(New) Penny For Your Thoughts
I saw on the news the other day that the US Mint is planning to introduce new designs for the penny in 2009 to celebrate the bicentenary of President Lincoln's birth. I have a better idea - get rid of the useless things.
Coming from a country that discontinued use of its one cent coin in 1991 (the year after I left high school!), the use of the penny here shocks and astounds me. If I get one in change, I just don't take it. I see no reason to clog my wallet/pocket/house up with a coin that I'll never actually be able to use as a meaningful piece of money. The sooner the Australian system of rounding purchases to the nearest five cents happens, the better!
On a side note, one bank here does do rounding up to the nearest five cents - but on electronic purchases. Let's say, you spend $24.43 on something and pay for it with your debit card. The bank extracts $24.45 from your checking account, but puts the extra two cents into your linked savings account! Clever! One could imagine that all your transactions over a given period of time might add up to a considerable boost to your savings.
On a further note, when the designs for the new penny were unveiled, certain conservative members of the community worked themselves into a lather. According to them, the words "In God We Trust" had been removed from the penny – a sure sign that atheists and communists were running the country and the end of the world wasn't far away.
What they were (conveniently?) forgetting was that all the images of the new coin designs are only showing the obverse of the coin. The reverse of the coin is remaining the same, and on that side of the coin is Lincoln's head... and the words "In God We Trust".
Posted in: chaosboy, united states on September 25, 2008 at at 8:25:00 AM