Q: What determines the mintage numbers?

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Teed it up...

" we have nothing to fear but fear itself"

 

...or a lack of mathematical ability.

 

Another time, another place. [one of my fav figures in Histoty].

The denomination is as dead as a door nail. Our Canadian friends eliminated it, what? Two years ago?

 

There is no law that says they HAVE to make the cents. The law defines the cent, mandates the size and composition, and authorizes their production, but it does not make their production compulsory.

One possible except, there MAY be a law somewhere that requires the mint to produce a coin IF the Federal Reserve requests it. But I'm not sure such a law exists.

 

Most people just don't realize that tossing their cents in drawers or some container and never spending them costs them more in the long run then if purchases were just rounded.

 

Especially since rounding doesn't cost anyone anything. Not. One. Cent.

 

Canada quit making pennies , and the last year was 2012. I personally do not miss the pennies in my change , I did what most people do is put them in some type of container and there they sat . Once and a while we did roll up the works and take them into the bank . We do not get charged here for taking in rolls of coins although that may be different for businesses . I still have a good stash of pennies , and use them for sets and people looking for certain years. The cost of making the penny out weighed its worth . I would not doubt that you see that the US will eventually do away with their penny because of the cost to have people hoard them , and leave them sit around in jars and piggy banks. Somebody there should start a charity and have a pick up service to peoples houses . They could write the person a tax receipt for the pennies, and get a big pile of cash to fund their charity. Most people would rather give them to a charity then take them to a bank. Then the Charity would take them to the bank , and the Mint could cut down on large mintages of the cent.

 

I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't this mean that if the Secretary decided no cents were necessary the mint would not be required to make them?

 

He could decide none are needed, right?

 

But it says the Secretary decides the necessary amount. If the Secretary decided the necessary amount were zero, then the "shall" would mean the mint must make zero cents. (Or does this make zero sense?) I would assume the law authorizing the mint to make coins has had similar language down through the years, but there have certainly been some years for which there was no mintage of some denominations because there was no need. (Quarters in 1922, half dollars of 1922, 1924-26, for example.)

 

Alternately, the Secretary could decide the only amount of cents (and nickels?) were the amount needed to put in mint sets, proof sets, or other special mint products. Personally, that is what I would do instead of totally abandoning the cent and nickel. It would satisfy collectors (cents could even return to being copper, although this would require a new law) and the rest of the country would be better off with rounding.

 

Why then , can the Canadian Government pass a law to not produce cents and soon nickels. Are they smarter than we are ??? YES
done decades ago.

edited to fix quote tags

 

I have heard that fear of public speaking is the number one fear in the United States, and would guess that fear of math cannot be far behind. My perspective is as a college chemistry teacher who HAD to teach a lot of math.

 

So, hypothetically speaking, couldn’t they just decided that 1 coin is needed, mint it and, call it a year?

 

If they have to mint the cents, they could do a very low number (3 million, whatever) there's enough in circulation for a long time. Producing billions of cents every year is just a waste of resources, time and money.
Whether there is a law or not, they can still stop making them. Who is going to enforce it? How and why? Someone is going to go back and forth for years and force the government to continue to produce cents? At a cost of millions of dollars in legal fees? Not likely.

 

Part of the problem is that probably most of cents minted in a given year don't actively stay in circulation (ie, end up in a jar on someone's dresser). Obviously banks are requesting them for their clients. If this wasn't the case the vaults at the federal reserve banks would run out of space to store them. As mentioned earlier in this thread, the time to stop using the cent is long overdue; rounding to the nearest .05 or .1 seems reasonable. When was the last year the cost of minting a cent was less than it's face value?

 

I'm imagining an international conspiracy where foreign governments are hoarding cents and they are all going to dump them at the same time...the US banking industry goes into a tailspin and the stock market tanks, allowing a foreign power to buy up ALL stocks and we are out of business...