Posted February 23rd, 2007 @ 11:02am by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm all for the $1 coins. But shouldn't we eliminate the penny first? The penny, last I heard, costs more to make than it's worth. I can just hear our President saying "Sure, that's true, but we'll make it up in volume!"
Ditch the penny. Keep the $1 coin. It'll make people who use vending machines very happy eventually. Canada has been happy with the Loonie ever since it was forced upon them.
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Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 12:42pm #
I say ditch the penny, tear down the copper telecommunications lines and replace them with fiber-optic (Then I could finally get FIOS), and melt it all down. We could then make the biggest, fattest heat sinks known to mankind. It's a win/win situation for geeks everywhere!
Just round all of the transactions up or down to the nearest five cents; If someone is that stingy to complain about losing 2 cents on a transaction, then perhaps they have bigger issues to work through. In fact, why not just make prices in increments of five cents; That way something would have to be $1.95 instead of a $1.99 for someone to say it's "Under 2 bucks".
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 1:13pm #
That looks an awful lot like the chocolate money you get at parades. 🙂
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 1:57pm #
why's washington look so damn angry?
the cost of nickel is at 6.4 cents last i heard... unfortunately, it's a federal offense to melt down coins. and where would you sell liquid nickel anyways.
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 2:42pm #
I'm a big supporter of dollar coins. I like to use them when possible. But there are a few big things blocking their widespread use:Most vending machines still don't take dollar coins. Even after all those vending machine companies insisted that they make the new dollar coins compatible with the Susan B. Anthony coin.Businesses won't use them because they don't want to annoy their customers.Many people won't want to use them until they become a lot more convenient. When a vending machine doesn't have a slot for them and most cashiers don't recognize the coins (and even if they do, they get confused when they can't figure out where to put them) it's pretty hard to actually spend these. And until cashiers give them as change, most people will never see them except as change given by post office vending machines or public transit ticket machines.I think we'll have to be like Canada and get rid of $1 bills before these see much use. Maybe we should make a $2 coin and eliminate the $2 bill (most people won't care) to get people used to the idea, and then withdraw the $1 bill. Personally, I think adding a half eagle ($5 coin) back into circulation would be a good idea, but I'd probably leave the $5 bill in circulation for a while.
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 2:55pm #
The $1 coin will never catch on in America as long as we have a $1 bill.
Posted 23 Feb 2007 at 4:45pm #
looks like wordpress managed to mangle my post. i had <p> and <ol> and <li> tags in there. It was fine in the preview. grr.
Posted 25 Feb 2007 at 3:43pm #
[...] New $1 U.S. Coins +1, the “get rid of the penny” West Wing episode was a classic too. [...]
Posted 07 Mar 2007 at 9:52am #
I like the penny, and I doubt the powers that be will get rid of it any time soon. There are already transaction that need to be rounded due to sales taxes of .5% or even .25% Also, hourly wage rates often end up being rounded to a nearest penny, because your hours are converted from minutes to dollars. There is also pay on commission, gasoline is notoriously priced so that there is an extra .009 added to the price you actually see on the sign.
The penny is also useful in stock trading, which recently went from fractional dollars to decimals.
Sure, these are probably weak points which can easily run into counter arguments, but I wanted to toss them in anyway. A penny for my thoughts?
Posted 09 Mar 2007 at 12:34pm #
❓ is there any specific point in these coins? whats wrong with just keeping the $1 bill? vending machines and other mechanical, along with simple registers, will have to change in order to be accomodating to the new coins. i just don't understand the point...
Posted 17 Mar 2007 at 11:06pm #
Why don't we just engrave rocks and clam shells for exchange? Our money is becoming worthless anyway. Geez, maybe we could even exchange little piles of sand and dirt for what it's worth. Would you believe "plastic coins"? How about "wooden coins"?
Posted 13 Dec 2007 at 8:04pm #
What would I use at the strip club if we had no paper dollar bills!