Should we eliminate the cent?

I give up.

 

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Thanks for your two cents. :whistle:

 

As we all know, there are umpteen billion cents with years of remaining circulating life resting in jars all through out the country.
Since the price of production is over one cent and less than two, I think it makes cents (seigniorage) to bring back the two cent piece - zinc copper coated and a couple of millimeters larger in diameter.

 

Bump the decimal point one place to the right and bring back the copper cent and sivler dimes and quarters.

 

In Japan the dollar is roughly equivalent to 100 yen. Their 1 cent equivalent is a 1 sen coin which is not made any more. 10 yen and 50 yen are the most common coins, but the 100, 500 yen are available and very useful.

If we didn't denominate in dollars with a cent fraction - just listed everything as cents, then $10.00 would be 1000 cents; $1.00 would be 100 cents - Very similar to Japan's Yen.

I'm not saying we should use Japan as a model, just that they have much higher denomination coins (for use in Pachinko parlors, I guess) than we do and the low end coin have been phased out over time. Was there a problem with that? no, I don't think so.

 

The cent is still a moneymaker. How many do people lose, throw away, etc. cents everyday. The money was made, sold (for a profit over metal value), then taken out of circulation never to be seen again. US does not have to make good on the lost ones.

 

I still bend down and pick them up....

 

Yep, same here.

 

Yup, no such thing as a bad penny!

 

'specially if it's heads up....

 

LOL, you bet! I probably should add that there are some really ugly pennies, those with a grade only a true collector could love.

And I probably own a few of those......

 

If the mint would stop making cents, wouldn't people just use the billions and billions that they have in jars, drawers, etc ? If they cost more to make than they are worth, why make more ???

 

I agree - and there's no such thing as a bad Penny Guy or bad Penny Lady either! I too pick up pennies off the ground whenever I see one (whether they are heads up or not!). Hey, besides, pennies are my business! But aside from it being my business, here's my personal Honest Abe two cents about keeping/not keeping the penny, for what it's worth.....

Honestly and without meaning anything disparaging, I don't really care about the sales tax issue, and I don't really care whether the cent is a moneymaker, and I don't really care about rounding up prices to make up for not keeping the penny, and I even don't really care whether making the cent is more costly than it's worth.

What I do care about is keeping/creating future coin collectors, and the penny/cent is a huge staple (maybe even backbone) of coin collecting. It is and always has been a very popular series, especially among young people. This year's new designs have helped inspire more young collectors to collect pennies, just like the state quarters did a few years back. And we (our country) has pretty much always had a penny/cent as part of its coinage. The penny is historical. And I believe/feel it should and will remain part of the U.S. coins. Simply put and bottom line, pennies are just too dang popular to cease minting. Go Pennies!

 

Well said :bow:

 

Get rid of Nickle while you're at it

Yes, we should eliminate the cent. While we are eliminating coins, let's get rid of the nickle also. Adjusted for inflation, the penny and nickle are both worthless, when compared with a penny of 50 years ago.

 

Why not stop there. Let's get rid of the disme, excuse me, dime and quarter as well...

 

If we use inflation to adjust our coinage, in this case of 50 years ago we would need to eliminate ALL coins and take a hard look at some currency as well. One dollar in 1959 has the buying power of $7.41 in 2009

Here's a fun site to arrive at the calculation I did. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

 

We gotta stop thinking alike green18.....

 

But there have been period in the past couple of years when even the zinc cent has had metal value OVER the face value resulting in a sale at a loss. Currently the metal value is slightly less than face, but you also need to figure in the cost of manufacturing. Making them isn't free and when you add the cost of the metal and the cost of manufacturing you are looking at a loss again.

Believe it or not, no they wouldn't. Most of the mints cent production each year is just to replace the ones that disappear into hoards and aren't re-circulated. When they stop production there will be cent shortages fairly quickly. The public will see this as the cent becoming a scarce item which will result in even more hoarding. Once it is learned the mint is not producing them the story will go around that they aren't making them anymore and they are going to become rare. (The old "They're going to be recalled" rumor will probably also start making the rounds.) This will result is widespread hoarding and the cents will very quickly disappear from circulation completely. Very few people will be willing to let go of their hoard of "rare Lincoln cents".

 

no!