Death To Pennies!

I think it would be interesting if we brought back the two-cent piece. This way you can cut down penny production by 75% (you will only need up to one penny in any given transaction rather than up to four) which can go towards making a coin twice its value (and thus significantly reducing the money lost in making a coin that costs more to produce than what it's worth).

This way the penny will either flourish or die a natural death: if the American people decide not to use the two-cent coin, and it goes the way of the two-dollar bill, there simply will not be enough pennies to go around and we'll have to round prices to the nearest nickel. On the other hand, if the American people really want to keep their pennies, they will have to use the two-cent piece as well.

Also, there would be no concern as to vending machines because these machines rarely take pennies anyway. The coin could be a rounded square or scallop-shaped.

The idea isn't entirely unheard of: the Eurozone has a two-cent coin.

I especially like the small blurbs of "In the old days pennies used to be able to buy stuff" and "Because of Inflation they are worth less every year." Maybe the problem is a little bit larger than little ole Abe and our proposed "solution" fails to address the real problem. The narrator could also point out that the "overseas military" bases also eliminate other coinage by replacing them with paper (light, portable, and yeah intrinsically worthless) "pogs" stamped with various values. As I look at a 50,000,000,000 dollar Zimbabwe bank note and an older "Zwanzig Millionen Mark" Reichbanknote I wonder at what point eliminating smaller denominations actually began to alarm people rather than being viewed as positive and progressive in those times and places. Bleh I'm nuts it's only a penny right!?!

The dollar kind of is the new penny in relation to the penny when the Federal Reserve was formed - almost 100 yrs ago! As food for thought.

i know I was just fooling around but it is said that the dollar has lost something like 98 % since then. I just feel if we start eliminating coinage it won't be long before our society becomes cashless and I personally don't look forward to that. I realize a halfpenny was removed from circulation way back but back then no worries of the cashless thing. It just seems that more and more items are cash cards or direct deposits thus less actual cash used. And all those cards are useless during power outages etc.

Going cashless in inevitable. Just my opinion, but working in the tech sector for so long has given me a perspective that it is too logical not to happen. Coins will still be collected, but we will all be "classic" collectors then.

Nice!

Angel2004 your point was what I was attempting to voice differently...the penny in 1913 is the one dollar bill in 2011 as far as worth and purchasing power are concerned. I do not believe that the world will end WHEN we soon eliminate or debase the penny and the nickel. We have the hindsight to see what happened when we debased silver (and copper for that matter) coinage...it shall most likely be similar with Gresham's Law coming into play once again. Furthermore one can predict with relative ease what (will not even try to say when) will come next: the dime, quarter, and half dollar which all currently have 19% of their face value in intrinsic value and will be next up. Their values or compositions will be altered to accommodate their declining purchasing power. And yeah eventually you are right; a reusable item with no intrinsic value would be the "perfect currency" in a value declining monetary system.. OR then again public belief/faith in the monetary system could be shaken and make all of this useless blather as everything changes.

I understand that most online shopping is cashless, but we can have both. I do not use an ATM card. My husband does. well, last week it was deneyed use 3 times. There was plenty of money in the account but the bank froze the card. It turned out they claim that Visa couldn't reach my husband to discuss possible breach of his account. Well, Visa wouldn't be contacting a customer directly, the bank where the account is does. But in the end he did have cash and he will have a new card in 10-14 days! If this were the only method of pmt, it could present problems. That's all I'm saying. And then just think all our purchases can and will be trace and monitored. I am not doing anything wrong, I just don't like having my information bought and sold and who knows what else they do with it.

We are stuck with the penny, even the Euro had a one and Two Cent. We should go plastic, and say here!, try and hoard these! Still, every last store now has a little change dish for taking and giving a penny. I actually like getting my coin change, I wish I could get all my change back just in pennies, they are such a hassle. I mean, if you ask for 50 pennies back instead of quarters they will look at you like your a nut.