Last week the pres said that he could see us doing away with the penny.
I initially thought of it as an off-handed remark, but then I started thinking more about it. Could it be that this is the first hint of something already in the works? That is, getting rid of the penny is already a done deal and we will gradually be hearing more and more about it as the necessary machinery activates to eventually stop minting our little friend. (After all, I never thought they'd do away with Saturday mail delivery, but they just did.)