Penny death march rolls on in Canada

[Brian Penning]

Hmmm...looks like I soon have to find something to replace the penny I've been using to ID my work. :(
The nice thing about using a coin was having the year on it. This way it ID'd when the piece was made.

[Dan Hintz]

Moving on to a nickel, then? Inflation...

[Matt Day]

What exactly is this thread aboot?. Maybe a link to an article or someting would help some of us?

[Jeff Monson]

Canada is phasing out the penny, the nickel will be the low man on the totem pole.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

INteresting. I hear that it costs more than 1 cent to manufacture a penny. Perhaps we should take that clue and get rid of ours too....

[Dan Hintz]

According to the US mint:
The cost of the coins was recently 1.62 cents to produce each penny and 5.79 cents to produce each nickel.

The cost continues to rise from year to year. that said, it's irrelevant because even if it cost 5 cents to produce a penny, unless it's being collected for its monetary value the penny is used as a bartering chip... you trade me that penny, even if it cost $10 to make, and I will remove one cent from your debt.

[Van Huskey]

According to the US mint:
The cost of the coins was recently 1.62 cents to produce each penny and 5.79 cents to produce each nickel.

.

Wonder what it would cost if it was still all copper...

[ray hampton]

1 dollar of one cent coins [2 rolls ] weigh about 1 lb.
what do 1 lb of pure copper scrap sell for ? 4.50$ ?

[Chris Nolin]

Nice one, Matt! Cheap, but subtle.

[Matt Day]

Nice one, Matt! Cheap, but subtle.


Thanks, I thought somebody would pick up on that;)

[David Cefai]

When Italy had its own coinage - the Lira, there was a permanent shortage of small change. Coins were being melted down for the metal which was much more valuable than the coin value.

Bear in mind that $1 (US) was about 1500 lire so that a 5 lira coin contained many times its value of copper.

Consequently when you bought something your change was likely to be given in stamps and sweets!

[Neil Brooks]

I don't think much is new, here.

If any of you are like me, I've LONG believed that the money I've earned is worth far less than the price I've paid for it ;)

[Kent A Bathurst]

According to the US mint:
The cost of the coins was recently 1.62 cents to produce each penny and 5.79 cents to produce each nickel..

Worst I've seen - 7 years ago in Budapest. The Hungarian Forint was roughly 300 to the $US. And they have 1-forint coins. I got one in change. Could not believe it. About 1/4 the dia of a US dime.

[John M Bailey]

If I have a copper penny has 2.25 cents worth of copper in it, then that penny should be worth 2.25 cents. If I can buy 200 pennies with 2 dollars, and the 200 pennies are worth $4.50 in copper content, then the 2 dollars would be acually worth $4.50.
That is why our coins (in the past) had value. A silver dollar had 1 oz of silver and the half had half oz and the quarter had, you guessed it a quarter oz, dime had a tenth oz. The nickle was made of, get this, Nickle! The coins had the value of whatever they were made of had, that is why a penny was made of copper. The copper in the penny had a little bit of value. The same with gold coins. The paper money had value because you could exchange it for the face value of hard coins.
Except that our idiotic government has, in its boundless wisdom, decided that a penny that is worth more than one cent is a bad thing, and outlawed the scrappage of copper coins.
The US mint still makes silver dollars (silver eagles), but the dollar bill is not exchangable for face value in silver coins. If the bill was, then it would be worth whatever 1 oz of silver is worth, right now about $21.

OH my head, whenever I start thinking about all this, I get a headache. The great wisdom of our leaders.

[Dan Hintz]

Does a $20 bill have $20 worth of paper in it? No... it's worth what someone is willing to give for it. Since the government says a $20 bill can be used for reducing a debt by $20, that's what it is worth to anyone willing to accept.

[Howard Skillington]

I can't speak for Brian, but I'm guessing that the penny has served as a good trademark for him - bearing, as it does, a resemblance to his surname name, Penning.

So, unless he wants to change his name to Brian Nichols, a different coin will be less suitable.

