Proof of Inflation: Obama wants cheaper pennies and nickels
Submitted by SteveMT on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 12:59http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/15/news/economy/pennies_nickels...
Obama wants cheaper pennies and nickels
By Chris Isidore - February 15, 2012: 8:08 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. Mint is facing a problem -- especially during these penny-pinching times. It turns out it costs more to make pennies and nickels than the coins are worth.
And because of that, the Obama administration this week asked Congress for permission to change the mix of metal that goes to make pennies and nickels, an expensive recipe that has remained unchanged for more than 30 years.
To be precise, it cost 2.4 cents to make one penny in 2011 and about 11.2 cents for each nickel.
Given the number of coins that the mint produces -- 4.3 billion pennies and 914 million nickels last year alone, those costs add up pretty quickly: a little more than $100 million for each coin.
But even though Treasury has been studying new metals since 2010, it has yet to come up with a workable mix that would definitely be cheaper, and it has no details yet as to what metals should be used or how much it would save to do so.
More at:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/15/news/economy/pennies_nickels...
ive been saving nickels
Since i got into silver around 2009. Never spend nickels.
"The War Prayer - Mark Twain"
Will Nickels and Pennies Soon Disappear?
http://mises.org/daily/5831
Looks like it
.
LMAO About the only thing cheaper than pennies are made of
now, is plastic.
Or the first "paper" penny! The printing presses still work.
So, it would be a simple matter to print up some paper pennies and nickels also, but who to put on the front? Obama is my pick!
Don't give Barry the idea
lol
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -Thomas Jefferson
My blog: http://anna4ronpaul.wordpress.com/
i just keep 2 jars
One for pre 82 pennies and nickles. I get disappointed when I get quarters back. I just do it for fun. The penny won't be around much longer at that point I assume you can melt them.
No one has deputized America to play Wyatt Earp to the world.
-Pat Buchanan
Thats funny
I do the same thing
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This is the cost of production, not the value of the coin.
If you want to invest in coins right now, nickel is the way to go. Right now the melt value of one nickel is $.056, which is down from what it was a year ago, but is still an immediate 12% gain. You can just walk into a bank and exchange a worthless piece of paper that says 100 dollars on it for a whole bunch of nickels.
The big money is in pre 1982 pennies. There melt value is $.02, that is 100% return, but you have to sort through all the new penny's to get that. The melt value on newer pennies is $.0056, so you lose about 50%.
http://www.coinflation.com/coins/basemetal_calc.php
There is a rub. It is against
There is a rub. It is against the law to melt down pennies and nickels. There is no way to immediately realize that "immediate" gain. One cannot even take more than a handful out of the country, not legally that is. Plus, nickels are darned bulky. I thought about buying nickels in '08. I opted for gold and silver instead.
i was gunna ask...
'How would they know that my ball of nickel was melted from nickels?' ...
Then i realized... drones.
"The War Prayer - Mark Twain"
True, you just wait till the
True, you just wait till the money goes bad, or till they start trading like pre-1965 coins.
It's strange that the government is allowed to melt down....
coins for example when FDR confiscated the gold in 1933, but the People are not.
.
The melt value of copper pennies and nickel nickels are worth more than face value. I think that the penalty for counterfeitting is still a hanging. Perhaps we should ask our local sheriffs to hang Bernanke.
Melt all those $1 coins
Saw a documentary or news report on line about 2 months ago where treasury had probably over a million, if not millions, of the Susan B Anthony $1 coins laying in a vault and didn't know what to do with them. They made way to many years ago and found out, no one wanted to use the dollar coins. So melt them down and that would solve the nickle problem for awhile. We had steel pennies in WW2.
Wonder what a gold penny would be worth today?
We also had silver nickels
We also had silver nickels during WWII. Nickel was too valuable to use for nickels. Ditto copper.
The reason for the steel
The reason for the steel pennies wasn't because copper was too valuable, it was because the copper was needed to jacket bullets.
Thanks Steve.
It would seem like the USA could do away with pennies and nickels, and it could be done easily by passing Ron Paul's legislation:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-1098&tab=...
beesting
Private tokens
I wonder if there is a way to allow pennies and nickels to go private.
1 copper penny is worth...
...2.4 cents scrap value.
Pennies that are 1982 and early only.
Current Nickels (and older) are only worth 5-1/2 cents
You can get a lot of pennies at the bank.
To sort them quickly find a zinc penny (1983 and newer) drop it and listen to the dull thud it makes. Drop a copper penny and learn the sound it makes- a distinctive ring.
Now that you know the sound of copper vs. zinc....start dropping them on a hard surface like a table and sort them that way.
There's something I read called (I think) "Gersham's Law" which states that "bad money pushes out or replaces good money".
Below is a link to a site for determining "melt value" of coins.
http://coinflation.com/
2.4
The article says it costs 2.4 cents to make, but you say that's melt value (unmake). I wonder which is correct. Obviously, the metal/melt value is only a small part of the cost.
You can reach voters in California, here: http://consequeries.com/California-voter-guide.php
Does the minting process cost more than a penny?
No matter what they choose as a material, if electric power, maintenance, heat, salaries, etc., cost more than a penny/minted penny, then "Houston we have a problem."
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Steel pennies were minted in 1943
but I don't know if it would be cheaper than the copper-coated zinc we have now.
Some guys at survivalblog have been advocating "collecting" nickels for some time as their melt value is higher than their face value.
Nickels not as good as penny
A nickel is only worth 5.6 cents in scrap.
I think it's James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is important in his name...hahahahaha) that's advocating nickels. Rawles is the author of numerous good books. Triple Ought is a very interesting novel. It used to be free online.
In reality the penny is a higher return on investment. A true "penny stock".
The problem I foresee is that Uncle Sam says, "no, you can't scrap coins". So then you'll have to melt them down (naughty!) which is going to cost you money for the fuel and you can't just "through them in the fire" to melt them.
It's a shame that FRN's don't burn hot enough to melt coins
since there will be such an ample supply (get your wheelbarrows ready).
Waterworld Chits?
Is that where we are aiming? How long before we are trading with the plastic 'chits' used in the movie Waterworld?
Rights are like muscles; you must exercise them to keep them fit, or they will atrophy and die.
Nickels & pennies look like great investments: 100%+ return NOW
What a deal. Forget gold and silver for the moment.
Its funny how they look at
Its funny how they look at this as a problem, when in fact if all of our money was metal this might actually force the Fed to stop printing it.