In our world of escalating prices, whether it is due to inflation or just raising prices, regardless of inflation of any dollar system in the world, it's time we get rid of the penny.

I think that instituting a 50 cent coin in regular circulation would definetely improve the way we look at coins. I mean, when was the last time you actually held on to the 14 cent change the store returned to you?

Not only that, the 50 cent should be reduced in size, have the "gold" color the penny use to have, and that way, us New Yorkers don't have to carry around a huge pocket full of bus fare, if we don't have a Metrocard in handy.

I agree. Not only is it not really useful to anywon, it COSTS the US government to make them. That's right, the production of pennies is more than what they are worth.

I also agree we should reinstate the 50 cent coins, but smaller than the old ones. Since the "cost of living" makes alot of the formerly cheap, everyday things (phone calls, public transportation, etc.) to go up, now people are having to carry around more and more change to just (like wtfdude said) get a ride on the Bus.

SmartTart

quote:Originally posted by SmartTart:

I agree. Not only is it not really useful to anywon, it COSTS the US government to make them. That's right, the production of pennies is more than what they are worth.

According to the US Mint, it costs .81 cents to make a penny. http://tinyurl.com/cnvl5

[This message has been edited by H4TT3R (edited 07-16-2005).]

we should just do what they did in the movie "demolition man"

they just used cards, no money to carry around, just one card that stored all of your cash.

like an ordinary credit card, only this card was the only thing you really needed.

Their would have to be damn good security, otherwise your lifes earnings can be taken away from this one card you have your money tied to.

Unless we use several cards, perhaps make portable machines to transfer money from one to another.

No doubt all transactions would be logged, so if the feds look into what you have been doing/keep tabs on all transfers above 10k, then they will know you may be a criminal [or just look at what ever information they have]. They already do this with bank accounts, but with the elimination of paper money things would be different. It would be so much harder to commit crimes for profit.

I disagree, although I am highly biased since I live off of pennies... I've converted an electric pump into a underwater vaccum by putting in a strainer to filter out coins which fall into a bucket (the whole thing is powered by a rechargable large battery) so I can suck out all the pennies from a fountain at night. ahahaha...

quote:Originally posted by The Mad Bomber:

I disagree, although I am highly biased since I live off of pennies... I've converted an electric pump into a underwater vaccum by putting in a strainer to filter out coins which fall into a bucket (the whole thing is powered by a rechargable large battery) so I can suck out all the pennies from a fountain at night. ahahaha...

well nickels would become the next penny, more money for you. makes me wonder if you are smart enough to actually build that contraption. seems like a lot of work for somthing so risky and not profitable, after getting all the local foutains you would be out of luck, no, even with food stamps you would't have access to a comp unless a librairy. your full of shit. but my take: no more ugly dirty pennys that are usless on payphones and vending machines, pennys that are garbage that are found all too often. get rid of them.

quote:Originally posted by Captainpenguin:

we should just do what they did in the movie "demolition man"

they just used cards, no money to carry around, just one card that stored all of your cash.

like an ordinary credit card, only this card was the only thing you really needed.

What if you lost that card, or had it stolen? Then you'd be fucked...

Stoyve

No.

quote:Originally posted by buttthrax:

No.

Well...







































...then, fuck you too.

quote:Originally posted by SmartTart:

it COSTS the US government to make them.

It costs money to make anything, whether or not the value of the coin/bill is more or less than how much it costs to make it. They don't just make new money and then spend it, that would make out money worthless. They destroy money as they make more.

Get rid of all our currency, and make 1lb half-cent pieces the only coin. It solves the obesity epedimic and is good for a chuckle. It would also lower the crime rate, who wants to steal those?

quote:Originally posted by insanitarium:

Get rid of all our currency, and make 1lb half-cent pieces the only coin. It solves the obesity epedimic and is good for a chuckle. It would also lower the crime rate, who wants to steal those?

Logical...definetely logical....

quote:Originally posted by wtfdude:

Well...







































...then, fuck you too.



hahahaha

It would generally fuck up EVERYTHING.

"That comes to a dollar seventeen sir."

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PAY TWO CENTS?

