[HN Gopher] Pennies Are Trash Now
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Pennies Are Trash Now
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 16 points
Date : 2025-11-16 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| internet2000 wrote:
| > Many Americans--and many people who, though not American, enjoy
| watching from a safe distance as predictable fiascoes unfold in
| this theoretical superpower from week to week--find themselves
| now pondering one question.
|
| This is way too much spite for an article about coins. Lord.
| HPMOR wrote:
| https://archive.is/uel4S
| akeck wrote:
| According to Marketplace.org, pennies are treasure for some
| businesses now because the regional Feds aren't distributing
| them.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/11/13/businesses-face...
| FrankWilhoit wrote:
| Ask {some number of} engineers: You have just been made a free
| gift of six thousand metric tons of zinc. What do you do with it?
| joering2 wrote:
| Supposedly it cost gov 4 cents to mint 1. Does it have to be done
| with zinc tho? Why not plastic or some cheap material? Although
| you may be able to 3D print a penny at home (just like it being
| made from zinc can actually stop someone), but just like with a
| real one, its not like you will show up at your local bank with
| $1 million dollar worth to deposit.
| phainopepla2 wrote:
| Even if they were free to mint they're still effectively
| worthless trash to most of us. I've been waiting for the penny
| to die for decades, and it would be nice if we had a
| functioning government that could handle these nonpartisan
| issues smoothly, but we haven't had anything like that in a
| long time, so the rip the bandaid off I say
| toast0 wrote:
| Zinc is the cheap material though. It replaced copper (except
| for the foil outer), when copper was too expensive.
|
| If there was a suitable and even less expensive metal, I think
| it might be reasonable to switch again. But if we have to
| rebuild coin handling to use a plastic penny, I think it's
| necessary to consider the costs and benefits of a vastly
| different material versus the costs and benefits of abandoning
| pennies.
| rayiner wrote:
| > The answer appears to be nothing at all. There is no plan.
|
| Would it have been better for the government to come up with a
| thousand page proposed rule and have multiple rounds of notice
| and comment and years of litigation over such a plan?
|
| It's crazy that so many people see this sort of bureaucracy as a
| good thing. They got praised their whole lives for being
| successful within a school system that emphasizes box checking
| over real work and now have turned that into their whole
| personality.
| toast0 wrote:
| Many issues probably don't need the lengthy deliberative
| processes that stall or delay change. But the problems with the
| penny have been apparent for years, maybe even decades. There
| was plenty of time to study the issue, observe how other
| economies have made similar transitions and figure out how to
| make it work in an orderly fashion. Instead, we have a change
| by executive decree, with no apparent planning. Will the mint
| start making pennies again in the next administration or the
| next year? It's certainly possible.
|
| In some states, there's legal uncertainty for retailers that
| operate without pennies. Planning and forwarning likely would
| have encouraged states to amend laws to provide for penniless
| retailers. Uniform nationwide rounding could have been an
| option, interstate commerce and all that.
|
| Some sort of plan for the pennies themselves might be nice,
| although maybe some sort of plan could have helped pennies
| circulate more, reducing the need to mint several billion
| pennies every year.
| altairprime wrote:
| Technically, it would have been better for the government to
| hand a tax on gross business revenue less labor costs, in order
| to give the Fed a lever to lower price levels inflation and
| raise household spending power so that the loss of pennies was
| of as little significance to households as it was to the Mint.
| Obviously, that would have required years of unpalatable and
| unsexy planning work that can't be converted into political
| capital, but the outcome would have been that pennies become
| more relevant by lower prices and/or that pennies become less
| relevant by higher spending power. Oh well.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Obviously, that would have required years of unpalatable
| and unsexy planning work that can't be converted into
| political capital
|
| It also probably wouldn't have resulted in any actual action.
| The problem proponents of "unpalatable and unsexy planning
| work" confront is that their approach is immobilized by its
| own weight. Analysis, bikeshedding, and litigation destroys
| the ability to actually do anything.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| The reason the government isn't warning people or slowing the
| withdrawal is _because_ nobody cares. Any amount of money they
| can get for recycling is better than the loss now. (though the
| current admin is known to "chicken out" which probably explains
| them preparing to spin production back up if they need to)
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