Death to Pennies (and Nickels) (and dollar bills)

     Today I'm going to be talking about a rather controversial topic - pennies. Before we get into why pennies are pointless (no pun intended) and rather stupid, we need to be talking about the real purpose of money, which is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. And here's the thing: pennies take 1.7 cents to produce but are only worth 1 cent, which is costing American taxpayers over 70 million dollars more. Sure, we could replace copper with zinc, but that still doesn't solve the problem! PENNIES ARE WORTHLESS. Wait - they aren't. THAT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE WORTH MUCH LESS THAN NOTHING - to be exact: -0.7 cents each! And that's still not the main problem! The main problem is that MONEY EXISTS TO EFFICIENTLY FACILITATE THE EXCHANGE OF GOODS AND SERVICES - BUT IT'S NOT DOING THAT.

     You should also realize that every time you are doing something you could be doing something else. The time that Americans spend fiddling with pennies costs them time, and everyone else behind them in line. This time used on fiddling with worthless, bacteria-ridden disks of junk could be used on more productive things - the American economy is losing over 1 billion dollars by fiddling with pennies instead of making the country a better place.

     Which means that the reason American taxpayers are paying 70 million extra dollars a year is to have the opportunity to lose 1 billion more dollars a year. (Like the US isn't in enough debt already) And studies have shown that it won't cost ANY business or charities any money - well, there is only one company that benefits from pennies - a company in Greenville, Tennessee called Jardon Zinc Products. But for the other 323.1 million people in the US, pennies are of no use. Take a look at Canada and all the other countries that have gotten rid of pennies. Everything is just fine. They round to the nearest five cents for a price - which is also stupid - I'm getting to that.

     The reason people want to keep pennies is because they grew up with pennies and they like them - but there is no legit argument for pennies. And Abraham Lincoln fans - if he was alive today, he would be saying: "Why the heck is my face on a coin that's worth one-twenty-sixth of what it was worth when I was president?"

     Do you want to know what's worse than pennies? Nickels. They cost about 8.09 cents to mint. That's like going to a bank with 20 Nickels (100 cents) and saying "Oh, I'll trade you these 20 Nickels for a dollar and 62 cents." And the bank says: "Sure." That's what Americans are doing.

     Of course, Nickels and pennies aren't the only things we should get rid of - dollar bills should too. Why? Well,

• Dollars Bills are too fragile
• They cost about $0.054 to mint, and that price is growing because the price of cotton is growing
• We already have so many dollar COINS, why not use them?
• Sure, dollar coins cost $0.1 to mint
• But dollar bills last for 22 months and dollar coins last for 30 YEARS!
• If we calculate ratios, a dollar coin is nearly 8.84 times more efficient than dollar bills in terms of circulation time / cost to mint

DEATH.

TO.

PENNIES.

AND NICKELS.

AND DOLLAR BILLS.