the story of the penny starts in the
first US Mint founded in 1792 which
produced these 1 cent pieces along with
other coins including the quarter dime
half time and a mystery coin that we'll
get back to later
these pennies of the New Republic were
born of 100% pure copper but two forces
conspired to ensure this wouldn't remain
the case for long the value of copper
went up and because of inflation the
buying power of the penny went down
this caused the mint to reduce the
amount of copper and pennies first from
100 percent to 95 percent and then to
only 5 percent copper and 95 percent
zinc despite this debasement in 2006 the
value of the metal and older pennies
rose above one cent and suddenly they
were worth more dead than alive so
people melted them to sell the raw
copper for profit in a rational
efficient world the story of the penny
would have ended here with the
government realizing that they weren't
worth minting and happy that its
citizens were removing them from
circulation but instead the government
made melting US coins illegal and
continues to manufacture 4 million
pennies each year which is idiotic as it
cost the US Mint about 1.8 cents to make
each one cent penny but even if pennies
were minted from something more
representative of their true value like
plastic or lint it wouldn't fix the
fundamental problem that pennies are bad
for people and the economy here's why
the purpose of physical cash money is to
make it easy to transact the everyday
business of buying stuff a shopkeeper
has stuff and you want that stuff
rather than bartering like savages for
it you use cash as a medium of exchange
to get the price just right the cash
must be divisible into pieces so that
you don't overpay but it isn't divided
forever because at some point the value
it represents is too small to buy
anything with or bother with which
brings us back to the penny in the olden
days pennies could actually buy stuff
but no more now if you want to spend
pennies you're going to have to put in
some effort for example try to pay for
20 bucks worth of groceries with 2000
pennies weighing 11 pounds and see how
that works out so you have to get rid of
them using exact change
but because the United States doesn't
include sales tax and prices unlike more
civilized countries and you can't
multiply by eight point eight seven five
percent in your head you can't get your
change ready before you reach the
register like a Good Samaritan would the
pennies you inevitably fiddle with after
discovering the true cost of your goods
adds two seconds to each cash
transaction on average which is less
than the value of your time and the time
of everyone behind you which is why most
normal people don't bother messing with
change and the usual penny pinching
culprits are those with nothing better
to occupy their day if you want to spend
pennies without being an inconsiderate
jerk who wastes other people
time perhaps you can find a machine that
will accept them good luck with that
vending machines won't take pennies
neither laundry machines nor toll booths
or parking meters or anything else
because pennies aren't worth the time
and effort to count store and transport
them in fact there is only one machine
that takes pennies coin star a leech on
the economy that eats 10% of your money
while providing nothing in return except
the ability to spend cash that was
already yours the difficulty of spending
pennies is why they end up in jars dead
to the economy after a short useless
life where they failed at their only job
to facilitate exchange and instead to
the exact opposite by being a literal
deadweight on every cash transaction
they must be eliminated
but you might think won't prices rise
and charities lose money without the
penny no New Zealand got rid of their 1
cent coin as did odds Finland and the
Netherlands ditched the 1 euro cent coin
as well but that might have been because
of how absurdly small and frustrating
the 1 euro cent is these countries round
to the nearest 5 cents for cash
transactions and none of them saw prices
rise or charitable donations drop in any
way the United States has already gone
through this process before without
trouble remember the mystery coin from
the beginning that was the half cent
seen one lately of course you haven't it
was discontinued in 1857 for being worth
too little but when the half cent coin
met its fate it had more buying power
than today's dime so perhaps the list of
modern coins to kill could be even
larger there is one last irrational
problem with getting rid of the penny
everybody loves Lincoln well almost
everybody after booting off Lady Liberty
and the chief the u.s. sure has Lincoln
if I'd the penny within an inch of its
life
but ditching the penny won't erase him
from history Lincoln and his monument
are still in the five dollar bill which
isn't going away and even if you think
it's unpatriotic or disrespectful to
retire presidential coinage allow me to
direct you to a little organization
known as the United States military
where in overseas bases they've already
abolished the penny by automatically
rounding to the nearest five cents
sooner or later
even the most ardent Lincoln lovers will
have to give up the penny they cost more
to make them their worth they waste
people's time they don't work as money
and because of inflation they're less
valuable every year making all the other
problems worse sorry Abe but it's time
to kill the penny
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