"government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is a force! like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." George Washington
Speaking now as a coin collector, I ask...Do all of the remaining quirks and charms in this world need to be eliminated in the name of "fiscal responsibility"?
The cost of producing the cent doesn't even constitute a drop in the perverbial bucket.
<< <i>In most cases, you aren't required to buy the quantity listed to get the lower sale price.
So, for the 6 ears of corn for $1... if I only wanted one of them, it would be $0.17.
But if we didn't have the cent, it would surely get rounded up to $0.20 which is a price that is over 15% higher. Keep the cent!!! >>
I think the whole point is that pricing is hit or miss at most places.
Besides, who goes into a supermarket and buys only 1 ear of corn? At best, folks will buy the 6 just to keep the numbers round.
There's also a little note which says "With Card". This means that the price is different (higher) if you do not have a "the Card".
As for the actual price of the corn, if you're only buying the single ear of corn, yes, you'll pay 15% more BUT, the rounding of prices DOES NOT OCCUR ON EACH INDIVIDUAL ITEM. It occurs on the total bill so the most that folks would be out would be .03 cents. On the plus side, they could (theoretically) be .02 cents richer!
DUMP THE CENT!
I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.
The cost for the United States Mint to produce and distribute the cent and nickel rose to their highest levels, and are now more than double the respective face values. For the fiscal year ending September 30, 2011, the unit cost for the cent was 2.41 cents and the cost for the nickel was 11.18 cents.
The cost for the two lowest circulating denominations increased compared to the prior year due to higher material costs and a change in the method of allocation for sales, general, and administrative expenses. In previous years, the Mint allocated SG&A expenses based on gross margins. For the 2011 fiscal year, costs were allocated based on the costs to manufacture, market, and distribute. The new approach conforms to accounting standards and leading commercial and public sector practices.
Although the cent and nickel have generated significant losses in recent years, the positive seigniorage generated by higher denomination circulating coins has offset the losses. For the 2011 fiscal year, production of the dime, quarter dollar, and $1 coin for circulation generated seigniorage of $488.8 million.
So why are we picking on the cent again ? Seems like it's the nickel at 11.18c to make is a better target. I said last year the US coinage will follow the UK's lead and strike them both in steel,it will happen.The bottem line is the US mint is NOT losing money , it's the governments task to provide a mediium for exchange and commerce, that's what it does.
<< <i>I already experienced this scenario in the UK when they went decimal , you know the market vendors are not going to round down , the public get screwed every time and we all know it.It never fails to amaze how many people are so keen to be hosed. >>
This simply is not true and if it were, just do not solicite those ignorant vendors less your ignorance show.
Rounding is done on the Total bill, not the individual item. It's a 50/50 win/lose scenario that will have very little impact on the bottom line.
The problem with this country is there are too many whiners that whine over the pettiest of things just to keep from being responsible.
I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.
<< <i>I already experienced this scenario in the UK when they went decimal , you know the market vendors are not going to round down , the public get screwed every time and we all know it.It never fails to amaze how many people are so keen to be hosed. >>
This simply is not true and if it were, just do not solicite those ignorant vendors less your ignorance show.
Rounding is done on the Total bill, not the individual item. It's a 50/50 win/lose scenario that will have very little impact on the bottom line.
The problem with this country is there are too many whiners that whine over the pettiest of things just to keep from being responsible. >>
Oh , you were in the UK as a resident in 1970 ? You say it's not true and support it with your own doubts ? If eliminating the cent isnt "petty whining" i dont know what is.
Higher prices due to credit card fees were a much bigger amount, and we survived them.
Move the decimal 1 point to the right on all coins. A $10 Sac would be worthwhile, as would a $2.50 Nat'l Park quarter. Too many coins are worthless, and it's only going to get worse.
Unless some vendor of an item that is widely-purchased by itself purposely bumps up prices (and risks public backlash when noticed), it's, at worst, a breakeven for consumers. It's a big savings for the mint, banks, and armored cars (fuel). Businesses would probably appreciate and benefit from one less category of coin to count (especially one that costs more in labor to count than it's worth), in exchange for a possible one-time cost for software changes (which provides economic stimulus).
I say "possible" regarding software because, it's common in parts of Africa and Asia for there to either not be any of the smallest denominations still printed/minted/circulated, or for a particular business to not have the exact change needed. Rounding is a part of most cash transactions, and you don't even think or talk about it. It's accepted that a cash drawer will be long or short tens to thousands of minimum increments at the end of a day (which may add up to a dollar or two - far less than 1%). Large supermarket chains need better accountability, but the average liquor store or gas station vendor wouldn't necessarily need to spend money on software if he didn't want to.
