Not gonna lie, I agree with this. Pennies are useless.
Australia did this in the… 90s? I wanna say 90s. We had 1c and 2c coins, but they decided it was costing too much to produce them. So they phased them out gradually I think.
DOGE is shooting for optics, not actual savings. Cutting penny production is about $90M out of the $6.1T deficit. Which isn’t as useful to the American people as the headline is for DOGE. Their goal is to get one of these headlines every month to make it look like they’re doing something useful.
But 70% of our deficit is: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Military, and Interest payments on debt.
- They can’t cut interest payments, period.
- They won’t cut military, obviously, but there is probably a lot of low hanging fruit here that they should be scrutinizing.
- They might cut SS or Medi*, predictably eating the faces of their base.
And if they cut literally everything except for these, we’d still run over a $4T deficit. Meanwhile, the quality of life for Americans by cutting all that will get measurably worse.
So yeah, more likely is that they’ll keep aiming for random little optics opportunities, while trying to find ways to funnel more of this money to Musk and his buddies via govt contracts.
Or assume they’re only pretending to save money and it’s all about crippling our government…
Yes, that’s exactly the point I made.
What part of the deficit is Social Security? It’s self-funded, no?
The boomer generation is getting old. There are more people drawing from SS than paying into it.
- As a result, social security has been running a deficit since 2010
- In 2023 social security made up 1.3T, or ~20% of our deficit.
- According to a report last year, at this rate the social security fund will deplete in 2035
Does that include all the money "borrowed"from SS, or the interest that is supposed to be paid for the “borrowed” money?
I do not claim to be an expert on this, just some dude with the internet, so answering that is going to be a team effort.
I’m not sure I follow what you mean by “borrowed” here. Do you mean money borrowed by the Treasury, or by people?
I disagree in the sense most transactions are digital now and pennies are worth a penny every time they are used. If there are indication folks are trying to recover the base value of pennies then it makes sense. It will have to be done eventually though and better trump be the president that killed lincolns coin.
This will require rounding up to the nearest nickel… Which costs $0.14 to make 🙄
Thanks to Trump, America doesn’t make any cents.
Slow clap…
Pennies should go away, but this isn’t the way to do it. Canada’s process was well thought out with lots of guidance and direction.
This is dumb and will cause lots of confusion.
You know what they say, “even a broken penny is right twice a dollar”
Or something like that
someone tell him he’s just copying canada now
Nothing wrong with taking a good idea and following it yourself.
But from the person who likes to think he’s always leading and not just a little bitch, anybody pointing it out probably gets ousted.
The reason we continued to make the penny is to maintain zinc production, which is important for wartime manufacturing.
By ending penny production, it will save money, but may compromise our future ability to wage war.
So two wins
What portion of our zinc production goes to manufacturing pennies?
Do you have a source for this?
https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historic-coin-production
For the year 1943, pennies became zinc-coated steel because copper was essential to the war effort during World War II.
This is the closest I could find and I really doubt that this means much in the 21st century.
I mean for fucks sake we were using depleted uranium rounds during the Iraq War, not copper.
You are correct on the Penny. The military still uses a lot of copper and zinc, just not how you are thinking. The “depleted uranium” rounds you are thinking of are anti-armor rounds. This is a fin stabilized sabot round that has a core penetrator made of DU instead of Tungsten, like the Russians use (we use some tungsten core rounds also). The US used these for the Bradley’s main 25mm Bushmaster auto cannon, M1 Abrams tank, 30mm fighter jet cannons and the big boy A-10 Brrrrt gun. Almost all small rounds, think infantry, use full metal jacket rounds. The core of the round (back then, now mostly steel) is made of lead. Then the lead is encased ( or jacketed) with copper. This would apply to 9mm pistol rounds(not used much in combat, if so, it is a bad day), M-16 5.56 rounds, .30 caliber machine gun, and .50 caliber machine and anti material rifles. Copper is used a lot in other areas also, primarily motor windings and generator windings. Zinc is used is almost everywhere as a galvanized coating on ammunition that is not jacketed and other things that have bare steel. The Bradley fires a standard round that is used more often than the DU sabot, called HEAT. This is an explosive round covered in steel with a jacket of zinc for corrosion resistance.
Excellent breakdown, thank you.
No problem. I have seen a lot of people think that the army was just tossing huge chunks of uranium around. The actual core made of depleted uranium is quite small, I believe it is less than 300grams in an Abrams 120mm shell. The cores are encased and not very radioactive, but I would bet they are still an environmental hazzard long after they are used. The US started using it when it proved harder of a penetrator than tungsten, and since it is a waste product, it was far cheaper.
