From: ahk@chinet.com   
      
   Kenny McCormack  wrote:   
   >Adam H. Kerman  wrote:   
   >>Turd Ferguson  wrote:   
      
   >>>COIN LOSS: The United States ended production of the penny on Wednesday.   
   >>>For more than 230 years, the penny has circulated through American piggy   
   >>>banks and cash registers. But rising production costs - each penny now   
   >>>costs nearly 4 cents to make - and shifts in consumer behavior have made   
   >>>it impractical to keep producing them.   
      
   >>A coin circulates numerous times. The fact that it costs more to produce   
   >>than its face value is meaningless.   
      
   >The theory is that if the coin is worth more in raw materials (mainly, the   
   >metal(s)) than its face value, then, well, obviously, you have a problem (*).   
      
   >That has been true of various coins at various times in history, but   
   >probably isn't a serious consideration today.  But old habits die hard.   
   >That is, I think a lot of the thinking in the minds of the people who run   
   >these things is still, shall we say, stuck in the past.   
      
   >(*) And note that this could actually be a problem today for the penny,   
   >given that copper is getting expensive - which is to say, we are beginning   
   >to run out of it - and this will only get worse and worse with the   
   >widespread deployment of (quote-unquote) "AI".   
      
   The Mint reduced the amount of silver used in silver coins in the 1960s,   
   then eliminated it in 1971. Nickels were never mostly nickel. The amount   
   of copper in pennies has been reduced to negligible amounts as the value   
   of copper has changed.   
      
   If a penny were used for a single transaction, then it's a problem, but   
   given that they are used for multiple transactions, it's not a problem.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)