Should we downsize the Lincoln cent?

What you are missing sir is scale. All cents that exist to be used might total 1/100th of one percent of dollars in existence, (I think I am very high in this number). Many of these are wheat cents or otherwise being collected. Total that people would go out of their way to use might be 1/200th of 1 percent, (again being very high). So total USD growth would be 1/40th of 1 percent growth in the money supply. Completely irrelevant in every way for inflation, GDP, etc.

Just how many people do you think have 10 million cents lying around in your $100,000 scenario? I have about 15,000 wheat cents, and maybe 10,000 misc cents, and own more cents than ANYONE I know of.

Like I said, a few people might get lucky, but have the gov't slowly retrieve spare cents from banks, then one day have a surprise announcement of the change. No real change for manipulation, people are happy because maybe they made $5 bucks on the conversion, and no issues for the economy. Far few people would make $100k on it than have done so in bitcoins or Amazon stock.

 

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Scale is exactly what I am talking about. You can't increase the value 5x.
If I don't have $100,000 in pennies, I can be part of a penny group of 100 members who each have $1000 in pennies.
Even if you were replacing all the nickels with pennies, the nickels would still be redeemed. So they are not being replaced at equal value.
If there are 100 billion pennies, ($1B) now you are creating an extra $4B.
It is an impossibility. You are only seeing your idea and not the actual outcome.
The math does not work.

 

You just made my point. If there are 100 billion pennies, (make it one trillion), this idea adds literally hundredths of a percent to outstanding USD. The economy simply would not care in any way.

Do you understand the US government adds trillions of USD every year? 1 billion, or 10 billion, simply would be a rounding error.

 

No. There are enough cents out there to gag any collector.

 

How about the change goes to the charity of your choice? To the State? Pray, never!

 

I didn't mean to the state with thoughts.... I only carry change from the day ( except for a quarter for shopping cart rental) and dump it into a container and it does go to the needy when full, so I do approve of that. But it would be too complicated for the banking to keep track of the various choices. perhaps charities could issue cards the change could be deposited .