quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I don't like it. Feels like just one more step closer to a digital currency.

Yeah, my gut is kind of telling me the same thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
The real savings can only come when entitlement spending is addressed. And that will be a political nuclear war. I'm all for slashing waste from the discretionary budget, but it won't really fix the problem.

I guess, when going after entitlement spending, the low-hanging fruit will be Medicare/Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse. But it's going to be very difficult to go much beyond that. And only Trump can do it, since he can't run again and is out of fooks to give. We won't have another president in that position for a very long time, if ever.

I think this is well said. I also think that this shock and awe campaign so early on in his term is President Trump’s way of getting a buy-in from the general populace for more meaningful reforms. If he’s successful at eliminating waste and people are happy with the results, then they’re more likely to be receptive to entitlement changes if they can see that even with aggressive efficiency inducing, cost cutting measures, we still can’t get the budget where it needs to be. It’s all about the money to the average American. If President Trump can successfully shore up a large part of the average American’s wallet early on, then they’re much more likely to support him going further to go the rest of the way towards what needs to be done.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I don't like it. Feels like just one more step closer to a digital currency.

I'm surprised this wasn't obvious from the start. That is the slope you start down when you start eliminating coins

quote:

I'm surprised this wasn't obvious from the start. That is the slope you start down when you start eliminating coins

Governments worldwide have eliminated coins throughout history, including the US. In many cases this was done before there was such a thing as "digital" anything.

Recognize any of these?











And that's not even getting into the coins with dollar values. See many $2.50, $3, $4, $5, $10, or $20 coins often? They all existed at one point and were eliminated.

Isn't the order specifically about not minting new pennies, not about entirely eliminating the billions of pennies in existence?

The internet sources that I've read say estimates are that there are about 250 billion pennies already in circulation in the US, over $700 in pennies per person.

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:
Isn't the order specifically about not minting new pennies, not about entirely eliminating the billions of pennies in existence?

Yup, and it they don't start coming out, merchants will start raising prices by "rounding up" when dealing with cash...like they did the last time there was a penny shortage

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:
Recognize any of these?

Yeah, I have a few of each other than the half dime.

Seems making change with these would scramble the brains of most amy modern register clerk.

quote:

the last time there was a penny shortage

There was never a penny shortage.

In addition to the cost of making pennies, there's also a cost with handling them. They have to be counted and rolled/bagged. Somebody has to transport them and carry them in and out of buildings.

The reason there was a "shortage" was that the companies that dealt with handling them simply decided to stop so that they could focus their labor elsewhere.

250B pennies weighs about 688,875 tons. Think how much lighter we'd be without those?

I had to do a job at the Atlanta Federal Reserve. It involved the coin processing & distribution center.

Could not grasp the scope and scale of so many metric shit tons of quarters all being located in the same room and somehow not crack and fall through the floor.

Didn't try anything funny. Every employee was armed and all the doors were bulletproof (not counting the small hole for shooting through).

688,875 tons of pennies a year doesn't seem to be much of a stretch.

We didn’t have one cent coins back when I was spending “money” like this, and that was when 1¢ would actually buy something. There was an expression, “I’m going back to the land of non-folding nickels,” to indicate their overseas tour was ending.

We survived, though.

if you get any 2025 minted pennys hold on to them

President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury Department to stop minting new pennies, citing the high cost of production as wasteful government spending as part of the administration's broader effort to reduce federal expenditure. Each penny costs approximately 3.69 cents to produce. The US made nearly 3.2 billion pennies in FY2024, costing taxpayers $85.3M, excluding the value of the pennies themselves.

It remains uncertain whether Trump can unilaterally halt penny production or if congressional legislation is required. Congress has constitutional authority over coinage and currency regulation, though federal law allows the Treasury Secretary some discretion in minting coins.

Proponents say discontinuing the penny could save millions annually and reduce environmental waste, while critics warn of potential economic disruptions, such as price rounding and consumer losses. The nickel also costs more to produce than its value, costing nearly 14 cents to produce per coin—a loss of $17.7M last year.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
critics warn of potential economic disruptions, such as price rounding and consumer losses.

Again, the intent is to not make more, not to quit using them, right?