What about galvanized steel though? You know, like traffic signs, light posts, some cars, various construction materials etc? You could use zinc in so many ways. I expect those applications would also take a lot more zinc than the pennies ever could.
So as soon as the zinc lobbyist pay him, he’ll back out.
Trump thinks pennies are useless because he wasn’t allowed to use them in a strip club.
I’ve been throwing pennies away for years. Now I got to throw away nickels? Trump ruins another thing I liked.
I’ll take your pennies!
Should also drop nickels, quarters, and one dollar bills.
We’ll have dimes (should be made larger), half dollar, and one dollar coins.
All prices can then be rounded to $0.1 instead of $0.01.When we got rid of hay pennies (worth half a penny) in 1857, they were worth more than $0.15 is today.
Only reason I’d keep the dime around, is because we aren’t quite ready to round prices to a whole dollar.The quarter is the biggest problem with this plan. There’s just too much stuff that runs on quarters and quarters themselves as a currency denomination have too much cultural staying power.
Unfortunately, there being a 25¢ coin rather than the more globally-common 0.20 piece means that it isn’t practical to retire the nickel because it will still be possible to get non-multiples of 10¢.
$1 notes are important, not because of any reason in the US (dollar coins would work equally well in almost any application), but because the US dollar circulates widely in foreign countries that are suffering hyperinflation of their local currencies and have thus informally dollarised. There, US coinage is basically non-existent meaning the lowest denomination that can be transacted in USD cash is $1. See the situation in Zimbabwe where American banknotes circulate until they literally fall apart or the ink has all faded away off.
So the existence of a $1 note is paramount to keeping the economies of these countries going. It would be impossible to conduct business if the smallest denomination is $5 and your $4 an hour salary is paid in cash.
Remember, as unfortunate as it is, much of the US’s monetary policy is driven by the fact that the US dollar isn’t just America’s currency. It’s the entire world’s currency.
Every pay phone in America cost a dime when I was little. Then, by the time I was old enough to need to carry around change for a pay phone, all of them only took quarters. Do you know how many millions of pay phones there used to be? They somehow found it cost-efficient to modify almost every single one of them in the entire country. After the Bell system was broken up.
During the era of payphones, a quarter was still significant money so it was still worth the time to adjust the machinery. Nowadays, there are typically only four machines that people regularly interact with that accept quarters:
- Laundry machines, which increasingly don’t take coins at all and instead have card readers on them
- Parking meters, which also increasingly get replaced with signs telling you to pay online using a website or app
- Vending machines, which also usually have card readers.
- Self-checkout machines at grocery stores.
These machines take coins, but generally deal in such small-dollar amount terms that replacing the coinage mechanisms just isn’t worth it in 2025. That’s the biggest issue with coinage reform plans. Hell, not even when the UK decimalised their currency did they change the size and weight of the coins, for exactly this reason. An old shilling was the same size, weight, and value as a new 5p coin and no changes had to be made to the machines.
Now, the problem is that while coin usage (and cash usage in general) is on the decline, these systems must still function for the percentage of people who want to use cash. And you definitely have a moral right to use cash and be able to conduct your daily life in cash if you want, either for privacy reasons, or because for small transactions it’s just simpler.
There’s just too much stuff that runs on quarters […] too much cultural staying power.
“Because that’s the way it is” is never a good reason not to do something new.
It’s always the case that things don’t change. Until they suddenly and unexpectedly do. Then in hind sight it seems obvious they should have changed long earlier.US dollar circulates widely in foreign countries […] There, US coinage is basically non-existent
There’s no real reason coins couldn’t circulate in foreign markets. They don’t because the value to weight ratio is worse for shipping. But if the coin value went up to a dollar, and the dollar note wasn’t an option anymore, foreign markets would adapt just fine. Especially since the coins would circulate for decades longer.
“Because that’s the way it is” is very often a good reason not to do something new. That’s because of the human aspect of introducing these reforms. There’d better be a very good reason to change or you will encounter a lot of public opposition just because people don’t like change.
There is no reason that coins
don’tcan’t circulate in foreign markets but the fact remains that they don’t (Edit: for lack of infrastructure to support the logistical challenges of distributing coins). You cannot explain that away. It is simply not possible to adapt in the situations I describe. Saying that “they’ll adapt” is a very hand-wavey excuse that doesn’t address the issues with retiring this denomination. Without a $1 note, people in the countries that need it will just not use the US dollar and will choose a currency that has the denominations they need. In Zimbabwe’s case, people would be forced off the US dollar and onto a currency that is willing to provide them with the small change that they need. In that case, probably the South African rand.Everything is the way it is. Yet things still change. Literally everything changes eventually. So no, it’s not a good reason, merely an empty excuse. “The human aspect”, is a less insulting sounding way of saying “People don’t like change.” Which is true, but as I already said, every thing changes anyway and people deal with it and adapt every time.
