Are we really this stupid?

[SmittynMo]

Did anyone catch John Oliver's piece on the elimination of the penny?

Bottom line: It costs us 130M to create 80M in pennies each year. Does everyone else see how insane this is? Sorry, but its time to eliminate the penny.

Yet we continue to do nothing.

OMG. The total dumbing of America. Who the hell is in charge here?

http://www.today.com/video/john-oliver-calls-for-an-end-to-the-penny-572434499733

[valerief]

1. John Oliver, the Brit, is an American treasure. nt

[arcane1]

3. Much like The Guardian. We get our best news from the Brits :)

[valerief]

14. Agreed! To me, something's not true unless I see it in the Guardian (pretty much). nt

[HughBeaumont]

2. Well, Donald Trump IS a leading Presidential candidate . .. .

. . .. with no one but us exclaiming how insane that is . . . . so there is that.

[SmittynMo]

4. Good point

But it's clearly obvious to me the the entire GOP is insane, without question. This should be the end of them too. They have no chance in hell of winning.

[BlueCaliDem]

5. John Oliver is correct. The Dutch did away with their penny in 1980 because it cost too

much to produce.

I never understood why we didn't do away with the penny here in the United States. We don't have "penny candies" anymore, so why keep making those useless copper coins that cost almost double to manufacture?

There has to be some group benefiting off of this, otherwise the penny would've gone the way of the DoDos long ago.

[SmittynMo]

7. What gets me is that

we're throwing 50M away, every year. And no one is smart enough to figure this out. Nor do anything about it.

Friggin amazing.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. This can only mean someone is benefiting from the manufacturing of a useless coin.

I really can't think of any other reason why the U.S. government hasn't stopped wasting tens of millions of dollar manufacturing if someone isn't somehow making profit off of it.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. Pennies made after 1982 only contain 2.5% copper

The rest is zinc.

[polly7]

6. We recently got rid of ours.

I haven't found it to be a big deal at all. Sellers round the total price off to the lower or higher number, depending on the amount. I do have a whole big jar of pennies for card games, I like to go through them all and find the old ones.

Phasing out penny from circulation - what it means for Canadian consumers and businesses

In Economic Action Plan 2012, the Government announced it would phase out the penny from Canada's coinage system. The decision to phase out the penny was due to its excessive and rising cost of production relative to face value, the increased accumulation of pennies by Canadians in their households, environmental considerations, and the significant handling costs the penny imposes on retailers, financial institutions and the economy in general.

The estimated savings for taxpayers from phasing out the penny is $11 million a year.

The cent will remain Canada's smallest unit for pricing goods and services. This will have no impact on payments made by cheque or electronic transactions—only cash transactions will be affected. Moreover, pennies can still be used in cash transactions indefinitely with businesses that choose to accept them.

Rounding Guideline:

As pennies exit circulation, cash payments or transactions only will need to be rounded, either up or down, to the nearest five-cent increment.

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/about-the-mint/phasing-out-the-penny-6900002#.VlyQjXarTq4

[SmittynMo]

9. There was a segment

where a guy dumped 150 pennies in a 20 x 20 area on a fairly busy sidewalk. NO ONE picked up a single penny. And they recorded for quite some time.

[LanternWaste]

10. If the concern is fiscal and only fiscal, then the $1 bill should also be axed

If the concern is fiscal and only fiscal, then the $1 bill should also be axed. Should the U.S. get rid of its $1 bill and replace it with a dollar coin, the U.S. will save $183.3 million a year (53.3 million more than production of the penny).

(Source: GAO)

[KamaAina]

12. We've tried dollar coins over and over again.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. Dollar coins are currently being minted

There are even two types of dollar coins that are currently being minted for circulation: Presidential dollars, and Native American dollars. However, as long as the dollar bill is also being made, people will prefer the paper.

[kentauros]

21. I prefer dollar (and 2-dollar) coins

as other countries have done (Canada, New Zealand.)

Here's one of the major reasons why most people don't use them: they don't work in vending machines. And pennies won't work, either, in those machines.

In fact, there is only one kind of vending machine where the penny will work: Postage Stamp vending machines.

Ever notice in parking lots that you can find oodles of pennies, but rarely of nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars, or dollar coins? When people drop the other coins, they pick them up again. They don't pick up their pennies.

[KamaAina]

22. And yet dollar bills do

One wonders how much those bill readers cost relative to modifying the coin slots.

[kentauros]

26. There are a few modern vending machines that take dollar coins

but the old ones don't (nor do those older, and still-working, machines take dollar bills.) So, modification has to be done whether it's for dollar coins or dollar bills. And even more rare are the machines that take five-dollar bills. Guess what kind of change you get from them?

[KamaAina]

27. The VTA ticket-vending machines do that.

Yup, you got it.

[treestar]

23. Yeah I don't understand

why Australians and the British and the EU can use them, while we can't. We sure seem stuck on the dollar bill.

[KamaAina]

25. It must be the Illuminati pyramid on the back

They won't let the dollar bill go away.

[kentauros]

24. There's another reason to get rid of the dollar bill:

Paper money lasts, at best, 18 months. Coins last at least 30 years.

I have a nice little deerskin coin purse that keeps all of my coinage relatively flat in my pocket (no jingling around, either.) Bring on the Loonies and Toonies!

[jeff47]

11. Actually, the stupid part is pretending that each penny is only spent once.

Which is what the $130M to create $80M claim requires.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

28. I was hoping someone had already pointed this out.

Almost all of those pennies will be spent and respent hundreds, even thousands of times before they're destroyed.

[panader0]

13. I think that if the penny is eliminated, the nickel will be next and then....

The consumer will pay more, sales taxes will go from 6 or 7% to ten. And like the above poster said,
pennies are spent many times over.

[hunter]

15. I like the penny dishes many shops have.

Take a few, leave a few. In the long run I always end up leaving more than I take.



I don't think this is a big deal.

[pampango]

18. Canada is eliminating the penny, too. n/t

[alphafemale]

19. I pretty much do not use cash. I especially despise pocket rocks.

Pennies in particular.

I actively loathe the things.

I use coins the few times a year I happen to be on a "troll" road where I have to pay to pass.

Or need to do laundry at a hotel or something.

[lpbk2713]

20. The Pentagon can blow that much money in a day.

And no one will hardly notice. But that doesn't mean it is acceptable. It's probably good that he points this out but after it is put in perspective ...