The US Penny: Will it last?

Do you guys think the penny will stay but the material will change?

 

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I think so. There are so many suitable materials for coins that are cheap, I think it's just a matter of time. I think we'll eventually see copper eliminated from all coinage someday.
Guy~

 

Please see my reply here: http://www.cointalk.com/showpost.php?p=933318&postcount=38 In 14 of the 16 euro countries, the 1 and 2 ct coins do circulate and are common. Whether you have "odd" end prices because all the threshold prices add up (EU), or because sales tax is added (US), does not really matter. Changing the composition of the US penny could make production less expensive, but I still think it would make more sense to drop the denomination ...

Christian

 

Whatever metal is used has to cost less than $2/lb., which narrows things down. Add a few more decades of inflation and it will be even harder to find a material cheap enough.

 

I think the CENT will be around for a long time to come.

 

hey guys i think the penney should be done away with.. with sorryful regret to say this tho it cost 1.7 cents to make 1cent... it is not cost effective.. for the government.. sad but true and personally i think it should got the way of the sac as a collectors item.. purely

 

When cash eventually becomes obsolete, they will either stop making coins, or more than likely, making very small numbers of them. Either way, from the coin collecting perspective, I like it. It makes the older coins more valuable, and will create countless new coin collectors. It will also make it more of a challenge.

 

...i don't know. i think we will still get more delays from check

writers.

 

These days, 99.5% of people with a checkbook have a debit card ... I don't anticipate that hangup. I do anticipate a number of homeless people, who actually pay with things in pennies, to be ticked off that they could go in with exact change, have something rounded up 2 cents, and then feel like they're cheated. But no, not common. Life will continue.

I personally don't see a place for the cent anymore, and hope it goes the way of the half cent.

 

Hmm. Would they also complain when the total is rounded down? After all, this rounding is not done arbitrarily. Example: Cash total ends in 3/4/5/6/7 -> round to 5. Cash total ends in 8/9/0/1/2 -> round to 0.

Christian

 

The cent has been around for ages and people have been complaining about it almost as long. It does not matter what it costs to produce them, they are something that will always have to be around as long as there is a tax on items and the tax does not round up. I think that our grandkids grandkids will be discussing this long after we are gone.

 

While that is simple to most, there are many people out there who would not be able to comprehend that.

 

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but Ellen DeGeneres has an episode where she rips on the new 2010 penny. "E. Pluribus Unum" which stands for you can't buy anything with this".

 

They would never round down. It's very easy to change the pricing to always benefit the seller, not the buyer, in that ALL pricing will round up on every purchase. Why would a store want to save you money when they could make more?
Guy~

 

As long as there is an idiotic voter that likes to scream about government over-spending yet refuses to live without his/her precious cents, the Lincoln will survive.

 

well what they do now, is pennies always round up. no matter what

$5.991 = $6

 

Anybody miss the half cent? It was worth far more than the Cent is now. Everything has a life and the Cent is nearing the end of it's useful life as is all coinage and bills.

A cash free society is just around the corner. It will be a budget reduction item and guarantee everyone pays their fair share. If every transaction is monitored electronically, utopia will exist as everything is fairly taxed and black market transactions are eliminated. Since credit cards are too easily lost; though, a chip or biometric device will be placed in your right hand or forehead. You will have to have this device in order to buy or sell.

Isn't it a wonderful world we have ahead of us?

[SIZE=+1]"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark..."[/SIZE]

 

Of course I don't really know how (or if) this could ever work in the US. In some other countries, however, it is pretty common: The government phases a low denomination coin out and allows businesses to round cash totals according to the rounding rules I mentioned before. This is not about how much a store charges for a single item; that is up to the store of course.

Let's assume the penny is phased out, and the nickel becomes the smallest denomination. You go to a store, buy, say, eight items and the cash total is 23.73 - voilà, that would be rounded up to 23.75. Had the total been 23.77, it would have been rounded down to 23.75. Quite simple.

Christian

 

Retailers would never round up or down. They would just make all prices divisible by 5 cents. This is course is not going to happen anyway; the penny (cent) will be here as long as we have circulating coinage. TC

 

It's a scary concept but it is coming in the near future. I don't understand why people accept what we have now as money. Wasn't money supposed to be something of value? Federal Reserve notes are a sad excuse for money. The way the value is easily manipulated through higher ups just screams fraud. I wonder what our ancestors would think about our monetary system? Even some of them were played in the early 1900s by the cartel that was behind the whole reserve system. That's what fear will do to a nation I suppose.