<< <i>If we collect enough cents, we can get a dollar. That could help pay medical bills, tuition, or even the electricity for a few hours, for a child. If we can adopt change , we might invoke change. >>
Right. And we can collect at least billions (is it more?) of those cents back into the federal checkbook, available to support charitable causes, by eliminating the penny. Compare that to how much time and money it takes to get people to give those pennies, collect them, and turn them into something spendable. Not to mention that you only need 1/5th as many people to give you a nickel as you need to give you a penny.
<< <i>In most cases, you aren't required to buy the quantity listed to get the lower sale price.
So, for the 6 ears of corn for $1... if I only wanted one of them, it would be $0.17.
But if we didn't have the cent, it would surely get rounded up to $0.20 which is a price that is over 15% higher. Keep the cent!!! >>
That's true if that is the only item you purchased. But if you bought one for $0.17 plus a pack of veggies for $1.33, your total would be $1.50.
If you add up all the time and effort you spend on cent-denominated transactions during the year, and compared that with the amount you would "save" by keeping the cent, you would probably find that your time spent on this is worth less than an dollar an hour.
The cent now is worth about 5% or less of what a half cent was when it was discontinued in 1857. It's time to get rid of the cent. >>
Exactly! >>
Agreed! And anyway, I couldn't tell you the last time I used cash in any store.
<< <i>While the UK was mentioned as where merchants always round up, that has not been my experience in Alusatrlia and New Zealand where both countries did away with the cent some 15-20 years ago. When you go to the market, and buy items that total $4.02, they round down to $4.00 and it its $.03 they round up to $4.05. In the long run of a year buying groceries I doubt it hardly matters. Besides, this thread has yet to understand this is not so much about taxpayers and the cost of making a cent. Its about lobbyist. Those that are for the cent have an interest in the manufactures of the copper sheeting and not just the company who delivers the final product to the mint, but copper mining, transportation, refining, etc. Those that are against have interest in other metals and plastics that may be considered as a replacement. Along those same lines the vending companies are also one if not the loudest in this fight. They are against it and the dollar coin as well. the reason being they would have to buys ton of new equipment to accommodate ANY coin change. Its been thais way for years.
WS >>
The ONLY "Vending Machine" I've ever encountered that accepts 1 cent coins are Penny Slots. Everything else is Nickel to Dollar.
I have no interest in the copper business.
My only interest is in the insane continuance of manufacturing something on an annual basis that people just do not use and have absolutely NO REGARD for other than to whine about eliminating it because they "might" lose 3 cents on some transaction.
Never mind the fact that they'll throw that very three cents into the "Take a penny/Use a penny" tray or simply throw it in the trash. That seems to be unimportant to actually "losing" 3 cents because the coins are no longer made.
IMO, there is absolutely no argument that can be leveled regarding keeping the coin around. It has no buying power, it has no value, and it's only used in bulk transactions where someone is angry at some government entity for whatever reason so they attempt to pay their $1,000 fine in cents.
Sheesh! Whiners!
Down with the Cent!
I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.
<< <i>...I am in favor of getting rid of all denominations other than the quarter and rounding everything to the nearest quarter. >>
That's the kind of extreme idea, usually given by the opposition, that derails the argument.
<< <i>If the cent is eliminated i think that there will be no such thing as rounding down--everything will be rounded up to the next nickel. >>
The only way this gets into law to begin with is with 5/4 rounding. Otherwise, there are far too many people claiming foul on either side, regardless of mathematical validity. As someone else pointed out, some vendors will jump at the ability and chance to advertise "we round down", and others will likely follow, since it costs them almost nothing*. Vendors don't compete to raise prices, they do so to lower them. Ultimately, prices settle at an "efficient" value anyway.
*Think about a liquor store with an average transaction as little as $10. Statistically, "always-round-down" should result in a loss of $0.025 per transaction. That's -0.25%. Supply prices fluctuate 10s of times that much, as do costs of transportation, living, etc. On 200 transactions per day, that's $5/day. Nothing, if it steals just a few customers from your competitors. If the shoe is on the other foot, with the vendors rounding up, it's even less than nothing to the consumers (say 200x $10 transactions per _year_ = $5 per _year_).
<< <i>And you can certainly bet your bottom dollar that taxes will be rounded up. >>
No reason why sales taxes would change. They already get calculated and rounded per state law.
