Penniless

Back in September 2008, I posted a short essay calling for abandonment of the United States one cent coin -- or the "penny," as we colloquially call it, in imitation of our British forebears. I felt my logic was impeccable, and that my irritation at having to deal with those little red buggers had to have been well nigh universal.

And yet, our own government continues to mint pennies at a loss of 0.6 cents per coin. But our neighbors to the north have seen the light. Canada announced yesterday that it will stop minting the Canadian penny this year because, as everyone knows, they're a damned nuisance -- as well as an unnecessary cost to the government.

When I was a kid, the British were still minting both a penny and a half penny, and had only recently stopped minting the farthing (one-fourth of a penny). And this was back before decimal currency, when there were 240 pence to a pound sterling.

The British, since decimalization, have abandoned the old half penny, the old "tuppence" and "thruppence" (2d and 3d) pieces and the sixpence (6d). The shilling coin (12d) became the 5 pence in the new decimal currency. The new half penny (200 to a pound sterling) hasn't been minted since 1984, leaving the "new" one penny and two pence coins as the smallest circulating coins. But the British penny is worth 1.6 American or Canadian cents, which makes it difficult to argue that the Brits stand together with us in support of a coin as worthless as our own penny.

Some worry that abandonment of the penny would cause the price of everything to be rounded up to the nearest nickel. Not really. Prices per item could still be expressed in cents. Or less, in fact: Gasoline, for example, is routinely priced to the nearest tenth of a cent per gallon. Only payment in cash for a total purchase -- your week's grocery shopping, for example -- would be rounded up. If you were writing a check or using a credit card, you could still be billed $29.97 rather than thirty bucks for your bag of groceries.

As the AP story reports, Canadians are joining New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden and other countries in dropping coins of equivalent value to the American cent. Although the Euro one cent coin is still being minted, it's being increasingly shunned by businesses in a number of northern European countries. And the Euro cent is worth about 1.3 American cents. Even in China, the smallest coin in general circulation is the Jiao, worth about 1.6 American cents, although the Fen (0.16 American cents) is still accepted as legal tender.

But as Americans, we are exceptional. We will scorn the metric system, execute criminals, cling to dollar bills now worth a dime in 1950s' value -- and cheerfully churn out tons of worthless, irritating, and costly pennies. Why? What d'you mean "why"? Just because! You some kind of Commie or something?