The U.S. Government Should Stop Making Cents

[Sue U]

Personally, I'm fine with eliminating both pennies and nickels. I'm also fine with doing away with the dollar bill. I think it would take about two weeks for everyone to get used to it, and then we'd all say, "What was the big deal, anyway?"

ETA:

While we're at it, we should elminate quarters, too. Replace the quarter with a new 50-cent piece, so that we'd just have dimes, half-dollars and dollars as coins. Less math at the cash register! Easy peasy.

[Crackpot]

A +/-5 cent swing will definately be abused by the govt.businesses at the expense of the consumer.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And General, the pressing national interest that would justify this arrogant overriding of the popular will would be.........?

Where do you get arrogance when the issue is significant savings of taxpayers money, not to mention trees and green ink? True arrogance was the war in Iraq, using ignorant popular will to override pressing national interest.

Our representatives are voted in not to follow the will of the populace but to govern best in accordance with the needs of the country. Sometimes that means telling the little kiddies to close their fat gobs around the spoonful of medicine and go to bed without supper

I think Sue has the right of it - no more pennies and nickles and dollar bills. Live with it

Thanks!
Meade

[Jarlaxle]

What's needed in the USA is for bi-partisan action - the populace cannot throw out all the rascals at one time - and a few brass (er cupro-nickel) balls to be grown in Congress.

And General, the pressing national interest that would justify this arrogant overriding of the popular will would be.........?

I would suggest that "what's needed" is for those who think that the dollar coin should be shoved down the throats of an unwilling nation abandon that anti-democratic course, and take up the task of actually trying to convince a majority of their countrymen that the dollar coin would somehow be an improvement....

Just as soon as they can come up with any good reasons for why this would be so....

Simple: a dollar bill lasts six months. A typical coin lasts twenty or thirty YEARS. (There are coins in my pocket now from 1977, 1982, and 1966.) The $1 bill is a fossil that should have been eliminated twenty years ago.

[Jarlaxle]

First of all, saving billions of dollars is a good thing no matter how long it takes,

Second, does anybody think we should get rid of pennies & nickels?

Pennies, certainly. Nickels...probably.

[Jarlaxle]

You mean like what happened when the liquor industry went metric?

you saying it didn't?

No, I'm saying that when it did the public got screwed...

You may be too much of a young whippersnapper to remember this, but the most popular unit for the sale of hard liquor in this country used to be something called "a fifth" (one fifth of a gallon) now it's still often referred to as "a fifth" but it's actually 750 milliliters which is slightly less than one fifth of a US gallon.

1/5 gallon is 757ml. Yep...you lost about 1/8 of a shot in each bottle! (Also note that some went the OTHER way: a "pint" is not, it's now a half-litre, which is 16.9 ounces!)

[Jarlaxle]

Personally, I'm fine with eliminating both pennies and nickels. I'm also fine with doing away with the dollar bill. I think it would take about two weeks for everyone to get used to it, and then we'd all say, "What was the big deal, anyway?"

ETA:

While we're at it, we should elminate quarters, too. Replace the quarter with a new 50-cent piece, so that we'd just have dimes, half-dollars and dollars as coins. Less math at the cash register! Easy peasy.

I see very little to disagree with here...except that a new 50-cent piece could be problematic.

[Guinevere]

Jim are you projecting your own reluctance to remove it onto the population?

Well, the entire US political class must be engaging in the same sort of "projection" since no responsible political figure has ever proposed following this arrogant course....

You mean your party's 2008 Presidential candidate is an irresponsible political figure?

Some U.S. lawmakers want the coin to be the dollar of the realm.

Sens. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa), John McCain (R., Ariz.) and two colleagues Tuesday are introducing legislation that would kill off the dollar bill in favor of dollar coins, touting the move as a way to cut costs over the long run. "Promoting the dollar coin is a smart investment for our country that saves taxpayer’s money,” Harkin said.

