A Penny is NOT 1 Cent

Money is a strange thing.  In our economy, prices for goods and services are always changing.  A shirt you bought 3 years ago cost $14.99.  Now that same shirt costs $16.99.  Next week it will go on sale and only cost $13.99.  Gasoline prices change from day to day and from one corner store to the next.  The prices or values for goods and services may go up and down, but the value of a coin or bill is always the same.  A penny is always worth 1 cent.  A nickel is always worth 5 cents.  A dollar bill is always worth 1 dollar.

Now I'm getting around to what I meant in the title of this post.  A penny is worth 1 cent. it is not itself 1 cent, it is only WORTH 1 cent.  The penny represents 1 cent, it is not the 1 cent itself.  It's just like any good or service. Your gallon of gas is WORTH $3.699, but it is NOT actually 3 dollars and 69.9 cents itself.  The only difference between your goods and services you buy, and the bills and coins you use to buy them with, is that the value or worth of the bills and coins never change.  This obviously leads many to confuse the coin as BEING the monetary value itself, when it is not.  After all, you can make purchases without any cash whatsoever.  If you understand this, then you'll understand that removing the penny from circulation, doesn't change anything in regard to the monetary value inherent in the US Dollar.  It only changes into how many smaller pieces we can divide up the US Dollar.

I like to think of pennies like records.  Back in the day, the phonograph was a great invention, and the records you could play on them were awesome.  But then 8-tracks came out, and then audio cassettes.  These were thought superior in some ways because they were much more compact, and were more durable and would not get scratched or skip.  Then compact discs came out and records, and tapes fell by the wayside.  Now in the digital age of instant downloads and portable electronic storage devices, compact discs are becoming obsolete.  You don't see any records anymore not because they are bad, but because there are much better and more convenient options out there.  When people say, "Get rid of the penny," they realize that doing so will streamline our transactions and save tons of time and money.  They are NOT saying that 1 cent has no value, they are just saying that we don't need a coin to represent that value.  It's the same reason we don't need 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, or 9 cent coins.  There is no real use to having coins worth those amounts.  You can blame it on inflation or whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is we do NOT need a coin that represents 1 cent in our modern economy.  Period.