Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Pennies... the Unappreciated Coin.

I don't know about you... But I pick up pennies. I pick them up and put them in a jar and when the jar is full, I trade them bad boys in for green backs. (paper money)  However, I know a lot of people that don't feel like it's worth their time to bend down and pick up a penny.

In Canada, the penny has reached such a low status that they actually have stopped minting the coin. (Read about it here) As a result, cash transactions will now be rounded to the nearest $0.05 mark. In other words if your morning coffee normally cost you $1.27, you'll now pay $1.25, if it's $1.28, you'll pay $1.30. Now rest assured, businesses will not loose 2 cents per cup of coffee. So you can bet that the price of coffee will now go up to the next highest 5 cent mark. Interestingly, debit purchases will not be rounded.

I have to say I do understand why they are doing away with the coin. According to the article it cost 1.6 cents to make one penny.

On the flip side, many years ago, Canada did away with the paper dollar and two dollar bills, replacing them with coins. This was done because the coins last much longer than their paper counterpart. The U.S. has tried several times to put out a $1 dollar coin with limited success.

What I see is a move to do away with currency all together. Citing the cost to taxpayers. For instance, in the example of the penny, it cost the Canadian taxpayers $11 million a year to produce the little coin. I personally don't like the idea of all my money being digital. That's too easy for big brother to lock an account, seize my money, or for the cyber hacker to run out with my hard earned paycheck.

Weigh in... leave a comment and let me know what you think.

-Red
www.jeffjake.com

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