The Penny

mickeyd

mickeyd

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Is it time to get rid of the penny? Got this as part of an email from NPR today. I'm ok if I never see copper again.

dunkinpennies_custom.jpg
via Consumerist


An unidentified Dunkin' Donuts store is getting rid of pennies (unless customers really want pennies, in which case, Ok). Here's the report from Consumerist.
The anti-penny movement is a modern classic that seems to bubble up every few years. There are obvious reasons for this — pennies are a hassle, you can't buy anything with them, etc.
There's also the fact that it costs the government 1.7 cents to make one penny. So the more pennies we make, the more money we lose.
A quick tour of the recent anti-penny landscape:

  • <LI sizcache="28" sizset="83">A bill that would have killed the penny and rounded all transactions to the nearest five cents was introduced in Congress in 2006. <LI sizcache="28" sizset="84">NPR visited a no-pennies-allowed store last year. "I'm gonna tell you to keep these three pennies ... I refuse to take them" <LI sizcache="28" sizset="85">"Penny Dreadful," perhaps the definitive anti-penny treatise, ran in the New Yorker in '08. "They're horrid and useless. Why do pennies persist?"
  • Here's the pro-penny take from Americans for Common Cents. As USA Today notes, the group's backers include zinc producers; the penny is actually made of zinc and plated with copper.
By the way: I called Dunkin's headquarters to see where the company stands on the penny question. Pro-anti-penny? Anti-anti-penny? Indifferent? I got voice mail and left a message. I'll update this post when I hear back.
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In Sweden the 1 öre coin was done away with long ago, and the 50 öre coin was eliminated one month ago. I don't think the U.S. could get it together enough to eliminate this kind of waste.
 
dex said:
What exactly can you buy with a nickle anyway ?

What exactly can you buy with a dime anyway ?

What exactly can you buy with a quarter anyway ?
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I can buy a bus ride with 3 quarters, or 6 dimes and 3 nickels, or any other combination that will add up to 75 cents.

Didn't we just do a poll that reported that an overwhelming majority of members will "stoop to pick up a penny"? If you can't do anything with it, why are so many willing to take the risk of hurting their backs, or exposing their panties, or whatever else might happen while they are bent over on the sidewalk?

Ha
 
Should get rid of dollar bill also. Dollar coins are neat, but will not catch on without eliminating the paper as a choice. Would save gov a bunch.
 
WilliamG said:
Dollar coins are neat, but will not catch on without eliminating the paper as a choice.
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Apparently, most people disagree with you. Both are available now and the bills are much more popular.

Pennies: It doesn't cost much to keep them around, in the big scheme of things. I can't make a strong objective case for them, but to see our cent effectively "go away" seems to put us in the same category as other countries with currency so debased that they stop minting their smaller sub-units.

And, with deflation set to make a roaring comeback, the penny will gain new worth! This is not the time to abandon Abe.
 
I think of pennies as a sort of monetary pocket lint.
 
For some reason I think we'll be seeing this particular story on Snopes--the franchise is too anonymous and the Consumerist source is "Reader Tom".

But if it's real, what an excessively frugal opportunity!

...this franchise appears to be rounding customer totals up or down to the nearest five cents, and only providing pennies to those annoying people who actually want them.
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Only buy donuts in amounts that force the round-down.
 
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Bestwifeever said:
Only buy donuts in amounts that force the round-down.
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Not if the maths results in more donuts being purchased. :whistle:

Here in HK, the widespread use of a contactless smart card on public transport and for many small purchases (e.g. 7-11, Starbucks) means that use of small value coins has gone way down and there is talk of doing away with them.

Other countries have done this before, officially disbanding the small and relatively worthless coins and mandating rounding. One guy in Australia took it a bit far when he purchased one mushroom at a time, which was effectively free because it got rounded down to zero. It ended with the store refusing to sell to him.
 
I make decisions about which credit card to use and how to recycle my aluminum cans, etc., etc., based on the difference of a penny (or sometimes less) on the dollar. So, if it were me, I'd go into the D(r)unkin Donuts and take advantage of the round-up or else ask for the pennies. So there!!!

Actually, I always end up with a pile of pennies in a jar and eventually cash them in when they get in the way. I do try to make "exact change" when I have pennies with me.

I agree that the penny is probably near the end of its useful life-time, but I'm not ready to give 1 to 2 cents per transaction to someone just yet. YMMV
 
haha said:
Didn't we just do a poll that reported that an overwhelming majority of members will "stoop to pick up a penny"? If you can't do anything with it, why are so many willing to take the risk of hurting their backs, or exposing their panties, or whatever else might happen while they are bent over on the sidewalk?

Ha
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Now you're asking for opinions that are both rational and consistent. Gonna be hard...
 
If we didn't have pennies our "penny pig" would be made redundant :nonono:

Every few years we empty it and cash it in at one of those machines in a local store.

I expect the penny will be around even after the metal becomes worth more than the coin because (drum roll) - Americans don't like change. :whistle:
 
Alan said:
If we didn't have pennies our "penny pig" would be made redundant :nonono:

Every few years we empty it and cash it in at one of those machines in a local store.

I expect the penny will be around even after the metal becomes worth more than the coin because (drum roll) - Americans don't like change. :whistle:
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As a service to future readers when this thread is revived years from now, Alan's post is made on the day people are voting to remove a historically high number of incumbent politicians and replace them with new faces that promise [-]the same politics with different faces[/-] change and reform.
 
MichaelB said:
As a service to future readers when this thread is revived years from now, Alan's post is made on the day people are voting to remove a historically high number of incumbent politicians and replace them with new faces that promise [-]the same politics with different faces[/-] change and reform.
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We're an optimistic lot, eh?
 
MichaelB said:
As a service to future readers when this thread is revived years from now, Alan's post is made on the day people are voting to remove a historically high number of incumbent politicians and replace them with new faces that promise [-]the same politics with different faces[/-] change and reform.
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Well sure, we're voting for them--we like our change! Pennies, nickels, dimes....

No reason to get rid of the penny now--it will die a gradual death like all the rest of the hard money in a generation or two.
 
I remember reading that in Japan there is money smaller than the Yen... which is worth about 1 penny... the Yen is like our dollar, so it just goes to reason that they would have something smaller...

The article was about some international wires that did not get processed as they rounded to the nearest yen instead of providing the correct amount...
 
I think I saw somewhere the the amount of metal used to make pennies, equals the mass of Mt. Rushmore. Do we need to keep chopping up our mountains?
 
Bestwifeever said:
Well sure, we're voting for them--we like our change! Pennies, nickels, dimes....
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I actually forgot today was election day (I voted early) - it was a poor attempt at a joke, I didn't mean to start another political debate.
 
Alan said:
I actually forgot today was election day (I voted early) - it was a poor attempt at a joke, I didn't mean to start another political debate.
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Mea Culpa. I did that - another poor humorous effort which I shouldn't have engaged in. Apologies...
 
MichaelB said:
Mea Culpa. I did that - another poor humorous effort which I shouldn't have engaged in. Apologies...
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No apologies needed Michael. If I'd remembered what day it was myself I would have thought twice about attempting humor in the first place :LOL:
 
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