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Trump says he has directed Treasury to stop minting new pennies
- LorenDB 2y agoThis is not a new proposal by any means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_debate_in_the_United_Sta...
- scarab92 2y agoIt's amazing how everything is a debate in America, even blantantly obvious things like getting rid of the penny. The Nickle should also go.
- smcin 2y agoActually doing it would be a very new thing, and could be inflationary (since the US doesn't have a 2c coin). Imagine prices and change being rounded (up) to the nearest nickel. [0] says Trump doesn't have the legal authority to order the Treasury to do this, that power rests with Congress. I can't see that happening when inflation is already a big issue. (Euro 1-cent and 2-cent coins are made of copper-covered steel, so I don't even see any necessity for Trump's decision.) - If this actually happened it could be worse than the (temporary) inflation caused in Europe when the Euro was adopted at the start of 1999; due to the exchange rate, merchants in Germany and Greece rounded up prices. But this would be worse, the Euro had 1-cent and 2-cent coins, whereas the US would be moving the lowest-denomination from 1c to 5c. Canada abolished its 1p coin in 2012. Mexico's lowest-denomination coin today is 50 centavos (~ USD $0.024) [1] - Also, phasing out the penny could result in needing to make more nickels, and the US Treasury Department loses far more money on every nickel than it does on every penny: each nickel costs 13.8 cents (11c production costs + 2.8c of administrative and distribution costs). [2] And nickels are heavy and bulky to carry compared to dimes. So imagine if the lowest-denomination coin people moved to using was 10c. Ya think that wouldn't be inflationary?? (Or moving to electronic ap-based payment for everything like in China, which US consumers are resistant to.) [0]: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2025-02-10/is-the-penny-going-away-trump-orders-halt-on-production https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2025-02-1... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination_coins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination... [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/business/costs-of-pennies-and-nickels/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/10/business/costs-of-pennies-and...
- afcool83 2y agoFlooding the zone with both reasonable sh* and unreasonable sh* is still flooding the zone with sh*. Notice the timing of his statement. Right in the middle of the largest sporting event in the US. Eyes were elsewhere and it brought them back to himself.
- firesteelrain 2y agoSeems reasonable. What’s the downside other than someone losing a zinc contract?
- dyauspitr 2y agoWell for one all prices along sales tax have to be rounded up or down to increments of $0.05 which is the profit margin for many things produced in high volume.
- scarface_74 2y agoMost transactions aren’t cash
- Jtsummers 2y agoThis doesn't remove them from circulation. If it did, though, card transactions, versus cash, could still use smaller increments.
- daggersandscars 2y agoRounding is generally done only for cash transactions (“cash rounding”). For all other payment types, the unrounded price is used. I wrote code for this a long time ago when cash was still a major form of payment in a country that got rid of sub 0.05 coins. There were various rules to try to ensure neither the seller or buyer always benefited. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_rounding https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_rounding
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoThe rounding up will be done by the merchant when he updstes the prices, and the buyer will always lose. No code will save you here.
- digitalPhonix 2y agoHow? If you price something at $1.03 so that it rounds up to $1.05, someone who buys two will get it rounded down to $2.05
- throwaway519 2y agoIt won't be needed with inflation caused by the new import taxes.
- silexia 2y agoBrilliant idea! We also should probably stop nickels and dimes at this point and maybe even quarters.
- pentel-0_5 2y agoWith inflation about to go up to absolutely insane levels, it might be reasonable to round cash transactions to dollars. Cash is still essential for transactions without requiring technology, creating traceable metadata, or disadvantaging the unbanked.
- quantified 2y agoLet's wait until it's a problem. You can round up to the nearest dollar if you want to.
- delfinom 2y agoI think we should jump straight to hundred dollar bills at this rate
- pentel-0_5 2y agoThat will be next year. The year after that, America be buying things in units of wheelbarrows of bricks of hundreds before switching to the Zimbabwean dollar. ;)
- avidiax 2y agoWhat This Country Needs is an 18¢ Piece[1] [1] https://graal.ens-lyon.fr/~abenoit/algo09/coins1.pdf https://graal.ens-lyon.fr/~abenoit/algo09/coins1.pdf
- 404mm 2y agoI haven’t used coins since about 2009 (I mostly pay with card or phone, and if I don’t, I just leave the change behind.). The exception to the rule was probably some tolls and parking meters. I’d probably ditch but quarters. Those still make sense otherwise I’d expect all the points where you can pay with coins to jack up the prices to the nearest dollar, regardless of how you pay (and each item individually). I also don’t know how I feel about $1 coins. One buck has such a low value in these days that it almost doesn’t make sense to have it in “paper” but I cannot imagine going back to coins.