[Brian Penning]

I can't speak for Brian, but I'm guessing that the penny has served as a good trademark for him - bearing, as it does, a resemblance to his surname name, Penning.

So, unless he wants to change his name to Brian Nichols, a different coin will be less suitable.

LMAO - You got it! :D:)

[Chris Kennedy]

If I have a copper penny has 2.25 cents worth of copper in it, then that penny should be worth 2.25 cents. If I can buy 200 pennies with 2 dollars, and the 200 pennies are worth $4.50 in copper content, then the 2 dollars would be acually worth $4.50.
That is why our coins (in the past) had value. A silver dollar had 1 oz of silver and the half had half oz and the quarter had, you guessed it a quarter oz, dime had a tenth oz. The nickle was made of, get this, Nickle! The coins had the value of whatever they were made of had, that is why a penny was made of copper. The copper in the penny had a little bit of value. The same with gold coins. The paper money had value because you could exchange it for the face value of hard coins.
Except that our idiotic government has, in its boundless wisdom, decided that a penny that is worth more than one cent is a bad thing, and outlawed the scrappage of copper coins.
The US mint still makes silver dollars (silver eagles), but the dollar bill is not exchangable for face value in silver coins. If the bill was, then it would be worth whatever 1 oz of silver is worth, right now about $21.

OH my head, whenever I start thinking about all this, I get a headache. The great wisdom of our leaders.

The value of currency has long been a concept.

Why should we hold to a silver or gold standard? This idea was put forth by the mercantilists to assert that certain metals had an inherent value. A large part of what made them valuable was that they were rare and that the people putting forth the theory had a fair supply of it.

If we work on some set standard for value, be it a gold standard or silver standard or some commodity (pork bellies, wheat, or say QSWO) and you have x dollars that you can trade in for a quantity of that commodity, you only have purchasing power with that currency if the person accepting it WANTS the commodity.

Currency based economies believe in their currencies, and act accordingly. That is what allows a person to equate its labor to an amount of currency.

This has nothing to do with our leaders. This has to do with the populace.

The point being -- if you have a standard, it only has value as long as people believe it has value.

Cheers,

Chris

[Brian Penning]

What exactly is this thread aboot?. Maybe a link to an article or someting would help some of us?

Aaah....http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=aboot

[Dan Karachio]

INteresting. I hear that it costs more than 1 cent to manufacture a penny. Perhaps we should take that clue and get rid of ours too....

I'm not sure, pennies might be all some of us in the US have. :p

[Andrew Nichols]

Well Brian, perhaps you want to joint the family?

Yours Truly,

Andrew NICHOLS

[Matt Armstrong]

The American nickel also costs more to produce and maintain than its face value.

For you econonerds out there (not sure why we're in this forum, since there's probably only 2 of us on here), here's a great video:
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/the-best-anti-penny-rant-ever/?ref=nf

[Rich Engelhardt]

They're kind of big and 200 times more than a penny - but - those $2.00 coins (do they still make them?) are, IMHO, sharp looking.

[Paul Steiner]

I do not think the U.S. will phase out the penny. Think about all the things you buy for $.99 and the total with state tax ends up being $1.02. People still like to pay with exact change. Cash represents monetary freedom and if we do away with the penny we might as well do away with all cash. We have the technology, it would be easy to develop some type of cash card system instead of paper money. If we did that think about how easy it would be to track or stop the drug trade or paying illegal labor. On the other hand big brother would be in your wallet.

[ray hampton]

America did away with the penny back when, they are called
1 sense piece -- 1 cent piece to some people

[Chip Lindley]

What exactly is this thread aboot?. Maybe a link to an article or someting would help some of us?

If there are no more pennies to use place of fuses, or, IF your CL Gloat has to be rounded up to the next nickel...Matt, and I could better understand! *chuckle*

Otherwise, it's really a s-t-r-e-t-c-h to validate this as a General Woodworking and Power Tools topic! A bit Off Topic? I'm jus' Sayin'...

