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a penny costs 2 cents to make | (Read 625 times) |
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paul wheaton
Administrator
Posts: 1342
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February 24, 2008, 03:32:08 PM |
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Apparently, a penny costs 2 cents just to make it. And groups are advocating that we cancel production of the penny.
Lots of bits and bobs here ...
A penny is a large part of our culture.
The cost of maintaining our culture turns out to be not that much.
If we eliminate the penny, suddenly many things will be rounded up (of course, not rounded down) - look at the price of gasoline - it is advertised as 3.339 per gallon, or 3.33 and 9/10 of a cent. It always ends with 9/10 of a cent ....
Perhaps the time has come to keep the penny, but make it dime-sized and made of a less expensive material. I wonder how much the cost per penny could be reduced then?
Further, as we move into the age of plastic - perhaps we can encourage more transactions with plastic? And, our old favorite - just buy less stuff!
What do you all think? Keep it? Toss it? Any "outside the box" theories?
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MJ Solaro
Administrator
Posts: 131
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February 26, 2008, 09:51:41 AM |
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In India and a few other countries I have traveled to, many of the shops have informally replaced their lower-denomination coins with little candies and sweets.
Personally, I love this system. Your change comes to $3.61? How about I give you $3.60 and a butterscotch? At least in this rounding system, I still get something happy out of it... 
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permaculture.dave
Posts: 113
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February 27, 2008, 05:47:24 PM |
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Check out this table showing what pennies have been made of at different points in U.S. history:
1793–1837 copper
1837–1857 bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc)
1857–1864 87.5% copper, 12.5% nickel (also known as NS-12)
1864–1942 bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc)
1943 zinc-coated steel
1944–1946 brass (95% copper, 5% zinc)
1946–1962 bronze (95% copper, 5% tin and zinc)
1962–1982 brass (95% copper, 5% zinc)
1982– present 97.5% zinc core, 2.5% copper plating
To me the question is do we have a better use for zinc? If they were still copper, I'd say heck yeah!
Dave
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SueinWA
Posts: 313
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October 15, 2008, 11:43:28 AM |
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I consider pennies to be dead weight, literally.
I try to stick to carrying quarters, and empty my change into two small bowls by the front door: separating "silver" and pennies. When I need to go to a copy machine or mail my payroll paperwork, I use the "silver".
When the Schwan's guy comes every two weeks or once a month (he has to catch me first!), I give him my pennies as a gift, just to get rid of them. Otherwise, I have to wait until I get 50 of them to be able to put them into a paper roll. Now, where did I leave the paper rolls? Oh, sh*t! I've only got 48! Well, dump 'em out, because if I close the roll, I'll forget it's not full.
Now, where do I trade it in, assuming that I remember to take it in the first place? And what do they want on it? My name, address, phone number? Nothing? SS#? Bank account #? Mother's maiden name? Dog's registered name?
By the time I have finished with all this, I've wasted more time than that roll of pennies is worth. If minimum wage is $8 (or something) per hour, just to break even, I have to spend not more than 3.75 minutes dealing with that stupid little pile of pennies.
My time is worth more than that, PLUS the cost of the aggravation!
Besides, if everything that sells for $--.99 is rounded up to a dollar, it would be easier to figure before you get to the cashier if you've got enough money for the milk AND the DingDongs! (or vice versa...)
Dump 'em!
Sue
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