P. J. O'Rourke: Pennies from Heaven - Special one for two sale.

Weekly Standard ^ | 09/24/2007 | P. J. O'Rourke

[Travis McGee]

Unlike pennies, dimes, quarters etc, the nickel has not been debased yet. It still contains 75% copper and 25% nickel, same as always.

Today, a nickel is worth almost a dime in metal value. Just as the copper pennies and silver coins were debased to put their cost of manufacture below their face value, so too the nickel will be replaced with a fake no-nickel nickel in a year or three.

So for free money, ask for a $2 roll of nickels every time you go to the bank. It's already worth $4FRN fiat at current valuation, and unlike the paper dollar, it will hold its value over time.

It's no different than hording silver coins in 1963, that are now worth ten times their face value.

[cgbg]

Will prices be rounded? Sure. They are now. Unless your produce weighs precisely one pound or your gas is precisely one gallon, the price is being rounded to the nearest cent.

We can't afford to let the market decide this rounding issue. It is about time the government issued a fifty thousand volume code regulating the rounding of pennies. It is for the children.

:-)

[neverdem]

Thanks for the tip!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Delacon]

I’d think PJ should get more exercised about the worth of the dollar before he gets mad about the injustice of what it costs to make a penny.

[neverdem]

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/?action=coin_specifications

[ALOHA RONNIE]

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“PENNIES from HEAVEN” =

Comedian STEVE MARTIN starred in

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‘DISNEYLAND’ =

Comedian STEVE MARTIN starred in

http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444703/posts

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[Travis McGee]

Nickels come in $2 dollar rolls, so now every time I have bank business, I throw in that transaction. The tellers never even blink.

I’m reminded of a story I read about a German minister who used to toss his copper pfennigs into an unused bathtub for many years before the Weimar hyperinflation. Once the Mark’s value went effectively to zero, he supported himself entirely on those copper pfennigs, which still had real value.

It makes sense to grab plenty of nickels today, before they are replaced by silver washed fakes. In years to come, they will still have real value, no matter what happens to the dollar.

[Philistone]

“How come it’s ‘a penny for your thoughts’ but you have to ‘put your 2 cents in’? Someone’s making a penny...”

/Steven Wright

[SamAdams76]

As recently as 1857, the U.S. Mint was producing a half-cent coin (see above). Now when the coin was discontinued, I don't remember any caterwauling or hysteria over it. Everybody pretty much agreed it was stupid for people to carry around half-cent coins, most of which ended up between cushions on stagecoaches and mixed up with the ashes from the fireplace. You couldn't buy anything with these half-cent coins so kids would put them on railroad tracks to see what would happen and when people got them as change, they would rather throw them into a change jar at the counter than to put them in their pockets. Even the slaves wouldn't stoop to pick them up off the street.

So here we are not even 150 years later and we are still worried about the lowly penny. I say, be done with it already. Even nickels are starting to be treated like a penny. When was the last time anybody stooped to pick even a nickel off the street?

[LexBaird]

Will prices be rounded? Sure. They are now

So, your solution is encourage that rounding factor by 250%? Instead of being shorted a tenth or quarter or a half cent constantly, you want to be shorted 2.5 cents?

Call me Jack Benny, but that seems wasteful of my hard earned cents.