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 Replies: 43 / Views: 4,939 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
594 Posts |
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The alternative metals study is being coordinated with the Mint by Concurrent Technologies Corp., under a $1.5 million contract $1.5 million to study this? What, hasn't no other country in the world already done this? I think we need a $3 million study to study this $1.5 million study. Government sure does waste allot of money putting things under the microscope. |
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Moderator
 United States
188440 Posts |
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People have trouble finding 2010 and 2011 also? Yes. With the economy what it has been, all of my local banks are flush with older coinage as people have cashed in their change jars. No need to order coins from the Federal Resrve; if anything, they probably sent a lot of it back. |
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Valued Member
United States
76 Posts |
I'm wondering if the change in composition will mean a change in design of the "nickel" and penny? Probably not the penny as they already have changed the reverse with the shield in 2009. Will we refer to the new nickel as the "steel"? I will refer to it as the "steal" since our wonderful gooberment is stealing from us citizens by ever-cheapening the value of our coinage.
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Moderator
United States
188440 Posts |
If they are stupid ignorant enough to implement a material change (instead of discontinuing circulation mintage), then a design change is in order (even though both one and five cent coins have been changed recently).
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
This contract seems to be over valued to me. The obvious thing to do as a preliminary, is to assess the experience of changes to coinage in other countries, WITHOUT some 'fat cat' on an overseas 'junket' study trip at taxpayers' expense.
The Austalian and British Governments also negotiate contracts on all sorts of useless things, that seem to be 'way over the top'. Questions are asked in the media about this, but they are never answered properly.
Methinks that it is the result of 'under the counter' lobbying by mates that help each other, to the detriment of genuine commercial competitors. Has the taint of corruption about it.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4132 Posts |
The price-tag for this sort of thing does not seem at all out of line to me when you consider what's actually involved and how quickly the costs would be recouped if they did eventually alter the composition. They're making changes to something that is produced by the billions. Any private company would spend a lot of money studying a redesign of a product they produced in that kind of volume.
I mean, when you talk about government expenses, this is really small potatoes, and it'll eventually end up saving money. That's basically the cost of a single smart-bomb, which we drop by the hundreds. Apache Helicopters cost $20 million apiece, and they're crashing one of those every other week.
Granted, it wouldn't save as much money as getting rid of the cent completely, but this is a democracy, and he stubbornness of the American public makes that politically impossible.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
594 Posts |
And no one conducted similar tests when they switched to the Euro? Instead of spending a million and a half, can't we just shoot out a few emails and ask?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1903 Posts |
Why does everyone here seem to think that there is some huge abundance of coinage out there? Look now hard a 2009 nickel is to find, they were made in the millions, look to history. When the mint changed composition from silver to clad there was a HUGE coin shortage in the 60s. I promise you that if the mint announced they were halting the cent and nickel, I would give it MAYBE six months before the available coins would dry up to the point there wouldn't be enough in circulation to be useful.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4132 Posts |
They've already done preliminary research, which almost certainly looked at prior composition changes both in the US and overseas. Now they're actually going to start minting trial coins to try out some of the possibilities they've researched. They can't just say "oh, the Euro worked with this composition, we then know it will work for US nickels and cents and all the infrastructure all over the world that is set up for decades to work with existing US coinage" and just start minting away. They're trying to make something that will transition easily, considering existing US mint coinage machinery, vending and coin counting machines configured to accept US coins, etc. They also have to take into consideration technology changes and new alloys available over the past however many years. Then they've got to test all these materials for electrical and magnetic compatibility, strike quality, die life, corrosion behavior, toxicity, etc. They've got to produce dies, possibly test new alloys for the dies themselves, run metallurgical analysis, stress tests on the machines, have bidding from suppliers of material and machines, etc. And they've got to employ people to do all these things. Edited by CaptainFwiffo
01/20/2012 7:32 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
594 Posts |
I think I want in on some of this "study" money.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4132 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1126 Posts |
I have the feeling that saving money on production has little or
nothing to do with them wanting to change the metal composition of
the nickel and cent.
When they can make 13 Trillion Dollars disappear to foreign banks
during the 2008 bail outs of the banks,
(Just One Example)then obviously
saving money is of little consequence to these people who live
in a entirely different world than you and I. With different rules
and laws.
My feeling is that there was some major political contributions
made by the steel industry to a few key congressmen who then
passed along the already drafted bills to be passed by the congress
and senate.
Nothing gets done in Washington D.C. without someone making serious
money off of it.
Which by the way is exactly how we ended up with the
Zinc Lincoln Cents in the first place
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
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Why does everyone here seem to think that there is some huge abundance of coinage out there? Look now hard a 2009 nickel is to find That's exactly the point. There are so many pre-2009 coins in circulation that newer dates are still sitting in vaults. |
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Moderator
United States
188440 Posts |
Quote:
I promise you that if the mint announced they were halting the cent and nickel, I would give it MAYBE six months before the available coins would dry up to the point there wouldn't be enough in circulation to be useful. Irrelevant. They are already useless and we no longer need them. Just look at how many have accumulated in change jars or on the ground. Quote:
That's exactly the point. There are so many pre-2009 coins in circulation that newer dates are still sitting in vaults.  What we are seeing is these change jar hoards being returned to circulation. The cent and five cent coins are only valuable in quantity. On the small scale, they are not. If they were, these large dumps of coins would not have gotten so large to begin with. They got large when the economy was good and the value of regularly using small denominations was less than the time it takes to use them. Even in a bad economy, the time and effort to use them for exact change is seen as wasteful. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1391 Posts |
As much as jbuck jumps on these topics I can't help but to try and thing of the other side of the *ahem* coin.
It got me wondering how many times a penny much change hands before the penny is taken in taxes. Think about it, everytime money changes hands somebody payes taxes on it, and usually it is somebodies and many taxes.
So say I go out with my gold pan and mine an ounce of gold. So that is basically "new" money right? It is not really dependant on the existing economy, it's something I brought from outside and injected into the economy. So I take it and sell it to a refiner. I'm probably taxed on it, the refiner is, etc. The refiner sells it to a jeweller, the jeweller sells it to a jewellry store, some guy buys the gold band for his future wife and so one. If you take the taxes off that amount that the original gold ounce was, at what point is the amound $0? If no the guy buying the ring some where around there maybe? Is it after money changes hands ten times? I am not sure. I tried looking for some information on this but couldn't find much.
So I guess my question is how many times does a penny need to circulate between hands until the penny is collected in taxes? I'm sure many pennies circulated many times that number. If not in reality at least digitally. If something costs me 5 cents to make but I make back $3 worth of taxes in the first year it is in circulation do I really care it is worth 1 cent and took me 5 cents to make? Something about straining gnats maybe?
Just a question that I can not find a lot of data for.
"Irrelevant. They are already useless and we no longer need them. Just look at how many have accumulated in change jars or on the ground."
Those are basically intrest free loans there the way I see it.
Any way.
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Replies: 43 / Views: 4,939 |
First Page
Posted 01/20/2012 2:06 pm
