Ditching the "penny"

Plus, I still have most all of my fingers, so I can still count to 5 pretty fast.

I realize that's tuff for the youth of today also without the innerweb.

 

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Redneck retirement fund? Is that a thing?

 

Wrong on at least two counts, I think.

First, no way will people stand for rounding practices that always favor one party -- unless everyone agrees that the four-cent difference simply isn't worth any attention. Which could well happen.

Second, rounding always happens on totals, not individual items. Unless every purchase you make totals 96 cents, there's no way you're losing 4% overall.

 

OK so say we made a bronze coin the size of the current 1 cent piece. The copper in the alloy costs about 3 cents, and the manufacturing costs are about 2.2 cents so the total cost to make it is 5.2 cents. What denomination would you make it? Can't be one or five cents. If you want it to be a 2 1/2 cent coin you are going to have to make it a little smaller than half the size of the current cent Maybe something like the size of the old silver three cent but a little thicker. Have you ever actually tried handling trimes? Believe me you DON'T want to have to do it on an everyday basis. You think people don't like using cents, those things would immediately get tossed.

 

"so our dollar, in theory, loses 4% more of its value."

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said... not sure where I was wrong.

 

I’m holding out for a return of 2 cent and 3 cent denominations. ;-)

 

You buy stuff at the grocery store that totals $9.96. You pay $10, and get no change. What percentage have you lost?

 

To that I would say, the cost of minting the coins would depend on their specific metal content and weight. So, to automatically presume cost of manufacturing would exceed the face value would be an assumption at best. That is unless the presuming party is privy to the cost of refining, mixing and manufacturing of metal alloys, then maybe. I am no expert in this field, just saying it can be looked into.

If it were me, I'd look into the option. Like everything else the Gov. does, come with a plan, put it out for bid, and see what happens. Have the contractors come up with an alloy mix that will make the numbers work. Put the designers to work on designs. We Americans are pretty good at solving problems... when we want to!

My whole point in this was to say that it is still possible, without the Cent, to have fractional coins that the math still works without an argument about who gets the 4 cents.

What's surprising, is I thought all y'all coin collectors would be into the idea of something new to collect.

 

O yeah, it's a thing!!!

I'm surprised "Redneck" wasn't flagged though! It's only cuz nothing offends us!

 

That last dollar lost 4 percent. I get your point. My point was directed at the dollar itself, losing its singular purchasing power. This is a measurement we have used since I've been alive.

I have known accountants that will spend hours redoing their math, looking for a lost cent in their numbers... and I still think they're nuts for doing it.

 

It seems like you're confusing "the dollar" (our unit of currency) and "one particular dollar that I decided to pin all my losses to".

If I'm spending $100 and losing four cents, I don't especially care, even though that's a full 4% of one dollar. Heck, that last nickel lost 80% of its purchasing power! Where's the outrage for the diminished purchasing power of the once-proud US nickel?

 

The cost of manufacture represents the cost of the dies, presses, labor etc. The overhead of the mint divided by the number of coins produced. It does not include the cost of the materials which would include the cost of the metal, melting, casting, rolling, and in the case of the cents plating, blanking and upsetting that those are supplied to the Mint ready to strike. For the other denomination the metal arrives as strip and the blanking and upsetting costs etc. would be included in the overhead.

 

You nailed it for me. I thought my excessive work schedule was to blame for my sleeplessness but now that you mentioned it, it was probably the $0.04 I didn’t get back at DD.