Bid Farewell to Pennies and Nickels!

Wealth Wire ^ | , November 26th, 2012 | Brittany Stepniak

[angelcindy]

The U.S. is following Canada's footsteps regarding the production of pennies and nickels. According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Giethner, our U.S. Mint intends to remove the penny and nickel coins from circulation beginning early in January 2013.

[angelcindy]

Let the collecting begin....I wonder how long it will take before you can't find a nickel or penny...

[Smittie]

You mean let the inflation begin...

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

They should get rid of the filthy one dollar bills!
Pennies,,, okay,,, but why nickels?

[Da Coyote]

Methinks ‘twould be a much better decision to end production of liberals/progressives.

Following a reasonable amount of time (which can be productively be used incinerate all vestiges of liberalism), the penny and nickel will once again be worth something.

[Bryanw92]

I have a one gallon jar full of nickels and a big bag of pennies. I just keep throwing them in there and never seem to take to time to get rid of them.

[Track9]

Soon the dollar will be the new penny.

[1_Rain_Drop]

so what happens if something costs $1.99?
Does one pay $2.00 or $1.90?

[onyx]

Turbo Tim is sticking around?

JMJ!

[angelcindy]

The year 2011 marked the sixth consecutive year that pennies and nickels cost more to produce than they were worth in the market.

[onyx]

FR really needs your help!

Please Contribute Today.

FReepathon Day 58!!

[GeronL]

inflation is going to hurt.

[Travis McGee]

Nickels are 75% copper and 25% nickel. The “melt value” of today’s nickels is higher than the face value. They will go for the same reason silver was taken out of circulation decades ago.

[angelcindy]

merchants are preparing to round all transactions to the nearest ten-cent increment,

[The Sons of Liberty]

Meanwhile, merchants are preparing to round all transactions to the nearest ten-cent increment

Someone should alert Timmy "Turbo Tax" that this contributes to inflation.

[Red Badger]

What this country needs is a good five cent......nickel!............

[txnativegop]

Oh Joy! /sarc

[GeronL]

do you really think its going to be $1.90?

[BenLurkin]

Exactly. What more evidence do people need?

[haffast]

Bingo!

And those hard earned dollars in your savings and any equity in your belongings are now worth?

[SoFloFreeper]

Obamugabe and his cabal hate America.

[tacticalogic]

Pennies,,, okay,,, but why nickels?

Because currently, there's almost a nickel's worth of metal in a nickel. They know what's coming.

[DoughtyOne]

This of course will save tens of millions of dollars, when we’re going south over $1 trillion per year.

Job well done Giethner.

Next I’m sure you’ll propose we drop all periods, comas, exclamation points, and question marks in government papers, to save on ink. What’s a few decimal places anyway.

This is like giving up one package of gum per week, to save the family home.

Idiocracy realized...

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

It will also cause sales taxes to increase, which will increase...err......revenue?

[GeronL]

The year 2011 marked the sixth consecutive year that pennies and nickels cost more to produce than they were worth in the market.

You can say the exact same thing about EVERYTHING the government does.

WELFARE costs more to produce than it is worth in the market.

[5thGenTexan]

I bet they round to the next higher, not nearest. $9.91 will become $10.00.

[ExxonPatrolUs]

So this can replace the give-a-penny / take-a-penny tray at the 7-11. But why stop there? Pure communism doesn’t even need money - It just needs a give-a-crap / take-a-crap tray.

[a fool in paradise]

Every thing will now cost 9.9cents more including gasoline per gallon.

[molson209]

and next year they will issue the 1 million dollar bill with Obama’s face on it ,equal to 86 euros

[thackney]

According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Giethner, our U.S. Mint intends to remove the penny and nickel coins from circulation beginning early in January 2013.

It is not that simple.

Frequently Asked Questions, US MINT:

Are there any plans to remove the penny from circulation?
https://answers.usmint.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/127/kw/penny/session/L3NpZC9pUm8tT2xjbA%3D%3D

No. Removing the penny from circulation would require legislation to be passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.

[null and void]

Does the copyright issue go away if you post the full article as a comment?

How, exactly does that work?

[RIghtwardHo]

Agree about the penny and the dollar bill. They need to change the paper for currency. I think I read that the nickle also costs more to produce than it is worth. I think that’s why. Quite frankly, I don’t care about either being eliminated.