[Mike Davis NC]

I just want to clear up a couple misconceptions.

The old silver dollars were 90% silver and weighed a little less than an ounce, I could look it up but I'm lazy sometimes.

Basically about 77% of an ounce of pure silver. half that for the half dollar and so on...


Our Constitution stated that we should have a dollar based on the gold standard. We kept that up till around 19-teens when the Federal Reserve Banks were instituted. Our money is now based on our good faith and credit and what ever these private banks decide to do to influence it.

Metal is not worth any more now than it was a hundred years ago. However, the dollar is worth much less. So, the dollar cost of gold is now $1347 (10/8/2010) compared to around $30 in the 1970s when I first started to track it.

Gold didn't go up, the dollar went down. It is pretty much our government's fault/responsibility to keep inflation in check. They just think it is more important to keep their debts low. I wish I could pull that trick. They borrow at one dollar value and pay back at a lower dollar value. Thus reducing their debt and costing us more.

[Chris Nolin]

When I was stationed at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea in 1994-95, the military had just recently decided to do away with the penny at all of it's Pacific Command bases located in other countries. They determined that the cost savings of not having to ship the huge number of pennies required by the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) to make change to the $.01 was on order of $1,000,000/decade, or something like that.

They were able to do this so easily because AAFES doesn't charge sales tax in it's exchanges, commissaries or other vendors, so the prices could easily be set in $.05 increments.

As a side note, the servicemember who suggested this to PACOM was reportedly awarded $10,000 for the idea.

[John M Bailey]

The value of currency has long been a concept.

Why should we hold to a silver or gold standard? This idea was put forth by the mercantilists to assert that certain metals had an inherent value. A large part of what made them valuable was that they were rare and that the people putting forth the theory had a fair supply of it.

If we work on some set standard for value, be it a gold standard or silver standard or some commodity (pork bellies, wheat, or say QSWO) and you have x dollars that you can trade in for a quantity of that commodity, you only have purchasing power with that currency if the person accepting it WANTS the commodity.

Currency based economies believe in their currencies, and act accordingly. That is what allows a person to equate its labor to an amount of currency.

This has nothing to do with our leaders. This has to do with the populace.

The point being -- if you have a standard, it only has value as long as people believe it has value.

Cheers,

Chris


I thoughts as to why coins should have metal content of some value, and I know that this concept may be offensive to some, but image a world in the future where the United States is insolvent.
To help my point out, I owned a LOT of stock in a huge company, I was going to be set to retire early and wealthy, but that company filed bankruptcy leaving the stock worthless. Now imagine that company being the US and the stock being the currency; if the coins were silver, or gold, they would still have value (other than collector) thousands of years from now.
I contend that it does have to do with our leaders. The reason they decoupled the dollar from gold and the coins from silver is so they would have more control over the value of the currency. With gold and silver, they had much less control. Why do they want the control over value? It is a lot easier create the vast, almost unimaginable amounts of debt we now have when you can control the value of the currency, that value being pure perception.
Also, when the commodity is gold or silver, or copper, than there is no worry as to finding someone who wants it. Precious metals are not like pork bellies or Frozen OJ, there is always a buyer for Gold and silver and copper and nickle and platinum.

[Phil john williams]

I can't speak for Brian, but I'm guessing that the penny has served as a good trademark for him - bearing, as it does, a resemblance to his surname name, Penning.

So, unless he wants to change his name to Brian Nichols, a different coin will be less suitable.

Unless he decides to go crazy, then he could use a Loonie. ($1 CDN coin)

-pjw

[Bill Cunningham]

Unless he decides to go crazy, then he could use a Loonie. ($1 CDN coin)

-pjw

If he was a musician he could use the Toonie..
(Cdn2$ coin) it has the Queen on the front, and her bear behind :D
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_P6jItF1PR_M/SdG1kHzyFLI/AAAAAAAAA9g/ZtJqnQZsn_Y/s400/toonie.jpg