According to an e-mail I received from the ANA, this Sunday, February 10th, at 7pm ET/ 6pm CT/MT, CBS will air a story about the debate as to whether or not the US mint should discontinue production of cents and nickels. Morley Safer will interview experts on the subject including Mint Director Edmund Moy. Sounds interesting. __________________
Thanks for posting... i'm going to DVR it so i can watch it. There's been an ongoing debate about whether to phase out pennies especially since it cost more than one cent to make them.
As with anything the government does it will be debated for about 100 years and then someone will say, what are we debating anyway.
These edited are driving me nutts! they make garbage quality pennies and make dimes , quarters , half dollars and dollars that cost way less then face value. yet they have the nerve to complain about the nickel and penny.
The penny will not go away yet but there is going to be a face lift soon. Im sure of it. Id like to see a 1 cent coin that looks like the Nickels with Jefferson facing you. That would be so cool looking.
I wonder what will reaplace the copper zinc penny if the government says, Enoughs enough. Do you guys think in are life time we will se the day when there are 1 cent coins made of another type of metal or NO 1 cent coins AT ALL?
I read somewhere that it costs the mint something like $9 million anually over face value to manufacture the Lincoln cent. That is a paltry sum compared to the $3 trillion US budget and our $9 + trillion national debt. I'll bet the government could leave the cent alone and come up with other ways to save a whole lot more money if they'd put some effort into it.
When did American's become so naive that many believe that the less money is worth, the more "cents" [sense] it makes? Coinage should have value, otherwise just use plastic. But that aside, with so many transactions handled electronically, and many businesses operating on a "take a penny, leave a penny" basis, it probably wouldn't hurt to eliminate the cent. However, the same can't be said of the nickel, which is still obviously necessary.
I wonder how serious the U.S. Mint is about suspending the operation of making pennies & nickels or will they just change the materials that they use to make them. In the teaser you can watch below Edmund C. Moy, Director of the U.S. Mint said: "Worldwide demand over the last three years for copper, nickel, and zinc have dramatically increased." Does that mean the U.S. Mint has an option to change the materials to something else or will they just take the penny & the nickel away?
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Congress recently gave the mint the authority to make the change at their discretion.
What if they just decide that dollars are only divisible by 10 instead of 100. Quit the nickel and cent altogether, then add some higher denominations to compensate.
Hmmm. That would put the quarter in jeopardy, wouldn't it? Would that mean we would lose the quarter and see the reintroduction of the 20 cent piece? (20 cents = 2/10 of $1)
