Should the US kill its cent?

we all know yesterday canada killed its penny. should the US follow their lead and do the same? i personally think yes, even as a collector. i think it should have been done long ago, when they switched to zincolns. if they have a hang up about killing a coin with abe's face on it, redesign the dollar coin and put his face on that. but making a cent is figuratively taking 1 step forward and two steps back.

 

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No, we should move the decible point one click and take us back to the land of ten cent cokes and nickel candy bars. Gas would be .35 per gallon but most of us would only have a 4 figure income, so it all evens out anyway.

 

Yes. Get rid of it. It seems that when transactions at convenience stores or pretty much anywhere are done using change, that extra cent is typically ignored. I know when I have been a cent or two light, the clerk always will say, "don't worry about it." If this happens a lot, then why bother with the cent? I have been living in Brazil where the cent hasn't been used in years and that setup works fine here. I agree with you (riff). Put Lincoln's face on a dollar coin, then we get rid of the dollar note, of which I am also in favor.

~Chris

 

Most people wont bend over to pick up a penny that is on the ground, and I suspect most wouldn't pick up a pile of 50 cents if they were sitting on the sidewalk. Should have stopped them on 09, would have been a great cut off point IMO.

 

you are the first user i have seen with a post<like ratio of that caliber.

 

Moving the decimal point won't work. Too much money already out there and you can't change the value of existing cash.
The cent can and must go. Prices will not be averaged on the shelf, but averaged on the aggregate of your total purchase. And then only if you pay in cash. Cents will still work when you pay with credit/debit cards.

 

A coworker's son lives in NYC. He says the banks won't even accept the penny anymore.

I don't even know how that's possible.

 

I like what Rick posted, and I also think we should consider the nickel due to it's production costs, we should get rid of the dollar bill and push the dollar coin, and all of our money should get a facelift.

 

Get rid of it! Maybe then, people will start throwing nickels and dimes on the ground in convenience store parking lots.

Chris:devil:

 

I would go further than that. Eliminate the penny and the nickel and round everything to the nearest dime. Also eliminate the $1, $2, and $5 bills and replace them with coins of the same denominations.

Coin collecting has really opened my eyes to the fact that paper money was never supposed to be used for every day little transactions. (Looking at some of these old nickels and quarters that are so worn that the date is unreadable.) We should try to get back there as it will be cheaper for the government in the long run.

Unfortunately, doing anything that drastic would really highlight how much inflation there has been, so it will never happen.

 

We have seen this in another thread. We shouldn't kill the cent for two reasons. One; it is the first coin that I collected and I want to continue collecting them. Two, we make 5 billions cents a year. It costs us twice the cost to make than its value. Thus, we spend a total of $50 million dollars a year on making the penny. Our GDP is $14 trillion. The cost of removing the penny is 0.00036% of the GDP. Do you really think that the inflation caused by removing the penny (eg. rounding up) is going to cost us more than 0.00036%?

 

Yes, get rid of the penny.

I can't even say I want to keep them as a collector, because I despise the current composition. Every penny that gets so much as a scratch is doomed to zinc rot. No thanks...

I don't think we should get rid of the nickel just yet. Getting rid of the penny is going to be a hard sell to the American public, who will no doubt believe it is a conspiracy theory to milk them of their hard earned money at the grocery store.

 

It's hard to sense sarcasm on the Interwebs. Please tell me this is sarcasm.

 

To satisfy all, maybe they should get rid of them for public circulation but keep them in the mint and proof sets... kinda like the half dollar.

 

Ask yourself what would the PennyLady do?

 

A cent used to purchase items. This isn't OUR fault that a cent is basically worthless. If we allow the government to remove the cent, it will send the wrong message that we are okay with them debasing our currency.

 

The US has already begun to lose whatever cents it used to have.

 

If they keep the cent it allows the government to maintain the fiction that our currency isn't being debased. but if they disappear because they have become worthless it points out the debasing.

 

I love collecting cents and have a great time going through my boxes every week. That being said, I feel like they should go the way of the do-do. As unfortunate as it is, they just aren't "worth" anything any more. The people I work with are always giving me crap for picking up pennies on the sidewalk or lugging around my bags to go through during lunch hour. One guy gave me almost $50 worth of cents because he didn't even want to bother taking it to the bank to cash in. He said that most of the time they just went into the trash if he got them in change. What's the point of minting them if that's what is happening?

 

That's a bit extreme.