I got to thinking about pennies the other day, and how worthless they've become. In the old days a penny actually had some value, and you could buy stuff like penny candy with it, but they don't sell penny candy anymore. They don't even have 5 and 10 cent stores anymore either, everything now is dollar stores, and the latest trend is "Everything under $5" stores. So basically you cant buy anything with pennies, not even at J.C. Penneys.

It's not even worth hoping for pennies from heaven because the damned things are made out of zinc these days, and are worth less than a penny. The only good pennies are the old ones that were real copper, as the metal is actually worth more than a penny, and there are now old penny hoarders out there now. The only real purpose for minting new pennies is to replace the ones that were put on railroad track to squish them out for your kids and grandkids. I could take months to save up a whole jar of the damned things, and still only have $2-$3 bucks for my time and effort, and they're hardly worth wrapping to take to the bank. In reality I'd only need to own ONE penny, and that would be to use as a tire tread depth guage.

Then I got to thinking how much money the government could save if we just got rid on pennies altogether. Just round everything up to the nearest nickel. Then I got to thinking nickels are kind of a waste of time too. Dimes are worth more, and are smaller, so I could carry one dime and that'd weigh less than two nickels, so I wouldn't have to carry a bunch of nickels around. But dimes aren't really worth that much either, and are easier to lose if you have a hole in your pocket. Also with dimes if I want to buy a soft drink I have to stand there forever feeding coins to the machine. So why not just get rid of dimes, and switch to quarters instead.

Quarters are slightly larger than nickels, and are worth 5x as much, so I wouldn't have to carry so many of them around. To buy a soft drink I only need about 5 or 6 of them, and if I want to get a generic soft drink from a can I'd only need 2. Quarters are harder to lose because of their size, and they're also easier for old people to hold onto while scratching off their lottery tickets.

Then I got to thinking quarters are kind of a waste of time too. A $1 bill weighs a whole lot less than 4 quarters, and is a whole lot harder to lose if you have a hole in your pocket. If I'm stranded in the winter and I need to start a fire having a pocketfull of change isn't gonna do me a whole helluva lot of good, I could burn paper money though. The fact that people counterfeit paper money, and not coins, proves that paper money is where the real worth is at. Plus, I can't think of the last time somebody handed me Canadian paper money, but I get that worthless Canadian change all the time.

Then I got to thinking what we really need to do is to quit pricing things so that either the price, or the taxes, come out to be a fractional percent of $1. What we need to do is what the IRS does, round up all prices on everything to the nearest whole dollar !. Think of all the money we'd save by not having to mint coins.

I say the price of everything gets rounded up to the nearest whole dollar. Not only would it save the government from having to mint coins, but retail stores could save themselves some money by lowering the standards of their cashiers, since math wouldn't be as much of an issue in job qualifications. If you need to buy something, the cheapest you're going to get it for is a dollar. If it's worth LESS than a dollar, well then you're just going to get TWO of them, or maybe three. If you don't need the second or third one of whatever cheap item it is you're buying then either save it for later, or give it away to someone else.

If we got rid of change entirely we could save millions and millions of dollars each year.

You may have something there. I think the government would like to get rid of pennies since it costs more than they are worth to make them.

One time when I was in Venezuela, they had a shortage of change for some reason. If you bought something in a store, they would give you bubble gum, packages of crackers, or whatever in change.

Originally Posted by Jim Thomerson

You may have something there. I think the government would like to get rid of pennies since it costs more than they are worth to make them.

One time when I was in Venezuela, they had a shortage of change for some reason. If you bought something in a store, they would give you bubble gum, packages of crackers, or whatever in change.

would other stores accept that gum,crackers etc as a medium of exchange in lieu of coinage?

We should all trade sea shells on the sea shore.

I don't know if you could pay with bubble gum. At that time, the Venezuelan Bolivar was worth maybe 15 cents, so I didn't pay with anything less than a Bolivar bill.

I was in a corner store the other day and the guy in front of me declined taking about .60 in change back from his purchase. He acted like it offended him. I thought what a , probably a O voter if he even bothers and actually I hope he doesnt..

If you want money to have value, then dont help the FED devalue it.

In Australia we got rid of 1 and 2 cent coins some time ago, will not be long till 5 cent gone too. Also, all our paper money is made from plastic, much harder to counterfeit with holograms etc but some bozos still try to photocopy bills and pass them off at the supermarket.

Originally Posted by HELModels

I was in a corner store the other day and the guy in front of me declined taking about .60 in change back from his purchase. He acted like it offended him. I thought what a , probably a O voter if he even bothers and actually I hope he doesnt..

If you want money to have value, then dont help the FED devalue it.

Many shops have a charity tin for just such occasions.

New Plan




END THE FED NOW!
sorry but any other plan will bring us straight back to where we are at.

Originally Posted by mortato

Many shops have a charity tin for just such occasions.

Yup, I've donated that way. What that guy did was make some pffffttt sound, an annoyed smirk, shook his head and told the clerk, Maaaannnn I dont want that. Like he was trying to poison him or something.

Normal people just accept it and put it in the jar if that's their choice. I'd think charities could suffer if some coins go away.

Yer behind the curve on this one - the UK got rid of the ha'penny a while back

Originally Posted by HELModels

I was in a corner store the other day and the guy in front of me declined taking about .60 in change back from his purchase. He acted like it offended him. I thought what a , probably a O voter if he even bothers and actually I hope he doesnt..

I

I know a fellow like that..he never carried anything smaller than a $20 ,frequently telling cashiers etc to "keep the change" for purchases under $20...waitresses/bartenders in the clubs we frequented loved him...fast forward 25-30years ,now he's perpetually broke living from paycheck to paycheck, while his frugal pal daddiozz is semi-retired and debt free...

a daddiozz truism.....The rich get that way by tracking where every penny they spend goes and getting maximium value out of each and every one.