2012 Silver Eagle San Francisco Proof Set "PRICE WATCH"

A not for profit organization has operating costs. Upgrading the servers (or expanding them) would be a justifiable expense....

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That's not what you originally said, just a few posts up with:

Then you went on to defend that stance by twisting what non-profit can and cannot do by trying to claim if they were a "real non-profit" they should be selling their products at "cost", which just doesn't work that way.

 

True, but is it justifiable because you have that one big event once a year or possibly not at all in a few years? Every other day the site runs fine, no reason to spend more money on servers, bandwidth, employees (administrators), etc just for a few hours the site can't handle the traffic in my opinion, so it's not justifiable in my opinion, also considering I run servers in data centers for my profession.

 

I've not changed my stance. I said the US Mint is the farthest thing from a non-profit, hence intentionally out for profit by increasing above costs of overhead, materials, labor to produce what they are selling. I suggested, not twisted, a non-profit as such as this entity might sell it's numismatic products at cost. I was considering this more or less in the the way it does with it's non-numismatic products, like circulating coins, though some of those they produce at a loss per the cost of the intrinsic metals, which is something they are actively trying to correct by altering compositions.

 

OR, as I said earlier, they could just use the services of a provider like PayPal who CAN handle the traffic, pass the surcharge of the service on to the customer and they have no expense.

 

krispy,

U.S. Mint is a non-profit that makes profit. Can you agree with that? Because it didn't come off that way in how you were replying and that's what I was trying to point out.

And no, this wasn't getting political (unless every argument is considered political), talking politics would be us start jumping into who's gonna win, Romney or Obama, etc. U.S. coinage is linked to the Treasury, where politics are usually neutral or should stay neutral.

 

What would you do, to make the place run faster, on a day when you know the servers are going to be stressed to the max?

 

Probably take an act of Congress though. I don't think it's still justifiable though, not one day out of the year or less when this occurs. That we can just agree to disagree though. :thumb:

 

I personally don't agree to call the Mint non-profit that makes a profit. So I think we have our own views and that's fine by me. I'm not trying to convince anyone further than what I have stated are my feelings about this.

I was just trying to put a cap on the slide into comparisons to other arms of government and profitability, etc, that could get us into political talk or bring in further comments from others who wanted to sound off in that area.

 

Depends, I don't know what they're using for the backend. We're not even sure it's the servers but they could be limited to the bandwidth. One would have to know more of how they operate to make improvements. But a quick look tells me they're running their website on Microsoft-IIS/6.0 and that likely means they have MS SQL as the database backend, which both are just horrible horrible horrible. Switch those to Unix/Linux with Oracle or PostgreSQL and that alone will likely ensure better response times and security integrity.

 

But that's the problem though, the Red Cross posts profits and they're still a non-profit organization. There are likely thousands of them out there, Goodwill, etc. That's all I was trying to point out, the U.S. Mint is a non-profit that is fortunate to post profits each year so us tax payers don't foot the bill for their operating costs, which to me, is a good thing.

 

Obama is toast; Mitt all the way! Oops, sorry, wrong forum. What I really meant was: it's too close to call right now. Let's get back to discussing the profitable, non-profit U. S. Mint.

 

So would selling numismatic products at cost, which to many collectors is a good thing. I think the Mint would have more happy numismatic customers banging on the door to buy products were the profit kept nearer to cost while paying for operations. What is becoming a problem for many collectors is the sense that the Mint is edging up profit-making with too many 'special' offerings, too many product offerings in general and it means some completelist collectors can't have one of everything anymore, others feel left out for some products as they try to acquire others and this profit making, exceeds the ability, for some (perhaps), to increase income to maintain their hobby and personal interests.

 

This is not my area of expertise, but I do not believe that the U.S. Mint is technically considered a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Chris (medoraman) will know the answer. TC

 

I agree somewhat, just like I think the SF set now is a little high, but not knowing the intricate details of their costs for producing these, it's hard to say without such details. Too many factors involved, we know the cost of silver currently, but we don't know how much they're dishing out in other operating costs to produce them, pay the employees salaries, etc.

But the costs aren't that extravagant to limit their initial orders approaching the 100k mark though.

 

The title of this thread is "Price Watch". Can we do just that?

 

all depends why you are here, some buy coins as an investment other are collectors (some are both). I don't see whats wrong with being either an investor?

 

Of course there is nothing wrong with it and of course a person can do both. I was merely responding to green's post. Let me re-word that response: in a world where the value of something is so often tied to its ability to be exploited, it's refreshing to see we occasionally still have the ability to recognize a thing can have value on its own merit. It's nice to see the collector persona win out over the profiteer (aka investor) persona for a change.

 

I thought the same thing. What's up with all the pre-sales?? These sellers need to be reported, all their doing is bringing down the price. It's not fair, let me know if I'm wrong, otherwise I'm gonna report these can't wait dumpster divers.

Loose lips, sink ships!!!!! Wait till the US Mint stops selling...

 

NO TAX DOLLARS ARE USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COINS AND FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES IN THE UNITED STATES!
“Wait,” you might interrupt. “Aren’t these government agencies that are funded by congress?”
Yes, both the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing are bureaus under the Department of the Treasury whose budgets are approved by congress. However, the money that congress allocates to these bureaus are NOT taken from the general fund.
Both the U.S. Mint and the BEP are profit making bureaus. After manufacturing the money, it is sold at face value to the Federal Reserve for distribution to member banks and then to the public. The difference between the face value of the money and the cost to manufacture the money is the profit—called seigniorage. Even though the one cent and five cent coins cost more to manufacture than their face value, the U.S. Mint continues to generate profit from the sale of all coins sold to the Federal Reserve in addition to the sales of bullion and collectible coins.
According to the 2009 U.S. Mint Annual Report (covering Fiscal Year 2009: October 2008–September 2009), they earned $98.1 million in seigniorage. That is a profit of $98.1 million in a down economy!
When the U.S. Mint is paid by the Federal Reserve for the coins, a collector purchases collectibles directly from the U.S. Mint, or a bullion dealer buys bullion coins, the seigniorage is deposited into a special account called the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund (PEF) as required by law (see 31 U.S.C. §5136). As sales are deposited in the PEF, the law requires that the U.S. Mint use the money in the PEF for budgetary reasons like to manufacture coins, maintain facilities, pay employees, etc. No tax money is deposited in the Public Enterprise Fund and the PEF is managed like all general accounts by the Treasury Department. In fact, excess profit is required to be deposited in the Treasury general fund.
There is a similar fund for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (see 31 U.S.C. §5142).
If the money that the U.S. Mint uses for all its operations is withdrawn from the PEF and if the PEF does not contain any tax receipts, then how does it hurt taxpayers if the U.S. Mint continues to manufacture one and five cent coins?