<< <i>If a manufacturer does have a product that ends in a round down ultimatum then you can be darn sure that they will raise the price. >>
Manufacturers don't sell 1 of something that is priced in pennies. Even if they do, it's unlikely they get paid in cash. Even if they did, it's unlikely they care about $0.025 one way or the other, since anything they sell just one of would have to be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
<< <i>Anyways, how many things have prices ending in 1, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 6, or 7 cents (before taxes are added on)? Most prices end in 0 or 5 or 8 or 9 cents, so not much rounding needed. >>
Individual prices, and even the total before taxes, do not matter. It's the total transaction amount. After taxes are added. Statistically, it's as likely to be 0-4 as 5-9 (except for some unusual, specialized circumstances).
<< <i>If the cent is so useless then why are billions of them manufactured every year? >>
Because there haven't been enough people to stand up and say "stop". Like everything else that gets done out of habit. Some say that, politically, republican congressmen are swayed against it because they don't want to be known as "the guy that voted Lincoln out of circulation" (even though we still have the $5 bill). It also seems unlikely while we have the senator from _Illinois_ in the oval office
<< <i>Lots of jobs would be eliminated if we stop making them. >>
I believe even the mint said this was false - that the small number of employees exclusively involved in penny production could be moved to other jobs. There may also be a few jobs created (or at least kept) for software mods in the private sector.
(While I quoted one person here, the arguments are all pretty standard, as are my responses. In the end, most of the arguments to keep the penny fail when you apply the actual numbers)
No one has yet mentioned another reason to stop making the cent: the environment. Lots of people throw away cents. So they contribute to landfills, and also the ones on the ground pollute the environment as they rust away.
And it would be a lot more productive to make something much more useful with those materials than cents that cost well over 2 cents to make.
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
I have the solution, and I think it will please everyone involved, from the collectors to the fiscal responsibilists, to the environmentalists.......
It takes around 2 cents to manufacture a new cent, yet there are billions & billions of cents laying around on the streets/sidewalks, in jars, etc, right?
What if the government announced a "Buy-back" of cents at between 1.5 & 2 cents apiece (based on whether pre- or post-1982)? People who still LIKE or need to use pennies could ignore the buy-back & go on with their lives. Those who don't like them or needed a quick bonus in income could turn them in at a 50-100% profit. "Reclamation" Centers would just need a coin machine to separate/count them based on weight to calculate how much to give each person turning them in.
The Mint would save valuable resources and the expense of minting additional cents while so many already exist out there unused. Offering 1.5 to 2 cents apiece would be a relative "wash" after they turned around and sold them to companies who'd melt them down for their copper (once they altered the law to make it legal for selected contracted companies to do so), or commissioned the same companies who used to refine copper ore to just reclaim the copper from the cents for other use by the government (thus "saving" those companies' jobs/profits).
Over time, many of the hoarded/discarded cents would be enticed out of their hiding places and melted-down. As cents became rarer, individual businesses could choose to round-off prices. Eventually, as people see there's little or no harm done to their wallets by rounding, they'd become more amenable to the day that the government finally announced a date by which cents would have to be turned in for the "bounty" or finally become non-legal tender.
The Mint could continue to manufacture Lincolns annually for just Mint/Proof sets until the day they became non-legal tender. They could also re-package redeemed coins & sell them back to the collecting public as "unsearched" after the day they became non-legal tender (so they wouldn't just be redeemed at a premium).
Once they became non-legal tender, melting-down of any remaining could be made legal for everyone.
I think it's a win-win-win situation for everyone.
Your opinions?
- - Dave
P.S. James: I'd eat 2 or 3 ears of corn in ONE SITTING!!
"James: I'd eat 2 or 3 ears of corn in ONE SITTING!! "
: ) Haha Dave , it's true , i think a lot of keystoners would be like...corn comes from a store ? ...thought it came from the field. lol I never really knew what corn on the cob tasted like until i moved here , sure , id eaten it all my life , i dont know how the stores get away with it , eat an ear of corn straight from the field and you'll never look at store bought corn again is how i see that. Same with tomatos , most fruit , notice it dont smell like fruit anymore ?
My brother worked at a local "corn stand". They had a few rows of corn on premises "for show", but imported their corn from nearby farms in PA & Jersey. They routinely went for something like $1.50 or less a dozen ears. Of course, I also remember the local stand along the backstreets of the neighborhood selling tomatoes routinely at 3 or 4 pounds for a $1...... This was back in the '60's & '70's.....
