Comments on: Should We Make Cents?

Morley Safer On The Bizarre Economics Of Producing Money

[syrinxstar]

Jeff Gore "devised an Einstein-ean equation of productivity"?? Really?? It''s basic dimensional analysis with some very weak assumptions thrown in and you swallow it hook-line-sinker. Unimpressive, 60 Minutes. You can do much better than this -- at least try to be rigorous in your reporting. Maybe we should put a price tag on the time the viewers wasted seeing this grand episode of self-indulgence.

[gfmcvey]

The notion of rounding "off" bears further consideration. I was surprised that your guests kept referring to rounding "up" and sounded surprised that the effect of this move would be inflatonary. Well as Homer Simpson would say, "DUH"! How about rounding off in this manner. The price is $10.01 or $10.02 it becomes $10.00. The price is $10.03 or $10.04 it then becomes $10.05. With my basic knowledge of statistics I would think it would average out so that there would be no gain nor loss. Except for the savings for the government which would no longer need to mint pennies

[decarlo12-2009]

Correction....$29.99

[decarlo12-2009]

Ditto hadenough43, They must think we''re stupid. There are a lot of people who think, oh yah, I bought that for $29. Yah sure dimwit, you payed $30 and that''s the truth of the matter. Dump those pennies, nickels and dimes. Let the coin collectors have them. With the stinking profit Corporate America makes, they can price their merchandise in quarters, even whole numbers. If a dime is going to break someone, they are in deep trouble. I shop for the right price and I want to deal only in savings of dollars or I don''t buy it. I saw tomatoes for $5 a lb the other day and they were hard as rocks. I say, take tomatoes and let them rot. 2 weeks later they were on sale for 99 cents or should I say a dollar.

[gfmcvey]

The notion of rounding "off" bears further consideration. I was surprised that your guests kept referring to rounding "up" and sounded surprised that the effect of this move would be inflatonary. Well as Homer says, "DUH"! How about rounding off in this manner. The price is $10.01 or $10.02 it becomes $10.00. The price is $10.03 or $10.04 it then becomes $10.05. With my basic knowlede of statistics I would think it would average out so that there would be no gain nor loss.

[bwkelle]

How about some "common cents"....keep the penny...the look, the size, everything that seems so sacred to the USA, but just change the denomination to 2 cents. Rather than eliminating it and rounding off to the nearest nickel, simple round it off to the nearest 2 cents. And now you simply double it''s value and the US mint no longer has to suffer the losses.

Makes cents, doesn''t it? Maybe Canada will follow the same strategy?

Bruno Kelle
Osoyoos BC
Canada

Rounding up to the nickel is pure BS! Going from $29.99 to $30 aint a nickel. The biggest reason we have the penney is so the money grubbers can put that "99" or "999" or so on the end of the price. That''s why they fight so hard to keep it.
Get rid of it!!!

[chucklesnhop]

Here''s my two cents: change the penny to a tuppence.

[dltexas1]

My comment is in reference to no CBS news about the town of Berkeley trying to toss our Marine Recruiters and showing disrespect of our men and women in uniform. I believe all tax funds be stopped and the amount given after they started their ???????? be returned

[jaykay3141]

Saying "round prices like other countries" misses 2 major facts: they have (a) national sales taxes and (b) uniform rounding laws.

But here nearly every town has its own tax structure and any attempt at uniform standards would raise howls of "socialist interference". You can bet rounding wouldn''t happen just on the final bill: in a few months every single item in a store would be rounded up to the next nickel. You wouldn''t pay a couple of cents on the total, you''d pay extra on every item in the store! Then if you bought a $7 item with a 6% tax, you''d pay 45" not 42". What are the chances they''d let you get out for 40"?? And that''s not inflationary??

Places that have kept pennies have done a couple of things. First, they use cheaper metals like steel, and second, as suggested above they make a lot of 2" coins to cut the number of pennies minted. We only need 1 nickel or 2 dimes to make change; why should we need 4 pennies at a time?

And while we''re trying to save money, how ''bout getting rid of paper dollars like every other major country? The lifetime cost of a bill is 4 or 5x that of a coin, plus there''s the need for extra quarters, bill-readers at $500 each on vending machines, etc. With more $2 bills you''d only ever get one $1 coin in change, so there''s no problem with loading pockets. There''re studies showing savings of over a HALF BILLION a year. That''s a lot of pennies.

Oh, wait. The company that makes bill paper is in MA and contributes big to Teddy Kennedy. Oh well.

[texascano]

I think that we should take the idea from coin star and put machines in grocery stores or even banks. The gov. shouldn''t charge us for making our change into cash and recycle the change to make new coins.

[alanmarcus-2009]

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ART OF COMPROMISE? YES, WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE 1 CENT PENNY AND REPLACE IT WITH THE NEW 2 CENT COIN! THE ONLY NUMBER WE WILL BE MISSING IS 3 CENTS WHICH CAN ROUNDED UP OR DOWN. HOW MANY ITEMS DO YOU KNOW THAT''S 3 CENTS? AS FOR $1.03... THAT''S EASY 95 CENTS & 4 COINS AT 2 CENTS.
WHAT''S SO HARD? DO THE MATH. OBVOIUSLY, IT WOULD TAKE YEARS TO PHASE OUT THE PENNY.

[rjstusse2]

What would Lex Luthor do without the penny?

[bookwerm314]

NO! No Cents.. making cents is NONSENSE! Inflation has been huge, and a dime is a fair min, NOT a penny.

[ugottabkiddn]

Morey,
Its the inflation of the US monetary supply that causes our dollar to be only half of what it was just a few years ago... Our dollar is is traded globally, just as is copper & zinc... It''s our government that has failed to make our currency worthless!

[robertmc6]

Why can''t pennies & nickels be made from recycled
plastic? If, in fact there is a reason now, would it
make any sense to evaluate that reason? Building
materials and playground equipment are examples.

[tenabroc]

For several years a website has been tracking the daily melt value of all coins based on the traded copper, nickel, and zinc prices: www.coinflation.com
They came up with the term "coinflation" for the very phenomenon this segment covered.

[baprilfirst]

Give me a break. My wife should work for this goofy government. They change the value of stamps in a heart beat so she thinks they should change the value of the penny to 2 cents. If you did that you would only have to round up 1 penny when the sale totals 1,3,5,7,and 9 cents.
Now you our 2 cents worth.

[dixiedoxie]

They said it costs 135 milllion to make whatever amount of pennies per year. They said if they eliminated the pennies it would cost consumers 500 million/year. Someone (and not the people posting here) stands to gain. I''m glad they finished the segment with ...it probably won''t be discontinued. They should run a segment on the overall profitability of the Mint and the workers salaries.

[heitlauf]

Mr. Safer,

Very entertaining piece however you missed a big point in why the government wants to keep the penny, and no it is not the federal government but local and state goverment''s who impose sales taxes. I doubt many would be able to pass a 5% sale tax increase. Really enjoy your show keep up the great work.

Henry Heitlauf
Verona Island Maine