Get back into circulation the kazillions of pennies that are in coffee cans, Mason jars, and car ash trays across the country, and there won't be any need for rounding nor for any whining about "consumer losses."

Geeze.

Nickels are the real problem.....

I can't do the math on how many / what the average ratio is for nickel losses vs. penny if we just round up/down....

Getting rid of the penny introduces a new problem: nickels

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

I'm surprised this wasn't obvious from the start. That is the slope you start down when you start eliminating coins

Governments worldwide have eliminated coins throughout history, including the US. In many cases this was done before there was such a thing as "digital" anything.

Recognize any of these?

And that's not even getting into the coins with dollar values. See many $2.50, $3, $4, $5, $10, or $20 coins often? They all existed at one point and were eliminated.

Apples and Oranges, the government never stopped minting coins, they just stopped minting those and other specific coins. This thread has morphed from the cost of a penny to nickels, quarters et al... So lets just make it about all currency and the costs of maintaining it.

It's 2025 not 1837, the playing field is much different, it costs taxpayers over a billion dollars a year to maintain the current monetary supply. How much privacy are you willing to give up and how much access to the government are you willing to accept to save a billion dollars a year..

https://www.federalreserve.gov...s/currency_12771.htm


Today we have ApplePay, GooglePay, Zelle, electronic access to bank accounts that all are gateways to putting together a fully digital monetary currency as part of the plan to eliminate hard currency.

We are dangerously close to fully digital currency economy.

quote:

Originally posted by vthoky:

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
critics warn of potential economic disruptions, such as price rounding and consumer losses.

Again, the intent is to not make more, not to quit using them, right?

Get back into circulation the kazillions of pennies that are in coffee cans, Mason jars, and car ash trays across the country, and there won't be any need for rounding nor for any whining about "consumer losses."

Geeze.

There is perceived intent and reality

There is nothing to indicate that those pennies living in cans and jars are going to suddenly go back into circulation.

Someone who puts them into jars/cans obviously doesn't use them as everyday currency...we're not talking about kids who save up their coins to buy candy (do they still do that?)...rounding up prices isn't going to make them start digging into their stash (since they weren't using them anyway

quote:

This thread has morphed from the cost of a penny to nickels, quarters et al... So lets just make it about all currency and the costs of maintaining it.

I personally don't have much use for any coin less than a quarter.

Cash Only/Debit Card stores that I frequent don't make change in amounts of less than a quarter...they either round up or down. It's just the cost the buyer chooses when doing business with them

quote:

Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
There is perceived intent and reality

There is nothing to indicate that those pennies living in cans and jars are going to suddenly go back into circulation.

Someone who puts them into jars/cans obviously doesn't use them as everyday currency...we're not talking about kids who save up their coins to buy candy (do they still do that?)...rounding up prices isn't going to make them start digging into their stash (since they weren't using them anyway

Please don't take the following as argumentative. That's not my intent.

I understand what you're saying, and that my stance is perhaps contrary to yours.

My stance is that there are two different but related points here:
1) "Let's stop making new pennies; it's roughly 4x costly to do it."
Fine. That makes economic sense. Stop the presses.
2) "Doing so will cost consumers more, because retailers will game the rounding issue!"
Ehh, it certainly could. But the issue wasn't about stopping using pennies, it was about not making more of them.

If a fella figures he's rather suffer a potential three-cent loss at the hands of the rounding than to carry a few pennies around, that's on him. We're not likely to convince him otherwise. But if we could make it worth his while to drag that big ol' Home Depot bucket-o-pennies down to the bank, we could get a bunch of those back into service.

Now. How to encourage people with socks and buckets full of pennies to put them back into circulation? I don't know that answer. Maybe offer a two-for one for a period of time? We did Cash for Clunkers... maybe we could do Cash for Copper? Bring 500 pennies, get ten bucks. It'd still cost Treasury less than making new ones, right?

In the spirit of accountability: Do I carry around a pocketful of coins each day? No stinkin' way.
But is there a Mason jar in the kitchen, or a small Ziploc bag full of coins in the car? Heck, yeah. The contents of the jar gets rolled and deposited once in a while, and the baggie in the car is handy at the drive-through. I'm definitely not keeping "yuge" quantities of coins around.

1943 steel penny