Who would do such a thing?

Don't make 5 billion of them. Maybe producing 250 million of them is better. The mint would only lose $2.5 million.

It's a compromise. Pro-penny people can still have pennies, and Anti-penny people don't have to live with tons and tons of them

 

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The dollar would be revalued, so the debt would remain the same. If we owe 10,000 USD to Chaneyistan, then it'd end up being 1,000 USD. It'd still be the same value, the dollar would just be worth more.

 

The thing of it is,

there are no "PRO-PENNY People" except in the minds of those that sell copper plated zinc slugs to the US Mint and those that have a direct interest in the mining of zinc for their states! These folks will fill your heads with pictures of doom and gloom should the penny (cent) go away while they continue to drain the government coffers of funds.

 

I tried that with my credit card company and they threatened to sue.

 

Although I love the change I receive after making a purchase (the only real coin-collecting I can afford is circulated errors and varieties), I have to agree that some denominations have outlived their usefulness. IMO, all coins under 25 cents are unnecessary today, and looking to the not-too-distant future, even Quarters will be unnecessary.

It costs too much to continue making small denominations, having the lowest set at a dollar would probably be in our best interests ...at least for a few decades (possibly 50 years or more). Products would need to adapt to that standard; foods, products, gasoline, etc., and while it wouldn't be an easy thing to do, I think it's inevitable that we must... sooner rather than later.

 

I'd even say make the Quarter (if they were now the smallest denomination) like the current cent, since it costs 2 cents to make, the benefit would still be there. Once the cost approaches the value though, I'd dump it entirely. I could live with that. (laughs)

 

I suppose I can appreciate the sarcasm, but you realize that many countries have revalued their currencies. I mean, sure, its generally after a hyperinflation, but nevertheless. It's been done, and it will happen again. If a new USD were worth 10 old USD, any country that holds US debt would hold the same amount of debt.

 

You don't need to move a decimal point. There is another way. Its called inflation. ;-)

 

Inflation is what revaluing the currency combats. Inflation wouldn't help the value of the cent, it would make it less valuable. Deflation would fix the "worthless cent" issue, but deflation is often just as bad as inflation.

 

this has been talked about on the forums multiple times before. besides the ones made out of copper they seem pretty pointless to me.

 

Not necessarily...I think there would be a lot of "flavor of the month" type coin collectors pop up if such a thing happened, but that would only be temporary. I think the number of people who seriously collect coins wouldn't be affected by such events and thus the demand for existing rare coins wouldn't be altered.

 

I hear a lot of people using the excuse the cent doesn't buy anything, or they never spend them, and so on. Well, read some history books people. Cents were never worth much, could never buy anything on their own, nor...and here's the kicker...were they ever intended to be used as such. They, like the half cent, were made to make change, thats all. And guess what...they're still used for that purpose today, more than ever in fact, as evidence the tens of billions minted yearly. Before you advocate their demise, at least learn what their intended purpose is. Until the day comes where I stop receiving them in my change, I'll never hope for their departure, regardless of how much they may cost to make. There are material solutions to that, and if it were a real problem it would already have been resolved.
Guy

 

I agree with what you are saying...however, there is one flaw I see with the argument. Inflation has to be considered. Sure, the primary purpose of the cent and half cent was to make change, but just like the half cent became useless due to inflation 150 years ago...so has the cent today. We were able to adapt our fees to round to the whole cent (from a half cent)...there is no reason that precedent couldn't be applied to rounding to 5 cents today.

 

This is idiotic. Effectively, you're calling on the US government to compress MB/M1/M2/M3 to 1% of outstanding, while keeping M0 valued at 100% of circulated currency.

All transactions would be "cash and carry" since deposits would be worth 1% of the day before. Deliveries of supplies would cease, and credit would be frozen. To offset the 10000% valuation of cash over deposits, stores would be required to price things at "cash" prices. All e-commerce and POS non-cash transactions would be rejected.

If someone deposited $8000 to the bank the day before, they'd have $80 to their name. The price of goods would remain constant, with the only thing changing being the deposits and balances on hand at banks. The bank would have taken in $8000 and have $7200 in excess reserve. Now with the account balance at $80, the bank would have a liability of $80, reserve requirement of $8 and $7992 in excess reserve.

Who (other than the banks and the Federal Reserve) does this supposedly benefit? People will end up owing 270% taxes. You'll cause the vast majority of US wage earners to be in perpetual default. Since you can't really sue the IRS, anyone who hadn't paid any prior year taxes would be screwed. Also, taxes for the current year would be based on two separate systems: Money owed before the change and money owed after the change. However, taxes collected would be based upon money available after the change.

The reason that currency debasement and recirculation work is controlling the ENTIRE money supply. If you merely reset the computer valued accounts, while maintaining the same currency, you create instantaneous hyper-inflation. After all, goods and services will cost 9900% more than they did the moment prior to the change relative to deposit/debenture accounts, while costing the same for cash-based transactions.

 

I suppose that may be true but were any of the countries in the G8?

 

Odd, in my own lifetime I can remember when a cent bought several pieces of candy. Back in the second world war three cents could buy a pound of chicken, 2 cents a can of vegetable, one cent would buy a newspaper, back around the turn of the twentieth century two or three cents could buy a meal. No the cent used to have considerable purchasing power.

 

Don't stop at the penny...get ride of all coins and bills...electronic balances and "cash cards" only

 

Yes, France. They did a 100 to 1 revaluation in 1960. And a roughly 6 to 1 in 2002 when they went from francs to euros. Germany did a 2 to 1 from Marks to Euros. Italy did a 2000 to 1 for the euro.

 

IMHO, this will eventually happen.

 

Credit cards are the future! But hopefully the Mint would continue to produce coins for the collectors! There is definitely a market, and always will be!!