Pennies, Not as bad as you think…
May 7th, 2008 by JuggoPop
I read CNN often. Today I came across an article titled “Penny prices pinched by rising cost of metal“…
Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have some in Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II and maybe using steel for nickels, as well.
I find this interesting. I couldn’t care less what my money is made of, but rather what it is backed by (which, is another topic altogether…)
I see a lot of people commenting about the losses we carry by having a penny that costs 1.67¢ to manufacture… Or that a nickle costs 7.7¢ to make.
But in the same article, they note that a dime costs only 4¢, a quarter only 10¢ and that a dollar coin costs around 16¢.
So when people talk about the loss of revenue based on how much we spend on making the penny and the nickle, why do they not offset this by the profit on the other coins?
I understand that the loss is a new loss, but it’s not like it doesn’t even out across the coins, or lean into our favor in the long run.
We can drop billions in bombs on other countries, but we are worried about a few cents taken out of profits on manufacturing our coins?
actually if it costs 4¢ to make a dime then that dime really only worth the net difference after the cost of manufacturing it, that being 6¢. the government actually “loses” money on every coin it mints or bill it inks.
like if it costs honda $10,000 to make an Accord and they sell it for $18,000 then it’s really worth $8,000 more to them then when they started.
now something else we have to consider is that the government controls the amount of money out there but not so much the money’s worth. they can realize the some of the cost of manufacturing back after collecting old worn denominations and recycling the metals. even if they took in one dime and made a new one to replace it they’d still be out the 4¢.
our taxes cover the cost of making the dime but that’s the cost of having a modern society that left the bartering system behind ages ago and our economy flowing freely because of a universal money system more than makes up for the loss.
that’s my 2¢ . . . or should I say 5.34¢?
I knew you’d respond to this one.
I think they are just trying to make a fuss about it to try and sway people into getting into a paperless money system. Which if I had a way to do a transaction between me and some guy that wants to bum a buck off of me in front of McDonalds… well then I might be for it. I only use cash to pay for smokes at the gas station.