Taxes and prices on EVERYthing would have to be changed or moddifyed or have everything round up to the nearest ten(th).

So instead of paying that 1.17, you'd pay 1.20.

Rip off. And don't think it would work the other way 1.12 rounds to 1.10, the Government would make it go to 1.15.

Pathetic, I think we should abolish all currency and start a Credit based system. Like KoToR.

I heartily disagree. The penny is the ultimate low buget missile, what else am I going to throw at people in my German class?

quote:Originally posted by jaronkenney:

It would generally fuck up EVERYTHING.

"That comes to a dollar seventeen sir."

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PAY TWO CENTS?

Taxes and prices on EVERYthing would have to be changed or moddifyed or have everything round up to the nearest ten(th).

So instead of paying that 1.17, you'd pay 1.20.

Rip off. And don't think it would work the other way 1.12 rounds to 1.10, the Government would make it go to 1.15.

Pathetic, I think we should abolish all currency and start a Credit based system. Like KoToR.

You got great points there, but what the hell is "KoToR"?

quote:Originally posted by NotOnlyButAlso:

I heartily disagree. The penny is the ultimate low buget missile, what else am I going to throw at people in my German class?

There should be a "whole" in between heartily and I.

Anyway, you can probably throw Euros around. It's useless to Britain, for now, anyway.

I always have tonnes of pennies and twopence pieces building up. I can't use them for anything but the 4p in the 34p for fruit pastilles.

Wait for inflation to ramp up about 20 years more, then we'll scrap the penny.

It will become obsolete, like schillings, half-pennies, crowns etc. have now.

Back in the olden days, the king have about £2, and was the richest man in the world.

[This message has been edited by The_Reckoning Returns (edited 07-23-2005).]

Japan has a much more "cash" based system than the US, and coins are much more useful due to the subway system and the abundance of 50, 100, and 500 yen coins (100 yen is about one dollar)



The prevailence of coins as useful currency certainly streamlines transactions where small ammounts of money are involved, but 1 yen coins are still useless.



I mean, I dont think there is any advantage to having a coin that is worth so little, we should get rid of the penny and any loss from rounding up to the nearest multiple of five would be made up in the increase in efficieny Im sure.

quote:Originally posted by Spade:

It costs money to make anything, whether or not the value of the coin/bill is more or less than how much it costs to make it. They don't just make new money and then spend it, that would make out money worthless. They destroy money as they make more.

OK, heres the scoop on the cost of penny-production...

To whoever quoted me saying I thought we lost money on the production/worth deal of pennies, I looked it up on several sources and heres what I found...

"The penny has by far the lowest seigniorage (profit) rate of any U.S. coin. Each costs four-fifths of a cent to make, netting Uncle Sam just one-fifth of a cent, or 20 percent. The profit on a quarter, by comparison, is more than 20 cents--80 percent. Were the penny still made mostly of copper, as it was until 1982, the government would have to manufacture them at a loss. (The coins are now copper-plated zinc.) The time has come to ask--hell, it came long ago--why are we doing this, anyway?" "

Anyway, although this shows that the US DOES indeed make money on the penny-producion (about 1/5 a penny each), I think if everything in the US were rounded to the nearest nickle, and taxes were rounded up (yea, yea, bitch and moan), most people would not care too much about the 2 or 3 cents more they pay annually on the "repaying of pennies" to the government, and it would replace the void of the "penny producion" financially (if not replace it, partially anyway).

Overall, though I was wrong about the cost of the making the modern penny, I still believe that since roughly 2/3 of all coinage produced are pennies, it would simplify daily finances to some degree (digging for pennies at the grocery store) and for several reasons metioned by Jim Benfield:

1) wrapping charges (the store pays about 60 cents for each roll of 50 pennies)

2) lost store productivity from penny users slowing the checkout line; and

3) lost wages paid to clerks counting pennies in the register on each shift.

Now, although these are small amounts we are talking about, such as the lost productivity from stores due to the time counting pennies, if you multiply that times the number of stores in the US paying taxes, times the number of days in a year, that adds up to alot for just a "penny" problem, doesnt it?



