[perfect stranger]

From an economic view it seems to make sense to abandon them both.

The dime will be the smallest denomination, and prices will be written with only one decimal place.

How would that work out?

[Telepathic Intruder]

Agree. You can’t buy anything for less than a dime anyway.

[onona]

Typical political bull$hit. Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.

[RightGeek]

You can’t make this stuff up - administrative costs?

[The_Reader_David]

Just abolish them, like Australia, New Zealand (and the Netherlands and Finland) did: round off to the nearest 5 cents on all cash transactions. Here is a link to a charming video making the case.

[marron]

It turns out it costs more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are worth.

The value of the currency has eroded to the point that we can't afford to mint coins even in the cheap metals we currently use. So now we have to find even cheaper metals with which to denominate the ever-cheaper currency they represent.

Or, we could stop devaluing the dollar.

[FrankR]

[Pontiac]

We also need to do away with the short lived 1 and 5 dollar bills (the bills life span of a few months make them expensive). The Canadians figured out how make do with 1 and 5 dollar coins. What is about our government that they can’t make simple cost effective changes to our coinage?

[Tanniker Smith]

We'd still say "20 cents" and use two decimal places (which are preprogrammed into a lot of things.

Would anyone say 2 decs?

[Tanniker Smith]

We'd still say "20 cents" and use two decimal places (which are preprogrammed into a lot of things.

Would anyone say 2 decs?

[Tanniker Smith]

We'd still say "20 cents" and use two decimal places (which are preprogrammed into a lot of things.

Would anyone say 2 decs?

[flat]

SAY....didn't this kind of thing once bring down the Roman Empire? just sayin' any historians out there?

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

This is not a laughing matter. The Roman Empire did the same thing, debased the currency by over spending (they too paid farmers govt subsidies to not grow grapes in order to keep the price of wine high) till at the end what were once pure gold and silver coins contained about .4% of those precious metals.

It’s one more glaring sign of our impending collapse.

Too many groups and individuals slopping at the public trough.

[goseminoles]

Hech hem.. choke.. I happen to *ouch* that I agree *barf* with him. Nickels are worth more by weight than they are worth..

[marron]

Third world countries that debase their currency periodically drop a couple of decimal places and re-issue “new” pesos or “new” dollars.

When your coinage isn’t worth coining, when your dime stores are now dollar stores, when $33 dollar ounces of gold are now worth $2000, its time to hit reset.

[6SJ7]

As if one needs proof of the debasement of the currency; this is it. The underlying metal is worth more than the printed face value.

[B.O. Plenty]

copper pennies are worth 2.45 cents as of today...

...and regular nickles are worth 5.58 cents as of today...

...I am throwing copper pennies (1980 and older) and all nickles into a pot...

...what can it hurt...

...I just may wind up with a shit pot full of money...heh heh

...ref: http://www.coinflation.com/

[upchuck]

Ping.

[upchuck]

From someone who can remember when penny candy was a big deal, pennies today are a royal pain in the ass. Get rid of them and round everything to the nearest nickel. Done.

[upchuck]

From someone who can remember when penny candy was a big deal, pennies today are a royal pain in the ass. Get rid of them and round everything to the nearest nickel. Done.

[P.O.E.]

Used to see pennies and pick them up. Now I regularly see dimes, quarters, nickels, etc. on the ground.

Between the rise in prices and the “I got my money free from the gummint” attitudes, I’m not really surprised.