Treasury secretary not a fan of the penny

[The Straight Story]

Treasury secretary not a fan of the penny
By Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press February 29, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A penny for your thoughts? Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson thinks the answer to that question should be not much. In fact, if he had his way, he would like to get rid of the penny.

Asked Friday whether he thought the penny should be eliminated, Paulson agreed that it would make sense, saying, "The penny is worth less than any other currency."

However, he quickly added that he didn't think it was "politically doable" to eliminate the one-cent coin and it wasn't something he planned to tackle in the final year of the Bush administration.

"I've got enough challenges to take on," he said in an interview on the "Spike O'Dell Show" on Chicago's WGN radio.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39416&dcn=todaysnews

Probably cause he has never had to count them to get some gas in his car.

You want to eliminate the penny? Eliminate poverty instead of spending all our money on a war.

Asshole.

[Johonny]

1. given electronic money

what is he worried about. The computer can track your money to decimal place well beyond your caring. Given the younger generations penchant for using check cards instead of cash you get the feeling the penny problem will go away in a few more generations.

[DaveJ]

4. Good point, that reduces the need for all denominations

I wonder if this guy is an idiot, and if so, how he could have gotten through his ivy league education. Without pennies, how are we supposed to pay, just round all purchase up to the nearest 5 cents? The idea makes no sense, IMHO.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Sales tax.

That would mean sales tax could only be calculated in terms of 5's and 10's, boosting the cost of a purchase.

[TomClash]

3. He's never been penniless nt

[trotsky]

5. The metal in a penny (copper and zinc) is worth more than 1 cent.

We as a country lose money by minting pennies. I agree there are way more important things to worry about but ditching the penny isn't a bad idea.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Why stop there?

[louis-t]

7. "The penny is worth less than any other currency."

:rofl:

He uses a bush speechwriter, doesn't he?

[Zyg]

8. Same here

In the UK, there has been a discussion about getting rid of the 1p for a while now. Were it not for the fact that:

a) the 5p piece is smaller
b) shops insist on charging £4.99, £10.99 etc for items

I honestly believe that the gov't would have done something about it.

But then, the gov't is totally reliant on what the market says. Consider the various "Black" days that have occurred throughout the last couple of decades - gov'ts are held to ransom by an imperfect market. Net result is that if the market shakes (as is occurring due to the sub-prime situation in the US), the gov't is forced to respond with new policies.

Economics and accounting rule the world. I know it's hard to accept. Those geeks at school discussing PBT, Trade Receivables Recovery Periods and EBITDA are now running the show. And all the politics majors are merely faceless goons preparing to give yet another speech about something that the script writers have an opinion about.

[nilram]

9. They've done it in NZ

Shops use .95 and .45 instead of .99 and .49. When you're purchasing stuff by weight, they have some methodology for rounding so amounts ending in 3 aren't always rounded to 5 -- depending on whether the previous digit is even or odd. So, a charge of 0.53 might be rounded to 0.50, but a charge of 0.43 might be rounded to 0.45. Ends up being random, and fair for the shop owner and consumer, but far too complex for the US public (in my opinion as a member of same).