Tuesday, October 7, 2014

WSJ article

So last month Jo Craven McGinty had a penny article in the Wall Street Journal. The only point that I don't really like in this article that doesn't take a stand on either side, is that the penny and nickel get used over and over again so that makes it "worth it".  Hello people! Even if these pennies and nickels were each used in millions of transaction, they would still not be "worth it"! Why?  Because the federal government only gets paid for them ONCE.  The secondary market for any good or service does NOT add value to it.  With the trillions and trillions of pennies that have been minted, you'd think that the penny "market" would be supersaturated now, and that they would be utterly worthless. If you're thinking this, then you are absolutely RIGHT!  They are not even worth the 1 cent value they are supposed to represent.  Imagine instead that the pennies were Rolex watches.  If there were trillions of Rolex watches out there, nobody would want one anymore.  Each person on the planet would have a hundred or more of them, and you wouldn't be able to give them away.  People would start throwing them in the trash, and the landfills of the world would fill up with Rolex watches.  This is what the penny has been reduced to.  A worthless copper colored disk that nobody wants or cares about.  Here's a bulletin to the US government: We throw pennies away because they are worthless! Stop minting them.