My 2 Cents Worth 2.52c

Have you seen an establishment lately that DOESN'T have a give-a-penny take-a-penny tray? Several weeks ago I was reading this article http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/06/coin.inflation.ap/ about the cost to manufacture pennies and nickels. The price of copper still enjoys record prices, and based on conversations with people in construction, even Fredericksburg has experienced copper thefts.

What I don't understand is why the federal reserve and the government are stuck on continuing to produce these two coins. Sure, the Jefferson and Lincoln fans would probably want to move their faces to some new currency. I don't know about you, but I hate carrying around such small fractions of a dollar. I'll hang onto dimes and quarters (ok, I'll save the nickels, but I think it's more of a size of coin, not value). The pennies go into the give-a-penny every time. Today at lunch I didn't even wait for the lunch mart owner to hand me the few cents change. I also regularly find he rounds out change, instead of 23 cents, it's a quarter back.

It'll probably take a government funded study on the efficiency of making penny change before the big wigs figure out that it's getting rediculous. Oh wait - there it is, Wikipedia says the studies have already been done. Not to mention inflation doubles roughly every 20 years, so it would take 32 cents to purchase what that penny bought in 1908. Maybe we could leave the electronic value of a penny for use as micropayments. Stocks already trade at 10th of a penny value.

But what would fill the give-a get-a penny trays? Wait, maybe we could get rid of them. If the value of a coin is so little that we leave them just laying around, I think it's time to nix it.