Heres a couple sources I used, or the best ones anyway: http://money.cnn.com/2002/04/11/pf/q_pennies/ http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981009a.html



SmartTart

EDIT: Clarifying a few points



[This message has been edited by SmartTart (edited 07-23-2005).]

If you outlaw the penny then the nickel becomes the worthless coin not worth bending over to pick up. Don't devalue my nickel! When I find a nickel its like "YES I FOUND A NICKEL I:M FUCKING RICH BIATCH" but when I find a penny its like "meh i found a penny".

We NEED the penny or else the dollar will begin with a base denomination of $0.05. It will ruin the dollar.

I for one am vehemently opposed to getting rid of the penny. We NEED the penny!

quote:Originally posted by Captainpenguin:

we should just do what they did in the movie "demolition man"

they just used cards, no money to carry around, just one card that stored all of your cash.

like an ordinary credit card, only this card was the only thing you really needed.

see my post

I say the US stops being dumb and starts adding tax to prices beforehand. Every other country I've been to has tax included in the prices. It makes everything so much easier. In Israel, the shekel is worth a bit less than a quarter. They have .10, .50, 1 shekel, and 10 shekel coins. Then they have 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 shekel bills. You don't have to carry around a ton of change all the time because prices already include tax, and they are already rounded to the nearest whole amount. Here, it's too annoying for people to pull out $34.27 exactly, and most of the time they don't have exact change and don't want any change back so they just use a credit card and they end up going over their limit and getting screwed and getting into debt and becoming finantially miserable for their lives. Stupid country.

Grumble grumble grumble

anyone who works with a register knows pennies gotta go, they are a nuisance.

Say you round up. What happens to those 4 cents?

You buy something for 96 cents after tax. You guve the clerk one dollar. What does he give you back, a nickel? Then the store's just lost a cent. Those cents will add up, and fast.

We need pennies, deal with it. That's why God invented Coinstar.

quote:Originally posted by Captainpenguin:

we should just do what they did in the movie "demolition man"

they just used cards, no money to carry around, just one card that stored all of your cash.

like an ordinary credit card, only this card was the only thing you really needed.

And then all of our purchases are tracked in a digital database. The powers that be would love this.

true purpose of pennies (http://mailleartisans.org/articles/articledisplay.cgi?key=540)

quote:Originally posted by wtfdude:

In our world of escalating prices, whether it is due to inflation or just raising prices, regardless of inflation of any dollar system in the world, it's time we get rid of the penny.

I think that instituting a 50 cent coin in regular circulation would definetely improve the way we look at coins. I mean, when was the last time you actually held on to the 14 cent change the store returned to you?

Not only that, the 50 cent should be reduced in size, have the "gold" color the penny use to have, and that way, us New Yorkers don't have to carry around a huge pocket full of bus fare, if we don't have a Metrocard in handy.



In the u.s. half dollars ARE in regular circulation, just not many people use them.

quote:Originally posted by jaronkenney:

It would generally fuck up EVERYTHING.

"That comes to a dollar seventeen sir."

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PAY TWO CENTS?

Taxes and prices on EVERYthing would have to be changed or moddifyed or have everything round up to the nearest ten(th).

So instead of paying that 1.17, you'd pay 1.20.

Rip off. And don't think it would work the other way 1.12 rounds to 1.10, the Government would make it go to 1.15.

Pathetic, I think we should abolish all currency and start a Credit based system. Like KoToR.



Federal taxes haven't been paid in anything less than 5 cents for ages... that is why it is legal to destroy pennies (in penny presses or on late night informercials, or at cutco demonstrations). It's only a matter of time till the penny gets taken out just like the 2-cent, 3-cent, and half-cent pieces.

quote:Originally posted by H4TT3R:

According to the US Mint, it costs .81 cents to make a penny. http://tinyurl.com/cnvl5





WRONG. It costs them .81 of a penny to make a penny.

quote:Originally posted by Captainpenguin:

we should just do what they did in the movie "demolition man"

they just used cards, no money to carry around, just one card that stored all of your cash.

like an ordinary credit card, only this card was the only thing you really needed.

They have that now. Its called a debit card. People have a choice if they want to use them. Some prefer cash some prefer a debit card. Then a very few can't afford it cause they don't have a bank account.