destroyed so that entrepreneur can replace them!