A penny for your thoughts
There's a pretty funny article on CNN.com today - it turns out that the cost of the United States one-cent coin (a.k.a. the 'penny') has been rising for the last few years. It is currently 97.6% zinc & 2.4% copper, and since the price of "zinc is up 76% this year [and the price of] copper is up 68%," the penny currently costs 1.4 cents to make.
So Representative Jim Kolbe wants to implement the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation Act [COIN Act - clever, no?]. If passed, all "cash transactions ending in 1, 2, 6, or 7 cents [would] be rounded down to the nearest 5 cents, while transactions ending in 3, 4, 8, or 9 cents would round up. Credit and debit card transactions could still be valued to the nearest cent."
Two potential problems with this act? "Americans overwhelmingly want the penny ... They also hate rounding."
Joshua
Joshua Finkelstein (Associate Editor, Nature)
Comments
The only useful US coin is the quarter - I would always put the rest into a huge jar that would then accompany me on my next trip to Vegas...
Posted by: Stuart | July 19, 2006 04:46 AM
I'm a big fan of $1/$2 coins (from my days in Montreal) - after a night out/a few pints, you wake up the next morning and think you're skint because your wallet is empty - but then you empty your pockets and you find 20 or 30 dollars in coins...
Posted by: Joshua | July 19, 2006 09:08 AM
Base metal is more valuable than fictive national currency it represents? Government is an economic ass. Will there be a (heavily funded and staffed by armed monkeys) federal office of Rounding Enforcement?
Decimal places are racial discrimination. All US commerce is to be whole dollar amounts. Dump coins entirely. Dump paper, too - traceable plastic transactions only. Demonetarize money and make it subject to central control and real time enforcement.
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/homesec.jpg
Posted by: Uncle al | July 19, 2006 11:12 AM
The thing about £1/£2 coins and drinking is that it makes it blatantly obvious to anyone within earshot who hears you clinking your way up the street that you spent the night out on the razzle.
Posted by: Peasey | July 19, 2006 12:01 PM
FWIW, this story was big in the UK, mutatis mutandis a few months ago (see this Guardian story); also it was a comic theme in an episode of the West Wing in its third season (War Crimes).
Posted by: Oliver Morton | July 24, 2006 06:54 AM