NYT Magazine Huge Article: "America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny"
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But few things symbolize our national dysfunction more than the inability to stop minting this worthless currency.
By Caity Weaver
Caity Weaver is a staff writer for the magazine. For her reporting of this article, she visited the Treasury, the United States Mint, the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery and the coin vault at the National Museum of American History.
Sept. 1, 2024Updated 7:02 p.m. ET
I was disappointed to learn, recently, that the United States has created for itself a logistical problem so stupendously stupid, one cannot help wondering if it is wise to continue to allow this nation to supervise the design of its own holiday postage stamps, let alone preside over the administration of an extensive Interstate highway system or nuclear arsenal. It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I have come to think of it as the Perpetual Penny Paradox.
Most pennies produced by the U.S. Mint are given out as change but never spent; this creates an incessant demand for new pennies to replace them, so that cash transactions that necessitate pennies (i.e., any concluding with a sum whose final digit is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or 9) can be settled. Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced). In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.
A conservative estimate holds that there are 240 billion pennies lying around the United States — about 724 ($7.24) for every man, woman and child there residing, and enough to hand two pennies to every bewildered human born since the dawn of man. (To distribute them all, in fact, we’d have to double back to the beginning and give our first six billion ancestors a third American penny.) These are but a fraction of the several hundreds of billions of pennies issued since 1793, most of which have suffered a mysterious fate sometimes described in government records, with a hint of supernaturality generally undesirable in bookkeeping, as “disappearance.” As far as anyone knows, the American cent is the most produced coin in the history of civilization, its portrait of Lincoln the most reproduced piece of art on Earth. Although pennies are almost never used for their ostensible purpose (to make purchases), right now one out of every two circulating coins minted in the United States has a face value of 1 cent. A majority of the ones that have not yet disappeared are, according to a 2022 report, “sitting in consumers’ coin jars in their homes.”
Continues in below link....
The Philadelphia Mint made 85,092,703 pennies in 1903 — less than 2 percent of the circulating pennies the U.S. Mint struck in 2023.Credit...U.S. Mint
In the process of counting one hundred million pennies (or rather, one million dollars' worth of pennies) at the San Francisco Mint in 1950. One cent in 1950 was the monetary equivalent of 13 cents in 2024.Credit...Barney Peterson/San Francisco Chronicle, via Getty Images
Comments
didn't say anything about clickbait headlines
Too bad the paper doesn’t ridicule the sources of ravaging inflation: out of control government spending and the perpetual growth of the federal bureaucracy. This is a bigger inanity than the devalued cent.
I just went back to the article and looked at the quite large image of the Lincoln cents......I did not see one wheat cent in the bunch. Bet she didn't know(or care) that they were 95% copper.
edited to add: I stand corrected.
Some cool Mint pictures.
Nice article. I read it because I already think we should stop producing the cent (and probably the nickel, too) and was curious to see what they had to say about it. There’s some interesting info there, for example the major role that coinstar plays in the life cycle of US coinage. But the bit that I found most interesting was this:
Seems like there is a possible loophole that the Secretary of the Treasury could use to just by fiat stop making pennies. I’m not a lawyer so have no idea how feasible this would actually be, but it’s fun to imagine.
"Shall" and "may" have specific definitions in the law. I believe that "shall" means that he has to do it.
We just had a thread on this very issue a few weeks ago. Cents are minted because there is demand for them. If no one wanted them then the issue would resolve itself.
Well there would be plenty of demand for 1963 Franklin halves at face. Not a good reason to lose ten bucks a piece though.
I'm not in favor or against but the demand issue is not as simple as it seems. There are special interest groups that have a vested interest in keeping cent mintage going and they actively lobby to maintain that position.
The American public probably (IMO) doesn't care at all.
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I believe Coinstar and roll accepting banks could provide evidence that cents do indeed re-enter circulation.
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
"Necessary to meet the needs of the United States” does not mean that people get free silver. We are talking about coins minted for commerce.
Zinc miners?
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I would have read the whole article, but the title called it a penny so I assumed it was from the U.K.
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If you are interested in this debate, read about Jim Kolbe and his effort to end the cent. Of course, special interests influencing Congress and coin production is nothing new. The Bland Allison Act produced millions of silver dollars that never circulated.
Round cash purchases down to a nickel. Will cost the retailers an average of 2 cents per transaction, With cashiers costing $20 plus per hour, the retailer is ahead as they don't have to handle the worthless coin. Nobody gets hurt.
You can check up on the various sources from this Wikipedia article or a Google search will answer most of your questions but in short...yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_for_Common_Cents
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Hilarious article. Well written and on point!
But I still want my change to look through, so don't get rid of the Lincoln cent !
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As I've suggested before in several prior discussions of this topic, the government can stop making cents for commerce and still make cents in their original copper composition for their yearly mint sets and proof sets. They can also sell rolls of cents struck in copper to coin dealers and collectors for the cost to produce them plus a reasonable profit.
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Much ado about nothing.
""Shall" means he has to do it but it's followed by "...in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States." The words "decides" and "necessary" appear to give the Secretary of the Treasury quite a bit of leeway.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
But the leeway ends when a bank orders cents, which they continue to do. The government is not minting them and stacking them. The public is stacking them.
NO!!
The law specifically excludes the production of pennies:
“in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.”
Pennies are not needed by the United States. They are needed only by lobbyists for the zinc industry (Americans for Common Sense) and THIS is why we make pennies. Zinc producers clean up by polluting the air, water, highways, as well as parking lots and use some of the profits to "lobby" Congress. How else would we have toxic little slugs that are like an albatross around the neck of our economy.