The move is latest in a long-running battle between those who think it is wasteful to print dollar bills, which wear out and have to be replaced frequently, and those who say the $1 coin is the real waste of money because Americans don’t like them.

The senators’ Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings, or COINS, Act is a companion piece to a House bill that has sat idle since last fall. The bill would work to promote the presidential $1 coin and phase out the dollar bill within four years.

The trouble so far: most Americans don’t want dollar coins churned out by the U.S. Mint. More than 40% of the coins that are produced are returned to the government unwanted, the Treasury said late last year. And U.S. government vaults already hold 1.4 billion of them — enough to meet current levels of demand for a decade.

The Obama administration in December bowed to the lack of public enthusiasm. The Treasury Department announced the U.S. would curtail production, making just enough for collectors. The move, the Treasury said, will save taxpayers $50 million a year.

Harkin and McCain said that replacing dollar bills with coins would save more.

The Government Accountability Office in March 2011 found that replacing the $1 note with a $1 coin could save the government approximately $5.5 billion over 30 years.

“By moving from the costly dollar bill to the dollar coin, we can save real money and show the American taxpayer that we are serious about cutting spending in Washington,” McCain said.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/01/ ... /?mod=e2tw

There is a companion bill in the House, with 14 co-sponsors. But I guess none of those legislators are responsible?

In contrast, the competing legislation is also bi-partisan. Senator Scott Brown -- you've heard of him, I believe -- has introduced the "Currency Efficiency Act" to stop the overproduction of unpopular dollar coins. His sole co-sponsor, the similarly "responsible" John Kerry <insert barfing icon here>. The joke being that Crane, the paper company that makes the rag for dollar bills, is based in Massachusetts.

[Guinevere]

Personally, I'm fine with eliminating both pennies and nickels. I'm also fine with doing away with the dollar bill. I think it would take about two weeks for everyone to get used to it, and then we'd all say, "What was the big deal, anyway?"

ETA:

While we're at it, we should elminate quarters, too. Replace the quarter with a new 50-cent piece, so that we'd just have dimes, half-dollars and dollars as coins. Less math at the cash register! Easy peasy.

Works for me -- although I would like to keep quarters, please, and get rid of dimes. Dollar (coins), quarters, and nickles are all we need!

[Crackpot]

I vote we go pure metric! Penies dimes Dolllars tens and hundreds fuck the rest!

[Big RR]

I just checked the dates on the dollar bills in my pocket and found this:

2009 3
2007 2
2005 1
2004 3
2002 2

more thanhalf are older than 6 years (and in pretty good condition.

But the point is this, there is a convenience with dollar bills that will never be matched by a coin; in a world we where we frequently have to empty our pockets and be scanned (to enter buildings, board planes, etc.) change is a big inconvenience and slows up the security lines coniderably (How many times does someone inadvertantly leave a coin in one's pocket and have to run it through the x-ray and go through the scanner again?). This is a big cost to the public not considered when adopting a dollar coin is considered. Yes, the cost of bills is considerable, but I know i rarely carry change (I have jars of it home), and think a lot of people do the same. Add to this the investment in bill acceptors on vending machines and at checkouts and I doubt you'll see a phase out of dollar bills anytime soon.

Now I'd be happy to phase out dollar bills for coins if we also phase out the incessant security screens, but I'm not counting on that.

[Crackpot]

The bad ones are removed from circulation

[dales]

filthy lucre

[Guinevere]

But the point is this, there is a convenience with dollar bills that will never be matched by a coin; in a world we where we frequently have to empty our pockets and be scanned (to enter buildings, board planes, etc.) change is a big inconvenience and slows up the security lines coniderably (How many times does someone inadvertantly leave a coin in one's pocket and have to run it through the x-ray and go through the scanner again?). This is a big cost to the public not considered when adopting a dollar coin is considered. Yes, the cost of bills is considerable, but I know i rarely carry change (I have jars of it home), and think a lot of people do the same.