I have to say, however, that this year, ACME had sweet white corn for sale at something like 15 cents an ear early this season, and it was sweet & delicious, too! They tend to bring in local-grown when they can, although that was too early in the season for it... I guess they must have gotten a good batch from the South or off-shore.....
Comments
...i'm really gettin' a headache!
The cost of producing the cent doesn't even constitute a drop in the perverbial bucket.
<< <i>The cost of producing the cent doesn't even constitute a drop in the perverbial bucket. >>
Nope, but it's easy to say this about everything that costs anything and to just remain in the same state that we're in now.
It seems weird that with so many cuts that are actually controversial that we can't even pick low hanging fruit like this.
I think we're pretty screwed as a country.
<< <i>In most cases, you aren't required to buy the quantity listed to get the lower sale price.
So, for the 6 ears of corn for $1... if I only wanted one of them, it would be $0.17.
But if we didn't have the cent, it would surely get rounded up to $0.20 which is a price that is over 15% higher. Keep the cent!!! >>
I think the whole point is that pricing is hit or miss at most places.
Besides, who goes into a supermarket and buys only 1 ear of corn? At best, folks will buy the 6 just to keep the numbers round.
There's also a little note which says "With Card". This means that the price is different (higher) if you do not have a "the Card".
As for the actual price of the corn, if you're only buying the single ear of corn, yes, you'll pay 15% more BUT, the rounding of prices DOES NOT OCCUR ON EACH INDIVIDUAL ITEM. It occurs on the total bill so the most that folks would be out would be .03 cents. On the plus side, they could (theoretically) be .02 cents richer!
DUMP THE CENT!
The name is LEE!
The cost for the two lowest circulating denominations increased compared to the prior year due to higher material costs and a change in the method of allocation for sales, general, and administrative expenses. In previous years, the Mint allocated SG&A expenses based on gross margins. For the 2011 fiscal year, costs were allocated based on the costs to manufacture, market, and distribute. The new approach conforms to accounting standards and leading commercial and public sector practices.
Although the cent and nickel have generated significant losses in recent years, the positive seigniorage generated by higher denomination circulating coins has offset the losses. For the 2011 fiscal year, production of the dime, quarter dollar, and $1 coin for circulation generated seigniorage of $488.8 million.
So why are we picking on the cent again ? Seems like it's the nickel at 11.18c to make is a better target. I said last year the US coinage will follow the UK's lead and strike them both in steel,it will happen.The bottem line is the US mint is NOT losing money , it's the governments task to provide a mediium for exchange and commerce, that's what it does.
<< <i>I already experienced this scenario in the UK when they went decimal , you know the market vendors are not going to round down , the public get screwed every time and we all know it.It never fails to amaze how many people are so keen to be hosed. >>
This simply is not true and if it were, just do not solicite those ignorant vendors less your ignorance show.
Rounding is done on the Total bill, not the individual item. It's a 50/50 win/lose scenario that will have very little impact on the bottom line.
The problem with this country is there are too many whiners that whine over the pettiest of things just to keep from being responsible.
The name is LEE!
<< <i>
<< <i>I already experienced this scenario in the UK when they went decimal , you know the market vendors are not going to round down , the public get screwed every time and we all know it.It never fails to amaze how many people are so keen to be hosed. >>
This simply is not true and if it were, just do not solicite those ignorant vendors less your ignorance show.
Rounding is done on the Total bill, not the individual item. It's a 50/50 win/lose scenario that will have very little impact on the bottom line.
The problem with this country is there are too many whiners that whine over the pettiest of things just to keep from being responsible. >>
Oh , you were in the UK as a resident in 1970 ? You say it's not true and support it with your own doubts ? If eliminating the cent isnt "petty whining" i dont know what is.
Move the decimal 1 point to the right on all coins. A $10 Sac would be worthwhile, as would a $2.50 Nat'l Park quarter. Too many coins are worthless, and it's only going to get worse.
Unless some vendor of an item that is widely-purchased by itself purposely bumps up prices (and risks public backlash when noticed), it's, at worst, a breakeven for consumers. It's a big savings for the mint, banks, and armored cars (fuel). Businesses would probably appreciate and benefit from one less category of coin to count (especially one that costs more in labor to count than it's worth), in exchange for a possible one-time cost for software changes (which provides economic stimulus).