[1_Rain_Drop]

"merchants are preparing to round all transactions to the nearest ten-cent increment,

Well it's sure that the merchants will make very good profit. They will keep two sets of books. I wonder how many will declare the extra cents they received.

The loss of nickels and pennies is part of dumbing down the youth. Now they'll only know how to count by tens.

[LostInBayport]

Say goodbye to the penny and nickel machines, I guess...

These one-armed bandits don't have anything on Uncle Sugar.

[null and void]

However, simply not making enough for there to be any in circulation? Piece of cake.

[ExxonPatrolUs]

merchants are preparing to round all transactions to the nearest ten-cent increment

So no need for quarters then?

[Las Vegas Ron]

The year 2011 marked the sixth consecutive year that pennies and nickels cost more to produce than they were worth in the market.

Actually, pennies have not been made form copper for a long time now, the metal is worth more than the denomination.

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

[TChris]

They need to change the paper for currency.

Umm... Paper money is currency, FRiend.

Do you mean coin?

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Rounding. Over here, the local currency is the Czech Koruna. However, there is also the halar, which was phased out of use around 2002 or 2003 as I recall. Go to the store, though, and you'll see stuff priced at, let's say, 15,06 for a loaf of bread (less than a buck for a one-pound loaf). In this case, that ,06 is halar....so they total you up at the register, and ,50 halar is the rounding point. Less than ,50 halar, and it's rounded down; more than ,50 halar and it's rounded up. One nice thing here, as I must say in pretty much all of Europe, sales tax is reflected in the price, so if a computer is 13,950 Kč, or about 650-odd bucks, that's what you pay at the register. Wish they did back in the States.

[kearnyirish2]

If the Euro conversion was any guide all prices were rounded up...

This is a bad sign.

[ziravan]

Economically, they should move to coin dollars as well. It’s not worked in the past for one key reason: they need to also quit producing cloth dollars.

“Paper dollars” have too short a life span to be economical. Plus, the mint has plenty of coin dollars already warehoused and ready to go.

When I was overseas on active duty 20 years ago, we didn’t use pennies. Transactions were still made ‘to the penny’ and rounded. 1-2 cents round down, 3-4 round up. Worked just fine.

[WVKayaker]

Let the collecting begin...

Been there, done that!

I have more than 10,000 BUFFALO nickels, ranging from junk to UNCircs...! Actually, my GRANDchildren own them now, but they are still in my possession. Unfortunately, all mine have four legs!

[discostu]

Still need quarters as the easy way to get to 50 cents. But it’ll be strange. In the end they probably won’t really round off to 10 cents, but to things you can make change to easily with quarters and dimes.

[bmwcyle]

Bid farewell to all American currency. They will push us to marks on the wrist and forehead soon.

[roadcat]

Soon the dollar will be the new penny.

I'm thinking the same thing. They'll downsize dollar coins, then make $5 coins and $10 coins. The new $10 coins will be worth an old dime. Not as bad as Zimbabwe hyper-inflation, but we're headed down an inflationary path.

[1_Rain_Drop]

"do you really think its going to be $1.90?"

As a consumer, I have the right to fantasize.

Penny for your thoughts? Got a wooden nickel?

Oh geez, gas will now be $3.90, $4.00, $4.10, $4.20.... fuel prices will falsely sky rocket... as will everything else. It's hitting me now. We'll be broke in six months. At least we'll have obamacare.

[ridesthemiles]

Sounds like everything will be rounded off up to the nearest dime. More sales taxes from this, also.

[discostu]

Except the people LIKE the paper dollars, which is why we keep using them. The government is supposed to work for us, they should stick with paper. The people don’t really give much of a crap about pennies and nickles. But we use paper dollars, the mint can shove the coins.

[SES1066]

The “melt value” of today’s nickels is higher than the face value.

The same applies to the "zinc" penny [97.5% Zn, 2.5% Cu] and is the reason that it is against the law to melt them for the metal value nor can a traveler take more than $5 of them or ship more than $100 at any one time (face-value).

The real question and quandary is, what will happen to the penny/nickel bubblegum machines? (Yeah, I know, they are already gone!)

[kearnyirish2]

“Because currently, there’s almost a nickel’s worth of metal in a nickel.”

It is worse than that; much of Europe in the 1950s (both Western & Warsaw Pact) started using cheap metals and/or paper. The fact is that soon everything you can buy in a store will cost more than $.09 (it won’t even be possible to make a piece of candy for less than $.10); that is why they aren’t even bothering to make them more cheaply.