So, do you carry change, and its inconvenient to empty your pockets? Or do you not carry much change, so it really wouldn't be inconvenient?

And, btw, that's a male-centered view of the world, which doesn't apply to many of us entering court rooms and airports. I don't carry change in my pockets, ever. I carry it in my wallet, which is either in my purse or my briefcase or my backpack, depending on where I am.

[Long Run]

We have plenty of evidence that now is not yet the time to get rid of the penny or nickel, nor to eliminate the dollar bill in favor of a dollar coin. Dollar coins have been very unpopular every time they've been promoted over the last 30 years. The cost savings of the prospective changes are pretty minimal in the overall scheme of using them for their intended purpose of promoting and ensuring sound commerce.

[Jarlaxle]

I just checked the dates on the dollar bills in my pocket and found this:

2009 3
2007 2
2005 1
2004 3
2002 2

more thanhalf are older than 6 years (and in pretty good condition.

But the point is this, there is a convenience with dollar bills that will never be matched by a coin; in a world we where we frequently have to empty our pockets and be scanned (to enter buildings, board planes, etc.) change is a big inconvenience and slows up the security lines coniderably (How many times does someone inadvertantly leave a coin in one's pocket and have to run it through the x-ray and go through the scanner again?). This is a big cost to the public not considered when adopting a dollar coin is considered. Yes, the cost of bills is considerable, but I know i rarely carry change (I have jars of it home), and think a lot of people do the same. Add to this the investment in bill acceptors on vending machines and at checkouts and I doubt you'll see a phase out of dollar bills anytime soon.

Now I'd be happy to phase out dollar bills for coins if we also phase out the incessant security screens, but I'm not counting on that.

I recall series date is NOT the date printed...the date only changes for a new series. (IIRC, it's usually when a new Treasurer or Secretary of the Treasury takes office.)

[Gob]

The smallest coin in Aus is the 5c piece, rounding isn't a problem.

The UK should get rid of the 1p and 2p coins.

[dgs49]

I think pennies are rather pointless, and eliminating them could be made into a "fun" project. Offer people 1.5c for them to turn them in and they would get tons of them.

While I think I'm fairly rational about money, I have to admit that there have been a few occasions when I've been in Canada, spent a fiver on a candy bar or something, and felt quite cheated when the clerk handed me back a couple of coins (and no paper money). Not rational but real.

Maybe this is one reason why Americans resist coin-dollars. Coins are trash-money, while paper has value.

[Econoline]

Maybe it's just the little kid in me, but I've never regarded coins as "trash-money", and still don't. (And I've never put away coins to avoid spending them, except for actual silver ones.)

[Big RR]

But the point is this, there is a convenience with dollar bills that will never be matched by a coin; in a world we where we frequently have to empty our pockets and be scanned (to enter buildings, board planes, etc.) change is a big inconvenience and slows up the security lines coniderably (How many times does someone inadvertantly leave a coin in one's pocket and have to run it through the x-ray and go through the scanner again?). This is a big cost to the public not considered when adopting a dollar coin is considered. Yes, the cost of bills is considerable, but I know i rarely carry change (I have jars of it home), and think a lot of people do the same.

So, do you carry change, and its inconvenient to empty your pockets? Or do you not carry much change, so it really wouldn't be inconvenient?

And, btw, that's a male-centered view of the world, which doesn't apply to many of us entering court rooms and airports. I don't carry change in my pockets, ever. I carry it in my wallet, which is either in my purse or my briefcase or my backpack, depending on where I am.

Guin--I concede it is male-centered, but I have not yet taken to carrying a purse (or even a backpack). My point is that carrying dollar bills avoids the inconvenience of having to empty one's pockets of hoardes of change (wich I rarely carry); if the dollar bill becomes a coin this inconvenience will be unavoidable. And there is an economic cost to this inconvenience (which can easily be seen at security lines), which I maintain should be factored in to the equation. Yes, dollar bills cost a lot, but so do extra security people and long lines.