Eliminate the Dime! The Washington Post reports it now costs nearly two cents to make a penny, and eight cents to make a nickel. Today the penny is worth negative-one cent. This is the very definition of government folly -- spending eight cents to produce five cents. The continuing existence of the penny is mainly a subsidized handout to zinc producers. A nickel is so named because nickel is the main component. When the five-cent piece first went into circulation in 1866, using metal for this coin made sense: today a nickel containing lots of nickel and copper makes no sense. The numbers show Washington is sold out not only to major interests such as Big Coal and Big Sugar but also to minor interests such as the zinc and nickel lobby. TMQ has long maintained that the United States should eliminate the penny, as other nations have, including Canada. But we should eliminate the nickel and the dime, too. The quarter is the smallest denomination that has meaning in the contemporary economy. The value of a penny a century ago inflates to a quarter today. A dime a century ago was worth $2.35 in todays money. Sticking with pennies, nickels and dimes is like using oil lamps rather than electric light. Pennies, nickels and dimes go beyond wasteful to negative value. They clog up Americas pockets, purses and cash registers, are swallowed by Americas toddlers, yet accomplish nothing at all. The penny is worth negative-one cent: the only rational response to a penny is to throw it into the trash. That government cannot deal with the obsolescence of the penny, nickel and dime -- because metal producers would complain, and employment would decline at the United States Mint -- is a distressing indicator of whether government can ever deal with long-term mega-issues such as the national debt. Everyone knows the penny must go, yet no one in Congress will act. Americas pockets are full of the jangling proof of government incompetency.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:34:10 +0000
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