It costs the government 1.5 cents to produce each penny. Why continue making pennies with the current zinc-copper composition? Some want to retire the penny altogether. Is the zinc industry lobbying to keep the penny in existence, or do people just want to hold onto the coins?
If we can make money out of paper, I see no reason to continue strict regulations for the materials contained within coins. I suppose I’d like to see pennies disappear, but I’m not emphatic about it.
Published or updated April 24, 2006. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
Points: ♦125,040
Rank: Platinum
About the authorRank: Platinum
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Without pennies businesses wouldnt be able to charge $9.99 or anything.99 =)
When I was a little kid, somebody told my father that the price of copper was going to go through the roof. So he went to the bank and got $500 worth of pennies.
They sat in boxes in our basement until my mom convinced somebody who worked on our house to take payment in pennies. I remember him loading the pennies into his truck.
Not one of my father’s more inspired financial moves.
I spent 3 years commuting to the US and during that time my family and I did a lot of tourist things between business meetings. One thing we both noticed is the amount of pennies thrown into fountains, pools or ondeed anywhere near water. I would suggest that if you gathered all these up, you could probably wipe out the Gross national debt.