Poll: Should the United States government eliminate the penny?

Many subway / metro systems use $1 coins, or spit them back at you for paying a fare at a vending machine with a $20 note for a single fare. However, most public transportation now have various cards that are dispensed with value stored on them, which can be paid for by credit card.

 

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It cost money to MARKET the coin. They advertised it, they had banners, etc up. So that, in turn, increased the cost of each coin on average. Lets say they made 1 million One dollar coins ( hypothetical) and it costs 700,000 dollars in production costs, then they spend 1 million in advertising the cost of each coin, on average, is 1.7 dollars each.

When you flood the market with "Comeritives" and "Memorials" it ruins the market and drives the value of all other coins and other similar artifacts down. Its simple Supply and Demand. Same thing happened to the comic book collection market in the 90s.

Needless to say, I feel these coins are a waste and hurt the hobby.

That gets me back to my original point. It costs money to make a penny, yes, but if they stopped WASTING money on these superfluous items then the cost of a penny would be much more negligible in the grand scheme.

And I do agree that the State Quarters could be considered a success, but again they spent money to advertise and etc. Why couldn't they just keep the sitting eagle quarters.


Condor:

Mint Seniorage? Could you explain this?

If I am wrong about my assumption earlier about taxes, please excuse me.

Agreed, the number one reason and its still not much of a reason to radically change our currency. IMO

 

i get dollar coins from the US Mint on the direct ship program because on my credit card rebate gives 5% on their rebate program. the stores i spend them at that has self serve machines are Walmart, Home Depot and BJ's wholesale club.so these stores all have these so i can dump a whole lot of them at one time. maybe yakpoo your local stores have these

back the the penny question - i think they should continue making them. it should be up to stores that gives out change if they want to round down/up
Example: i usually get a sandwich made at the store for a total of 1.89 and i give 2 dollars and they give 11 cents back. so if the mint stops making pennies in the future and the price stays the same..... should the store take my 1 cent & give back 10 cents or give back 15 cents ???????

i think that people value the penny on what each one can buy instead of a value that doesn't end in a zero or a five. Snowman

 

Our coinage and monetary policies are on a collision course. I'm laid back on a chaise lounge with a frozen margarita...in my Tommy Bahama shirt and flip flops...just waiting for the train wreck!

 

Interesting view. I have to agree.

 

Nice post, Snowman!

I've never tried the "self checkout" lanes...I don't like to encourage that sort of thing. As far as your sandwich is concerned...they would probably do what they've been doing for hundreds of years...give you an extra slab of ham and charge you 2 bucks. :thumb:

 

That was true for about three months over a year ago, but not now. Besides, the mint doesn't lose anything on coins, as the others, such as quarter, nickel and dime offset any potential loses, like in any business you look at. Walmart would lose money if all they sold was dvd players at below cost, but add in all the millions of other items sold and they come out ahead.

I say keep the cent. The day that I don't get about 20 back in change will be the day I concede they are useless and not wanted. Until then, I don't buy into the notion they are not used.
Guy~

 

...but the mint shouldnt be in business to make money, instead just to produce money... unless what you are getting at is that the dime, for example, costs less to make than its face value and this offsets the production costs of the other coins... ESPECIALLY when you get the halves and the dollars.

 

Thats what I meant, and thought I said. The mint has to make money. It's not a tax funded enterprise, but rather self-sustaining. Many taxpayers forget this.
Guy~

 

...but to produce coins just because it's profitable isn't in the job of US Mint...that's the job of the Franklin Mint. The US Mint's job is to produce coinage in support of Commerce. If people aren't spending their coins and just sending them back to the bank...that's NOT commerce...that means our coinage is undervalued.

 

No....

 

I don't see how so...they're still money valued at their stated denomination. But, more importantly, what does that have to do with the topic at hand?
Guy~

 

The topic at hand is whether or not to retire the penny. If the valuation of the penny is less than the needs of Commerce, then it should be retired...(imho).

I lived in South Korea from 1986 to 1991. When I got there, you could still find 1 and 5 won coins...you could buy an egg for 5 won. When I left, the lowest denomination in circulation was 100 won.

The South Korean's adjusted their currency to meet commercial needs. Why don't we do that in this country when coins lose their commercial value...as has the penny?

 

Not yet

I personally think they should toy with mintage numbers before completely eliminating it. I've always liked the penny and played around with them since I could walk. They are great in helping little kids learn to count and are great for collecting. You don't need to bring hundreds of dollars to the bank to search a massive amount of cents, which keeps me interested. I say cut mintage in half, and let demand for the coin determine when it goes extinct. When the demand is nothing but a trickle and shops are rounding to the nickel for sheer convenience, drop the penny. If cost is too high to produce them, change the metal content!

After all, Russia still has a 1 kopek coin, worth only around $0.0004!

 

all I gotta say is if a product now costs a penny and then costs a nickel with the loss of the penny I think I just lost 4 cents add that up say 10 times a day that's 40 cents a day and say 365 days a year it's $146.00
I personally would not want to lose that much money for the sake of thorwing the cent out the window I say just make it out of something cheaper then it's cost or say screw it and keep it

how much money does the government waste anyways compared to amount lost from minting cents it's probably like a cent in a 5 gallon bucket

p.s. if the penny costs so much why not just let the profits the mint makes off all the products it's sells pay for it or past the cost on to banks since we have to pay fee after fee anyways...

 

Nice case of wealth-envy here.

 

I hear this a lot...that, as consumers, we'll somehow get financially screwed if the penny goes away.

Merchants will do what merchants have done for thousands of years
...adjust the amount of product they sell to match the currency.


Side Note...

The "Yes" vote was winning 2-1 when I started giving my opinions. Now the "No" votes are in the lead. I guess I have to know when to accept defeat and go to sleep. :crying:

 

Do what now?! Once you eliminate the cent from daily life, i.e. stop releasing it into the open market it ceases being something useful. Therefore it has no place in a collectors set. It becomes a joke like the kennedy half. Who really wants to collect something for the sake of collecting it. Hoarders, thats who, only people that hoard it. The day the Kennedy half stopped entering the market was the day my album of Kennedy's ended, because they weren't "real" money anymore. They could have no more history, backstory, real collectability. So the day they stop releasing the cent into the market for daily commerce is the day the cent dies. There should be no more cents produced after that point. Think about it, the half cent went away due to inflation (partly anyway) and they didn't continue making them for collectors. Same should be said for the cent, and the half dollar for that matter.

 

Ahhh...the refreshing sound of Common Sense. :bow:

 

No, how about a nice case of the truth. Look around. Then again some people can't handle the truth...