I say "possible" regarding software because, it's common in parts of Africa and Asia for there to either not be any of the smallest denominations still printed/minted/circulated, or for a particular business to not have the exact change needed. Rounding is a part of most cash transactions, and you don't even think or talk about it. It's accepted that a cash drawer will be long or short tens to thousands of minimum increments at the end of a day (which may add up to a dollar or two - far less than 1%). Large supermarket chains need better accountability, but the average liquor store or gas station vendor wouldn't necessarily need to spend money on software if he didn't want to.
<< <i>If we collect enough cents, we can get a dollar. That could help pay medical bills, tuition, or even the electricity for a few hours, for a child.
If we can adopt change , we might invoke change. >>
Right. And we can collect at least billions (is it more?) of those cents back into the federal checkbook, available to support charitable causes, by eliminating the penny. Compare that to how much time and money it takes to get people to give those pennies, collect them, and turn them into something spendable. Not to mention that you only need 1/5th as many people to give you a nickel as you need to give you a penny.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>In most cases, you aren't required to buy the quantity listed to get the lower sale price.
So, for the 6 ears of corn for $1... if I only wanted one of them, it would be $0.17.
But if we didn't have the cent, it would surely get rounded up to $0.20 which is a price that is over 15% higher. Keep the cent!!! >>
That's true if that is the only item you purchased. But if you bought one for $0.17 plus a pack of veggies for $1.33, your total would be $1.50.
If you add up all the time and effort you spend on cent-denominated transactions during the year, and compared that with the amount you would "save" by keeping the cent, you would probably find that your time spent on this is worth less than an dollar an hour.
The cent now is worth about 5% or less of what a half cent was when it was discontinued in 1857. It's time to get rid of the cent. >>
Exactly! >>
Agreed! And anyway, I couldn't tell you the last time I used cash in any store.
<< <i>While the UK was mentioned as where merchants always round up, that has not been my experience in Alusatrlia and New Zealand where both countries did away with the cent some 15-20 years ago. When you go to the market, and buy items that total $4.02, they round down to $4.00 and it its $.03 they round up to $4.05. In the long run of a year buying groceries I doubt it hardly matters. Besides, this thread has yet to understand this is not so much about taxpayers and the cost of making a cent. Its about lobbyist. Those that are for the cent have an interest in the manufactures of the copper sheeting and not just the company who delivers the final product to the mint, but copper mining, transportation, refining, etc. Those that are against have interest in other metals and plastics that may be considered as a replacement. Along those same lines the vending companies are also one if not the loudest in this fight. They are against it and the dollar coin as well. the reason being they would have to buys ton of new equipment to accommodate ANY coin change. Its been thais way for years.
WS >>
The ONLY "Vending Machine" I've ever encountered that accepts 1 cent coins are Penny Slots. Everything else is Nickel to Dollar.
I have no interest in the copper business.
My only interest is in the insane continuance of manufacturing something on an annual basis that people just do not use and have absolutely NO REGARD for other than to whine about eliminating it because they "might" lose 3 cents on some transaction.
Never mind the fact that they'll throw that very three cents into the "Take a penny/Use a penny" tray or simply throw it in the trash. That seems to be unimportant to actually "losing" 3 cents because the coins are no longer made.
IMO, there is absolutely no argument that can be leveled regarding keeping the coin around. It has no buying power, it has no value, and it's only used in bulk transactions where someone is angry at some government entity for whatever reason so they attempt to pay their $1,000 fine in cents.
Sheesh! Whiners!
Down with the Cent!
The name is LEE!
<< <i>...I am in favor of getting rid of all denominations other than the quarter and rounding everything to the nearest quarter. >>
That's the kind of extreme idea, usually given by the opposition, that derails the argument.
<< <i>If the cent is eliminated i think that there will be no such thing as rounding down--everything will be rounded up to the next nickel. >>
The only way this gets into law to begin with is with 5/4 rounding. Otherwise, there are far too many people claiming foul on either side, regardless of mathematical validity. As someone else pointed out, some vendors will jump at the ability and chance to advertise "we round down", and others will likely follow, since it costs them almost nothing*. Vendors don't compete to raise prices, they do so to lower them. Ultimately, prices settle at an "efficient" value anyway.
*Think about a liquor store with an average transaction as little as $10. Statistically, "always-round-down" should result in a loss of $0.025 per transaction. That's -0.25%. Supply prices fluctuate 10s of times that much, as do costs of transportation, living, etc. On 200 transactions per day, that's $5/day. Nothing, if it steals just a few customers from your competitors. If the shoe is on the other foot, with the vendors rounding up, it's even less than nothing to the consumers (say 200x $10 transactions per _year_ = $5 per _year_).