The author of the article hasn't even begun to plumb the depths of this ongoing (for 40 years) stupidity.
Nobody wants pennies. The banks wouldn't order pennies if the stores didn't who also don't want pennies in order to provide them for customers who toss them in the streets or accumulate them in buckets at home.
Nobody seems to know how to have sales taxes kick in in 5c increments or price things at $29,999.95 instead of 29,999.98
Of course the status quo is inviolable, inert, and immovable.
I don't see how any of the above equates with "The law specifically excludes the production of pennies" If the law doesn't mention them specifically, they're not specifically excluded, though I wish they were.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Penny production ties up mint resources so coins have to be stamped out at so high a rate that relief is lowered again and again. It costs billions per year. It hamstrings the economy by preventing the circulation of a more efficient medium. The zinc is toxic to all mammals and one can kill any baby or pet less than 18 pounds. It perpetuates the corruption in Washington.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
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I shouldda read your post first before responding. I'd have worded it much differently.
At this time pennies are the only denomination that is clearly no needed by the United States. Certainly one could make the argument that the half dollar and dollar coins are not needed but they are not needed ONLY because they are not used. The dollar coins probably would be used and highly valued by many people if they circulated but they can't circulate because cash registers are full of pennies instead.
But a coin that literally has negative value (and only the penny has a negative value) is clearly not needed. It is on this basis specifically excluded from the definition of "coins needed".
(and only the penny has a negative value)
This negative value is the result not only of the far higher cost of manufacture which might already exceed 5c since the mint uses creative accounting to shift costs to other denominations. But the negative value is caused by the costs of transporting, counting, and disposing of them. It includes costs to the environment and people. It includes the time required to transact business while little old ladies who remember candy bars once cost a nickel dig in their collective purses for exact change.
The biggest costs it doesn't include is the cost to the economy by forcing the use of credit cards and preventing the circulation of more efficient cash systems.
If we got rid of the penny it would quickly become apparent that the nickel is a problem as well. But the only problem with the nickel is the high cost of production. It doesn't clog up the economy or the sewers or kill mammals under 18lbs. It doesn't cost more to count and handle than its face value.
Not reading the article or any of these posts. As soon as I saw NYT Magazine: I thought about it, laughed about it, then I forgot about it! Any questions?
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
How does the continued production of cents force the use of credit cards?
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
This reminds me, gotta make a Coinstar run today.
I looked and saw a 1943 Canadian cent in the lower left hand corner.
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Exactly - their priorities are way out of whack!
Yes, I have a question. Your strongly held political beliefs are well known. But NYT Magazine is fashion, photography, longer profile features, short stories, poetry, etc etc, not news.
So my question is, if you dislike the parent company do you completely avoid all of their subsidiary businesses? (For example, if you dislike Disney, will you refuse to watch the Superbowl on ABC?)
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Really? Wow, learned something new today. Guess it’s a good thing I was born in the 70’s. Swallowed quite a few as a toddler, or so I’ve been told.
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
I think ending the “penny” in transactions would likely increase inflation, particularly among products purchased for cash by poorer Americans. There is a definite psychological component to inflation as well as the obvious money supply component.
.
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We of the Planet Mars have been observing your world and should you attempt to extend your penny stupidity to our world we will have no recourse but to...
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We need to eliminate the 1c and 5c, then add a $2 bimetallic coin and eliminate the $1 and $2. All 4 eliminated denominations can still be produced for collector sets.
Coinage: 10c, 25c, 50c, $1, $2
Paper: $5, $10, $20, $50, $100
Let's face it though, all we really need is this:
Coins: 10c, 25c, $1
Paper: $5, $20, $100
Not toxic, just fits of gout in the future.
One request for me: make size and value proportional with distinct edging.
People use what they are accustomed to using.
I lived in Europe for several years and they accepted the use of high denomination coins, mainly because they had no choice.
Here in the US people cling to their paper one-dollar bills because they are used to it, and certain interests make sure they are still made. The inertia of tradition is very powerful.
Zinc poisoning often goes undetected so it's hard to know the total carnage. It mostly pets and wild animals being killed no doubt. Pennies go through an animal pretty quickly so there's often not time to dissolve and be digested. Also many of the pennies are copper and harmless and even most of the zinc pennies have enough of their plating intact to cause them to dissolve very slowly. The problem comes when several are ingested at once, it's by a small mammal, there's a lot of zinc exposed, or digestion is slowed because of some other process.
But they can kill. The amount of zinc in a single penny can kill.
The lobbyist say zinc is a necessary nutrient so pennies are good for us. Of course the same people who pay the lobbyists pay to have the science done.
I agree "inflation" is primarily psychological however the poor would be the biggest gainers by eliminating the penny.
Wikipedia says zinc is toxic above 50 mg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_toxicity
A penny weighs 2.5 grams so has enough zinc to poison 12.5 adults and enough to kill any mammal under 18 pounds.
With inflation, now nickels will be consumed by the toddlers.
You came in to this thread specifically to post that you won't read the article mentioned in the title, nor will you read any of the posts in the thread, then asked if anyone had questions, and got very upset when I asked a question.
Did you intend to be rhetorical? Or did you just want to pop into a thread in which you aren't interested, post a not thinly veiled, political dog whistle, and then react like a petulant teenager when anyone else had anything to say?
Grow up.
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I knew you were an emotional guy but I didn't realize you're actually quite sensitive.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Edited out.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
Lol, ok.
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