Bob Cramer's Blog

I have come to the realization that the penny, long a stable of the U.S. monetary system, has reached the end of its useful life and should be retired alongside the Space Shuttle, Pontiacs and other great American inventions. 

Just yesterday, I had two incidents involving a penny here, a penny there.  Paying for some range balls, the total reached $19.26 (it was a resort).   I had a twenty and a quarter, and needed to turn on the charm to see if I got a dollar back or a pocket full of various shaped and colored coins equaling 99 cents.  The charm offensive worked and I promised to add a penny on my next visit.

Later, at the Dairy Queen, the cost for four small Blizzards equaled $15.03.  I handed the man a twenty and I could see him reach for four single bills and warm up his index finger to corral various coinage combinations to make up the rest.   I said, “Stop”.  I did not want all his loose change and was privately disappointed he did not float me the three pennies.   I told him that I had a nickel in my car, which I raced out to get, and decided to take the high road and let him keep the two cents change (Ironically, I would have tipped him a dollar if he had given me five singles to begin with).

The moral of these stories: pennies are a pain.  They are expensive to make, do not make good golf ball markers (dimes are better) and take up too much room in the coin collection bowls that we all have somewhere near our closets.   Currently, it cost the U.S. Mint 1.79 cents to make a penny due to materials and production and who knows the cost of the aggravation if you multiply my two minor penny encounters yesterday across the entire U.S. population every single day.

It is one thing to complain but another to come up with a constructive solution.  So, here is mine: I’d like to suggest that all Americans donates their unloved and mostly unwanted pennies to the U.S. Treasury in one grand gesture to knock down the U.S. debt and show there is a way to raise revenues without raising taxes.  People tell me there are 200,035,315,672 pennies in circulation so we are talking about substantial saving here.   Not only will this help end the never-ending debt crisis discussion and allow us to keep the full faith and credit of the United States in place, it will also clear off some much needed space from our dressers.