Federal budget brought down today which eliminates the penny, "a currency without any currency".
Starting in autumn, the Royal Canadian Mint will no longer put pennies in circulation, which will save the government $11 million a year and bringing Canada in line with countries such as New Zealand and Australia.
Pennies can be used “indefinitely,” but prices will be rounded to the nearest 5-cent increment if pennies aren’t available.

> Pennies can be used “indefinitely,” but prices will be rounded to the nearest 5-cent increment if pennies aren’t available.

Wow! A person could get rich (as well as earn a bushel-basket full of contempt) by always having three pennies but never having two.

Actually, you're not far off the truth, there.

One way that very large investment banks (like the size of Goldman Sachs) make bushels of money is by exploiting tiny differences in the values of different currencies and different stocks.

The idea is that a particular stock--say, Apple stock--is supposed to be priced the same everywhere in the world, but sometimes, whether it's through small fluctuations in exchange rates that are slightly out of sync with the stock price adjustments or because of other tiny fluctuations in currencies--a stock might trade for a penny more in Germany than it does in Canada.

So they buy a billion dollars' worth of the stock in Canada and in the same transaction sell it in Germany, pocketing 2 or 3 million dollars on the transaction...all without making any good or service of value and without any risk at all (since the purchase and the sale happen simultaneously).

I was thinking more along the lines of the guy I once heard about who won a "cheap" contest in San diego by reporting that he saved $0.14 (Yep, that's 14 cents) by separating a roll of two-ply toilet paper into two rolls.

I bet the amount of time it took him to separate the rolls was worth more than 14 cents. That's clearly someone who has a lot of time on his hands and doesn't value it very highly!

The only way to be truly cheap, and this is what saves my daughter, is to place absolutely no value on your time, regardless of how little of it you've got.

I go in the other direction...I consider my time to be the most valuable commodity in the world.

I'm pretty flexible about my time. When I'm billing the client, it's worth a lot. If the client doesn't pay, I haven't lost anything.

All my work is on the computer/pdf/email/file transfer. I can do a whole project and never print out a sheet of paper. I don't have to leave my home office.

I love the internet.

BTW – My penny jar is too heavy to carry to the bank and I can't be bothered to bag up the coins. I wonder if the local copper thieves would be interested?

Our minister of finance has suggested giving the pennies to charity. Not only would that generate a tax receipt for a charitable donation but it would also get a weight off one's whatever.
If you've got a lot, I'm sure the charity would be happy to collect them at no cost to you.

You could definitely melt them down for copper, were it not for the inconvenient fact that pennies for quite some time have been made of zinc and plated with copper, an unfortunate impediment to profit necessitated by the fact that a penny made of copper would contain more than a penny's worth of copper...a fact not lost on the U.S. Mint.

A couple of comments regarding pennies and their zinc content:

Canadian pennies have had 98.4% zinc + 1.6% copper for only the past 15 years (ie, since 1997); prior to that time they contained 1-2% zinc + 98-99% copper.
US pennies switched from 5% zinc + 95% copper to 97.5% zinc + 2.5% copper 15 years before that (ie, in 1982). And if the US Mint has realized that the copper content in a penny is worth more than a penny, it's surprising that it hasn't taken similar steps to eliminate the waste. It took the Canadian Mint long enough, even though they mooted about the issue for many years — and we don't have anything like a $14-trillion debt.

Zinc toxicity from pennies (and other zinc-containing objects, such nails, staples, sun blocks, zinc oxide preparations) is a serious, potentially fatal problem in small animals, primarily dogs and especially puppies. Zinc exposure rapidly can produce hemolytic anemia with vomiting, diarrhea, depression and collapse. Immediate veterinary attention is required.
Bottom line: Declining numbers of pennies in Canada should result in fewer zinc poisonings.

> And if the US Mint has realized that the copper content in a penny is worth more than a penny, it's surprising that it hasn't taken similar steps to eliminate the waste.

According to this, the metal in a penny cost a bit more than half a penny as of March 30, but according to this, the total cost of a penny is about 2.4¢ (calling the statement that "Thanks primarily to rising costs of zinc – the main material in a penny – the U.S. Mint now spends 2.4 cents to make a penny" into question). (The second "this" is an interesting read, rather than purely statistical.)

Prompted by Canada's move to dump the penny, in "Room for Debate" in The New York Times on April 4, several commentators take on the issue of currency reform in the States.

Bringing Dollars and Cents Into This Century

Common cents reign in the US, not common sense!

Reply to Artie's #21306 . . .

I guess he had to "do something" while sitting there!