Eliminate the Penny? Funny stuff from Prez Obama

[Jennicut]

A voter at Sen. Barack Obama's town hall meeting in Greensburg, Pa., yesterday asked whether he would consider eliminating the penny.

"We have been trying to eliminate the penny for quite some time -- it always comes back," Obama said. "I need to find out who is lobbying to keep the penny."

Somebody in the crowd pointed the finger at Illinois, the home of Abraham Lincoln.

"Oh, you think it’s Illinois? You’re blaming us?" he asked before turning serious. "I will seriously consider eliminating the penny as long as we find another place for Lincoln to land."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/A_penny_for_your_thoughts.html
I know its from Politico (yuck) but I could not find this anywhere else yet, saw it on CNN a few minutes ago.
Very funny, I think we need to get rid of em, I got so many lying around my house everywhere.

[KittyWampus]

1. this was a West Wing episode

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Sounds good to me!

They make me crazy...

Life would be a little bit better without them, IMHO...

:hi:

[MadHound]

3. Sorry, but that would add just one more inflationary pressure to our economy

It would also play hell with taxes and such. Keep the penny.

[SergeyDovlatov]

4. but the penny is worth way more than a penny when it is melted

minting penny is just give away money to unscrupulous people who violate the law and melt penny for the metal.

[MadHound]

6. Actually given that modern pennies are simply copper clad zinc

I doubt that the metal value is worth more than a penny.

[SergeyDovlatov]

12. 1 penny, worth about 0.012$, ie, you will get 20% revenue if you melt and sell the metal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(United_States_coin)

Both the US cents before 1982 and all US nickels have a metal content at market worth more than face value of the coins. As of December 16, 2008, the US nickel has $0.06013 in metal content; all circulating US nickels carry a 20.3% premium over face value in metal content metal at market prices. The intrinsic value of pre-1982 US cents, weighing 3.11 grams, are worth $0.02414, 141.4% above face value in metal content at market prices. However, post-1982 US cents, which weigh 2.5 grams, are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper (coated over the zinc) by weight. These have an intrinsic value of $0.00508 as of June 13, 2008, or 49.2% less than face value.

According to the US Mint, the costs of producing and shipping one-cent (penny) and 5-cent (nickel) coins during fiscal year 2007 were $0.0167 per cent and $0.0953 per nickel.<10> Canada switched to making plated steel coins in 2000, where the face value of some older coins is below the metal content of those coins. In a similar move on February 8, 2008, a bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives that would allow for changing the metal components in U.S. coins due to the rising cost of commodities and the declining U.S. Dollar. No such bill has yet been signed into law.

[SergeyDovlatov]

13. lol. nvm. I was wrong. It is nickel, not cents which are worth more as metal

[SergeyDovlatov]

5. and another question. How is it inflationary? n/t

[BeyondGeography]

7. Merchants would round prices up, as they did during the euro transition

But it's nothing more than a short-term problem, especially in this case, where you would be dealing with the same currency and the media would be jumping all over the profiteers to stoke the flames of the angry shopping public.

[MadHound]

8. Because all those prices will have to be changed

For instance, that hamburger at $2.52 a pound, that will have to be changed. Do you think they'll round it down? Hell no, they'll round it up.

[Jennicut]

9. Rounding up to $2.55 would be very small by itself but grocery shopping would get more expensive

hadn't thought about that, it would add up huh?

[MadHound]

10. Not just groceries, but gas, heating oil, propane

All of those prices would get rounded up, hence the inflationary pressure.

[Occam Bandage]

11. But that pressure would be very, very short-lived,

as standard supply/demand pressures would continue to govern prices after the initial bump. Considering that a temporary small inflation boost wouldn't be the worst thing in an economy threatening to go into a deflationary spiral (if it hasn't slipped into one already), I don't think that's a very persuasive argument.

[MadHound]

14. So instead of propane going up by, oh, say twelve cents a gallon each year

It would go up fifteen:shrug: That's actually some serious inflationary pressure across the spectrum.