#1Jul 6th, 2007
Brent Jessop - Knowledge Driven Revolution.com - July 5, 2007
A new report by the Bank of Canada has concluded that we should have dumped the penny two years ago. Apparently it costs about $130 million a year to make 1.4 billion pennies. That is, it costs 9 pennies to make one penny. You may ask why are pennies so expensive? Their answer: it is your fault because “people are hoarding and not spending their pennies”.
Now, if the government** went around and discarded everything that was costing more money than it was worth, there would be no government left. So something else must be going on here.
A Penny Has Always Been Worth a Penny, Right?
Way back before about 1919 (the timeline varies slightly for the 5, 10 and 25 cent coins) our silver looking coins were actually silver. 92.5% to be exact. From 1920 to 1967 they were reduced to 80% silver. Immediately after that in 1968 the sliver was completely removed and the coins were then composed of nickel. One last time, in 2000 the coin compositions were switched to 94% steel, 3.8% copper and 2.2% nickel plating.
The penny had a similar fate, recently being changed from copper to zinc to steel.
This short history of our coin composition represents quite nicely the shrinking value of our currency.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the silver content made the coins too expensive to make.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the nickel content made the coins too expensive to make.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the steel content made the coins too expensive to make.
Now the penny is essential worthless, so why bother?
Read full article here.
A new report by the Bank of Canada has concluded that we should have dumped the penny two years ago. Apparently it costs about $130 million a year to make 1.4 billion pennies. That is, it costs 9 pennies to make one penny. You may ask why are pennies so expensive? Their answer: it is your fault because “people are hoarding and not spending their pennies”.
Now, if the government** went around and discarded everything that was costing more money than it was worth, there would be no government left. So something else must be going on here.
A Penny Has Always Been Worth a Penny, Right?
Way back before about 1919 (the timeline varies slightly for the 5, 10 and 25 cent coins) our silver looking coins were actually silver. 92.5% to be exact. From 1920 to 1967 they were reduced to 80% silver. Immediately after that in 1968 the sliver was completely removed and the coins were then composed of nickel. One last time, in 2000 the coin compositions were switched to 94% steel, 3.8% copper and 2.2% nickel plating.
The penny had a similar fate, recently being changed from copper to zinc to steel.
This short history of our coin composition represents quite nicely the shrinking value of our currency.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the silver content made the coins too expensive to make.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the nickel content made the coins too expensive to make.
The value of the currency had dropped so much that the steel content made the coins too expensive to make.
Now the penny is essential worthless, so why bother?
Read full article here.