Coin Composition Changes Proposed Yet Again, but Now in Obama’s Budget

So what do you do with the 50,000,000,000 quarters?

There would either be some convoluted rounding scheme that sometimes cheats the seller and sometimes the buyer or billions of dollars worth of quarters are scrapped.

Why not just make a little aluminum nickel that would even cost two cents to produce. You could even make one the current size for a half cent more.

This would solve all the problems with the elimination of the cent and the dollar bill. The economy wouyld run a little smoother and I wouldn't get stuck in line behind the little old lady counting out pennies. People would like this so much once they got used to it that we'd do like Canada and Europe and start using a $2 coin as well.

The increased usage of $5 bills would partially offset the loss of the single. Vending machines would become more popular again. And the American people wouldn't waste millions of man hours on senseless inane tasks like dealing with pennies or not being able to make simple purchases. You wouldn't even have to whip out your wallet just to buy a newspaper or a cup of coffee. Disease transmission would decrease and we wouldn't be a target for muggers and pickpockets.

The current system is simple insanity and there's absolutely no need for it.

 

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Post #29;

Yes, but you can't get 5c in change or 15c in change. Every other number could be managed but the typical counterperson at McDounalls will need about five more years of schooling to consistently be able to count out 95c using only dimes and quarters.

I can see it now;

That will be 2.95 sir, your change from the $5 bill is $2.

Hey where's my 5c?

We don't have nickels any longer.

Then give me a dime.

It would turn ugly from this point many times. Do we beef up the police in the country and pass more laws or do we just provide a coinage system that works. This isn't complicated but we've got such a remarkable mess now that it seems insurmountable. We need to fix this mess and do it in the simplest and least expensive possible manner. Putting people in jail for melting nickels that shouldn't even exist is not the right way to go. A 5c coin that should exist is the way to go and then you don't need to call the cops or put people in jail for melting them.

 

Quarters would have to be used in pairs... to get to .50,, then the dimes (the new penny) would be used to increment to the nearest lowest rounded units.... and yes, if you came up short a dime and had to use a quarter, then you'd be out .05...... or you could just dip your finger into the spare dime holder by the register, like those currenty used for pennies in a lot of places....... or just pay in dollars and let the cashier worry about making exact change.

 

OK. This can work but it works against the consumer to round up all the time. Some stores will take advantage by not having quarters and always rounding up. How many people will slow a line up looking for enough dimes to complete a transaction so that 5c doesn't get rounded up. I might.

Why not just issue a cheaper nickel and solve this problem completely so it doesn't work out against anyone? You never need more than a single nickel in a transaction so it's not like it's a big pain.

I do agree with you that 5c isn't much money but neither was a penny forty years aqgo when they used to make sense. 10c is plenty fine enough a division but 5c is still needed to make a fair exchange when there are dimes and quarters circulating.

 

I should add that while I love dimes as a collectible I've never been fond of them as a circulating coin. This especially applies to the clad dimes since they are so small and light. They often don't work in vending machines and are easily dropped.

If we did away with the nickel then the number of dimes recieved in change would more than double. This means they'd have to make several billion diimes a year for a while to catch up at great expense and I'd be stuck with more dimes and more taxes.

Recalling the old pennies and nickels would not only make a large profit for the government but would get many of the toxic pennies out of the enviroment. Then the government could mint some 10 billion new nickels at a profit. By the time they got things straightened out with the coinage system the economy should have recovered and the mint can stay busy minting coins THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY NEED AND USE instead of pennies. They can even raise the relief on the coins again and might not bump up against capacity restraints ever again.

 

Rounding rules, I believe, more than likely would be legislated by rounding up with the state laying claim to the breakage on every transaction. It works out to about a 5 cent hidden tax on every financial transaction conducted in the state.

 

OK.

I think I got you now. In other words you can only use quarters to replace five dimes.

I hate it but you're right it does work.