Should The United States of America kill the 1¢ and 5¢ coins? - General

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;35438641]The real reason I'm pissed off is the manufacturing cost of the nickle/penny. The nickle costs roughly 11.7 - 12 cents to produce, while the penny costs 2.4 - 3 cents to produce. What's even more retarded is the dime costs roughly a nickle(5 cents) to produce. As it stands the question isn't really, "Shouldn't we be keeping them for ease of transaction?" its more on the line "Why are we keeping something which costs more to produce while the higher valued currency[dime/quarter] has manufacturing prices which are drastically smaller then their actual value. The nickle? It can be saved or phased. The penny should die though because it's too little of value to base on a material currency.[/QUOTE] Except I can make the argument that while penny costs more than it's value, a single penny in its lifetime is most likely used in multiple transactions in its lifetime. So a single penny used at least 5 times would have been used as transaction value for 5 cents total.

[QUOTE=Valnar;35441591]Except I can make the argument that while penny costs more than it's value, a single penny in its lifetime is most likely used in multiple transactions in its lifetime. So a single penny used at least 5 times would have been used as transaction value for 5 cents total.[/QUOTE] No, that's not how money works.

[QUOTE=mobrockers2;35441618]No, that's not how money works.[/QUOTE] And saying that a penny costs 2.5 cents as a bad thing doesn't make much sense either if what I said doesn't make any sense.

[QUOTE=Valnar;35441913]And saying that a penny costs 2.5 cents as a bad thing doesn't make much sense either if what I said doesn't make any sense.[/QUOTE] No that makes perfect sense. If the actual value of the coin is less then what it costs to produce it, you might as well not make it.

[QUOTE=Valnar;35441591]Except I can make the argument that while penny costs more than it's value, a single penny in its lifetime is most likely used in multiple transactions in its lifetime. So a single penny used at least 5 times would have been used as transaction value for 5 cents total.[/QUOTE] Transaction Use != Cost of Production We're still losing two cents for every penny which is produced. You can have that penny used in 1000's of transactions and it would not matter.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;35435472]Because if everything rounds up, and taxes round up, things are slightly more expensive than they were before.[/QUOTE] Not everything rounds up... If something is 1.98 or 1.99 it rounds to 2.00, but if its 1.96 or 1.97 it rounds to 1.95 so the total net value of your purchases would almost always balance out.

How about this: We get rid of sales taxes, so we wont need the nickel and penny. Then we could faze them out.

I've heard a rumor from one of my teachers that the 1 cent is being removed officially sometime this year, or next year in Canada. Apparently everything will be rounded. Though, I think United states should keep it. Honestly, if one kept it, and the other didn't, it would screw up the whole Dollar system. What if a U.S. resident came to Canada or vise-versa and they only had pennies!?

The US and Canadian currency systems have nothing to do with each other, what are you talking about? Canada already stopped using the penny this year.

It would honestly be a good idea to kill the penny. However the nickel should stay. The nickel is cheaper to make (Correct me if I am wrong) than the other coins. You rarely see something in America that is priced $1.17, instead almost everything is priced as a multiple of five or adds up to a multiple of five. So in my opinion, death to the pennies.

[QUOTE=wertel;35450512]It would honestly be a good idea to kill the penny. However the nickel should stay. The nickel is cheaper to make (Correct me if I am wrong) than the other coins. You rarely see something in America that is priced $1.17, instead almost everything is priced as a multiple of five or adds up to a multiple of five. So in my opinion, death to the pennies.[/QUOTE] Sales tax and pricing everything to end with a nine is what makes it debateable. $1.17 isnt as uncommon as you would think.

How 'bout no? I'd be for cutting production on them back a bit, significantly so even, but cutting them from our currency entirely? No. They should stay legal tender, and they should stay in the system as far as non-cash transactions(Credit cards, online purchases, and even checks if you still use those) go. Give how much of our money doesn't even exist I see no valid reason to discontinue the cent as legal tender, even if you stop or seriously reduce production of the coins that represent it.