<< <i>And you can certainly bet your bottom dollar that taxes will be rounded up. >>
No reason why sales taxes would change. They already get calculated and rounded per state law.
<< <i>If a manufacturer does have a product that ends in a round down ultimatum then you can be darn sure that they will raise the price. >>
Manufacturers don't sell 1 of something that is priced in pennies. Even if they do, it's unlikely they get paid in cash. Even if they did, it's unlikely they care about $0.025 one way or the other, since anything they sell just one of would have to be hundreds or thousands of dollars.
<< <i>Anyways, how many things have prices ending in 1, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 6, or 7 cents (before taxes are added on)? Most prices end in 0 or 5 or 8 or 9 cents, so not much rounding needed. >>
Individual prices, and even the total before taxes, do not matter. It's the total transaction amount. After taxes are added. Statistically, it's as likely to be 0-4 as 5-9 (except for some unusual, specialized circumstances).
<< <i>If the cent is so useless then why are billions of them manufactured every year? >>
Because there haven't been enough people to stand up and say "stop". Like everything else that gets done out of habit. Some say that, politically, republican congressmen are swayed against it because they don't want to be known as "the guy that voted Lincoln out of circulation" (even though we still have the $5 bill). It also seems unlikely while we have the senator from _Illinois_ in the oval office
<< <i>Lots of jobs would be eliminated if we stop making them. >>
I believe even the mint said this was false - that the small number of employees exclusively involved in penny production could be moved to other jobs. There may also be a few jobs created (or at least kept) for software mods in the private sector.
(While I quoted one person here, the arguments are all pretty standard, as are my responses. In the end, most of the arguments to keep the penny fail when you apply the actual numbers)
(Edited to fix math
@19Lyds:
Losing two cents, actually.
And it would be a lot more productive to make something much more useful with those materials than cents that cost well over 2 cents to make.
An authorized PCGS dealer, and a contributor to the Red Book.
It takes around 2 cents to manufacture a new cent, yet there are billions & billions of cents laying around on the streets/sidewalks, in jars, etc, right?
What if the government announced a "Buy-back" of cents at between 1.5 & 2 cents apiece (based on whether pre- or post-1982)? People who still LIKE or need to use pennies could ignore the buy-back & go on with their lives. Those who don't like them or needed a quick bonus in income could turn them in at a 50-100% profit. "Reclamation" Centers would just need a coin machine to separate/count them based on weight to calculate how much to give each person turning them in.
The Mint would save valuable resources and the expense of minting additional cents while so many already exist out there unused. Offering 1.5 to 2 cents apiece would be a relative "wash" after they turned around and sold them to companies who'd melt them down for their copper (once they altered the law to make it legal for selected contracted companies to do so), or commissioned the same companies who used to refine copper ore to just reclaim the copper from the cents for other use by the government (thus "saving" those companies' jobs/profits).
Over time, many of the hoarded/discarded cents would be enticed out of their hiding places and melted-down. As cents became rarer, individual businesses could choose to round-off prices. Eventually, as people see there's little or no harm done to their wallets by rounding, they'd become more amenable to the day that the government finally announced a date by which cents would have to be turned in for the "bounty" or finally become non-legal tender.
The Mint could continue to manufacture Lincolns annually for just Mint/Proof sets until the day they became non-legal tender. They could also re-package redeemed coins & sell them back to the collecting public as "unsearched" after the day they became non-legal tender (so they wouldn't just be redeemed at a premium).
Once they became non-legal tender, melting-down of any remaining could be made legal for everyone.
I think it's a win-win-win situation for everyone.
Your opinions?
- - Dave
P.S. James: I'd eat 2 or 3 ears of corn in ONE SITTING!!
: ) Haha Dave , it's true , i think a lot of keystoners would be like...corn comes from a store ? ...thought it came from the field. lol I never really knew what corn on the cob tasted like until i moved here , sure , id eaten it all my life , i dont know how the stores get away with it , eat an ear of corn straight from the field and you'll never look at store bought corn again is how i see that. Same with tomatos , most fruit , notice it dont smell like fruit anymore ?
I have to say, however, that this year, ACME had sweet white corn for sale at something like 15 cents an ear early this season, and it was sweet & delicious, too! They tend to bring in local-grown when they can, although that was too early in the season for it... I guess they must have gotten a good batch from the South or off-shore.....
- - Dave