There is no reason that coins don’t circulate in foreign markets but the fact remains that they don’t.
That sentence is literal nonsense. As in, it doesn’t make sense.
If there’s no reason coins don’t circulate, then they would be circulating; Or could be made to circulate, with no real resistance or effort.Then you go on to further not explain why the dollar note is necessary in some markets, and they wouldn’t be able to adapt.
That’s a very hand-wavey way to create a roadblock excuse.These things don’t need to make sense. They very much don’t make sense. They are still real phenomena that need to be dealt with. You’re expressing a sentiment that I find is very common on Lemmy—that if it doesn’t make sense then it can be ignored.
If public sentiment is against a change that is perceived to be arbitrary and without benefit then you will encounter very real public opposition. There will be political repercussions to making this change. You will be slandered by pundits in the news and you personally will gain a reputation as a hard-ass who makes things hard for no reason (regardless of whether that’s true or justified), which causes problems for your future job security as now politicians think they can score easy political points by firing you. It wouldn’t be a consideration on Planet Vulkan, but on Earth, this effect is real and must be considered, whether you think it’s logical or not.
Coins don’t circulate in foreign exchange markets. They haven’t circulated for over a century. There are, however, reasons for this. You’ve already correctly pointed out that one of them is because coins are heavier. The second reason is because ATMs don’t dispense coins but they do dispense notes. When people go to the bank and withdraw money, they don’t receive coins unless specially requested. And despite the need for small change in these foreign countries, the logistical challenges of providing coins to them over notes are still too high for coins to find their way into circulation. Coins enter circulation in the US when businesses order them from the bank, which in turn orders them from the Federal Reserve, which receives them from the Mint. Banks abroad don’t bother with coins because they’re far more difficult to transport and distribute than notes, making it an unprofitable service to offer account holders, and they can’t just order them from the Federal Reserve—they need to go through a third party which increases costs. In addition to that, USD banknote-counting machines are prevalent worldwide. It’s rare to encounter a USD coin-counting machine abroad. The logistical network to distribute USD cash globally is built for notes, not coins, and that’s why trying to introduce coins in a foreign market is like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. You’re going to find that every single step is going to be ever so slightly more frustrating than distributing notes, which all adds up to the point of impracticality.
You just eloquently explained some reasons. Why did you say there’s no reason coins aren’t circulated in foreign markets? That was your statement that made no sense. Not because people’s emotional decisions don’t make sense, but because the literal meaning of the sentance you used didn’t make sense.
And yes those things are solvable problems. Thinking they’re barriers is just a symptom of the pervasive hopeless perspective that’s popular right now.
Breaking that perspective is the only hope I have for this presidency. I hope he changes so much in such terrible ways, that people will realize major pervasive change is possible. And after so much gets fucked up, it’ll be an imperative to over correct the damage he’ll do, improving things to better than they were before.
I will edit my original comment. There is no reason that they couldn’t circulate in foreign exchange markets given the correct infrastructure. That infrastructure current doesn’t exist and to my knowledge would be unprofitable to construct.
Retire the penny, nickel, and dime, and only allow transactions in multiples of $0.25?
That’s one potential solution. It’s also just un-decimalising the dollar in its cash form.
Just keep one dollar bills and remove everything but quarters instead. So much easier.
It’s not easer. It’s just what your used to thinking about.
Anything less than a quarter isn’t worth your effort. And you don’t see dollar coins often only because of social inertia.
Easier because you wouldn’t need to replace everything that’s coin operated. The vast majority of coin operated things only accept quarters.
That’s not hard at all. Somone else pointed out that millions of payphones were switched from dimes to quarters in just a few years.
The half dollar could be made the same size as the current quarter. And the dime could be made the size of the current nickel. That way, adapting vending machines would be easy.
adapting vending machine would be easy
Or just have the only coin be the quarter and then it’s so easy it literally requires nothing.
Holy fucking shit, a broken clock moment?
To be fair, honestly, I’d like to think that Fascists at least know that $0.03 > $0.01 is a bad trade.
why does it take an executive order from someone like Donald Trump to do this? I could be wrong but I don’t think there’s any developed country that has a smaller denomination note. in my shithole country they simply round up to the nearest $1000
Cool, I think this is a good idea.