[QUOTE=TestECull;35492352]How 'bout no? I'd be for cutting production on them back a bit, significantly so even, but cutting them from our currency entirely? No. They should stay legal tender, and they should stay in the system as far as non-cash transactions(Credit cards, online purchases, and even checks if you still use those) go. Give how much of our money doesn't even exist I see no valid reason to discontinue the cent as legal tender, even if you stop or seriously reduce production of the coins that represent it.[/QUOTE] I'm sorry, but what the fuck are you talking about? American dollars will always stay legal tender, always. It's like a law or something. The only thing we're talking about here is stopping production. Stopping production of a coin doesn't automatically cut them out of your currency.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;35435472]Because if everything rounds up, and taxes round up, things are slightly more expensive than they were before.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=The freeman;35363827]Paying 2-5 more/less cents on stuff like gas is a pretty big deal in the long run, but that is just me.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;35433592]Not unless we're willing to overhaul our entire currency system to compensate. In fact it'd probably just be easier to give pennies more worth. [editline]4th April 2012[/editline] Plus something like this would probably hit the poor harder than anyone else.[/QUOTE] uhh no. You would only ever overpay by a few cents per transaction. Do you guys really not understand how rounding works? You wouldn't end up paying several cents more per each gallon of gas for example. The final amount in the transaction is rounded, not the price of each individual item.

[QUOTE=The Jman Wik;35495494]uhh no. You would only ever overpay by a few cents per transaction. Do you guys really not understand how rounding works? You wouldn't end up paying several cents more per each gallon of gas for example. The final amount in the transaction is rounded, not the price of each individual item.[/QUOTE] You are right, it is all ready done that way, gas prices I see can be something like 3.899 and are rounded to the penny. Also, the US used to have a half cent, they discontinued it when it had the buying power of today dime. Also law of averages. *.*3 *.*4 get rounded up. *.*1 *.*2 get rounded down. You will not pay more over time, only save time.

Keep it how it is

[QUOTE=ShadowSocks8;35501751]Keep it how it is[/QUOTE] Because?

Just to add some data in here, keeping the penny only costs the US around $50 a year so cutting it really won't do much in the way of saving money. And some other interesting facts: [quote]An analysis by Raymond Lombra, PhD, Professor of Economics at Penn State University confirms these concerns. He found that eliminating the penny would lead to a rounding of prices in America that he estimates would cost consumers more than $600 million every year.[/quote] I'm leaning towards no.

Keep it how it is because I like my little round pieces of copper/zinc and I don't care how useless they really are.

[QUOTE=MBB;35507303]Just to add some data in here, keeping the penny only costs the US around $50 a year so cutting it really won't do much in the way of saving money. And some other interesting facts: I'm leaning towards no.[/QUOTE] $600 million for the entire population (~310,000,000), meaning less than $2 if the $600 million estimate is right. Also, the US makes about 5 billion pennies each year, which costs about $30,000,000.

I think they should. Pennies and nickels aren't really worth what they were in this economic state; they're not really coins, they're more like tokens.

We killed those in Brazil already (1¢ coins). We fixed stuff by either selling in packs (5 drops for 10 cents) or by giving the costumer lower prices in case there's no change to be given.

They're killing the 50 øre (9¢) coin here in Norway soon as well.

[video=youtube;77C47XYm_3c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77C47XYm_3c[/video] Yes. Kill the 1c and 5c coins.

why not just make them out of even cheaper metals?

The penny can go, but the 5¢ should stay as it is important to balance payments.

[QUOTE=NightmareXx;35660517]why not just make them out of even cheaper metals?[/QUOTE] Because there's no point to having pennies. [editline]21st April 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Lufttygger306;35660850]The penny can go, but the 5¢ should stay as it is important to balance payments.[/QUOTE] No, that makes no sense.

[QUOTE=NightmareXx;35660517]why not just make them out of even cheaper metals?[/QUOTE] It's actually a pretty common issue with pennies being that you simply can't make something which can match a one cent value. The nickle can be saved, but the only logical solution would be to flip the placements of the dime and nickle around. Basically the dime becomes the new nickle because it's value is more representative of five cents(its costs roughly four cents to make a dime), and you would take the nickel and make it with less materials to make it a better showcase of ten cents. Note: This would also help people which are blind because the size of the coin would be a better showcase of how much money they have.

[QUOTE=mobrockers2;35660927]No, that makes no sense.[/QUOTE] Makes plenty of sense. Need to pay 55 cents, but have only paid 50 cents already? Use a nickel. If you would do that with pennies, you would need 5 of them just for that.

[QUOTE=Vostok;35361510]i collect pennies :([/QUOTE] They'll be even rarer if they're discontinued. Just like $2 bills. I have a collection of those.