- mindslight 2y ago[flagged]
- avidiax 2y agoFor those who don't get the reference: Ass Pennies - Upright Citizens Brigade[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aM_dT5VMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aM_dT5VMI
- whycome 2y agoIs there a tariff on practices imported from Canada?
- cranky908canuck 2y agoI'll suggest to the CAN powers-that-be to impose an export tariff on the intellectual property.
- jessikat 2y agoIt's kind of ridiculous that the US has held onto pennies for this long. New Zealand phased out our 5 cent coins back in 2006, approximately 3 US pennies worth at present.
- thatguy0900 2y agoYou don't even need to look at other countries, when the US discontinued the half penny it was worth more than modern nickels are worth
- ericjmorey 2y agoIt's ridiculous that anyone is saying anything but fuck this traitor for issuing unconstitutional orders over and over again.
- what 2y agoWhat’s unconstitutional about it?
- 42772827 2y agoThe authority over U.S. coinage is established in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8), which gives Congress the power "to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof." Any major changes to U.S. currency, including eliminating a denomination, must go through Congress.
- milesrout 2y ago>“The Secretary of the Treasury shall,” Section 5111 reads, “mint and issue” denominations of coins “in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.”
- unethical_ban 2y agoI agree with your sentiment, but according to another comment in this thread, the treasury secretary has congressionally approved latitude to adjust how many coins are minted.
- WheelsAtLarge 2y agoThis seems like a silly and easy thing to do but it hasn't gotten done. It has been on the to-list for years if not decades. Special interest and voter pushback has always stopped it. It looks like President Trump will finally make it happen. I think it speaks to the strength of his presidency. We are in for a lot of changes.
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoCant wait for his next move! Maybe he renames thursday to Trumpday and awakens the almighty Thors wrath. Maybe he and Twitler builds a golf course on mars.
- rsynnott 2y ago> Maybe he renames thursday to Trumpday and awakens the almighty Thors wrath. I mean, there's precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_renaming_of_Turkmen_months_and_days_of_week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_renaming_of_Turkmen_month... (Hopefully nobody has told him about this.)
- red-iron-pine 2y agothe less Trump knows about the Turkmanbashi the better
- mangamadaiyan 2y ago... or Admiral-General Aladeen, for that matter.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoHas he achieved anything during first one?
- tmtvl 2y agoHe did sign a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, which he at the time described as 'they say it's one of the best trade deals ever made'. To be fair, though, the deal also has its critics. For example, Donald Trump said of the deal: 'who the hell made these deals, they're so bad'.
- dlcarrier 2y agoI've been holding onto every pre-1982 penny I come across, because I one day want to get 499 of them, and take them to Mexico or Canada to smelt them to use in some kind of art project. When we finally stop making pennies in the US, will that make it legal to melt them down?
- Finnucane 2y agoProbably not, Treasury doesn't 'demonetize' old issues. Generally speaking, any coin or bill issued by the Treasury department still officially has its face value and is legally money. But if you'd like, I've got a small bucket of 1943 steel pennies.
- dlcarrier 2y agoA whole bucket full? I'll trade you my zinc pennies for your steel ones.
- Jeremy1026 2y agoIt's legal to melt them down now. You can't deface U.S. currency to try to make it look like it's higher value, or to shave small amounts of metal to combine with other coins shavings to the point that they have value. As per [1]: > 18 U.S. Code § 331 > Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or The key word is "fraudulently", if you're doing it for art you're good. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/331#:~:text=§%20331-,18%20U.S.%20Code%20§%20331%20%2D%20Mutilation,diminution%2C%20and%20falsification%20of%20coins&text=Shall%20be%20fined%20under%20this,645%2C%2062%20Stat. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/331#:~:text=§%203...
- Cpoll 2y agoInteresting, I always assumed it was covered by the same law that makes it illegal to burn bills (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/333 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/333), but apparently not.
- pentel-0_5 2y agoI almost have a Trump changes bingo. Waiting for renaming a day of the week or a month, and going to war with either Switzerland or Italy. Seriously, this one isn't actually dumb, dramatic, or insane. I approve.
- rsynnott 2y agoOkay, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Though it's not particularly original; I think about half the eurozone has stopped production of 1 and 2 cent coins, at this point, and in some cases demonetised them. Presumably to the disappointment of washing machine repair providers everywhere; their size made them perfect for jamming in the pump in a particularly awkward to extract manner.
- angoragoats 2y agoRegardless of what you think about the content of the order, it’s unconstitutional, so he’s still going about it the wrong way.
- rsynnott 2y agoAh, missed that aspect. Of course…
- rexpop 2y agoMight be time to stop extending him the benefit of the doubt.
- blooalien 2y ago[flagged]
- chii 2y agoluckily, the piece of paper it's written on is actually worthless. It's the idea of the constitution that is important, and it's being eroded away. A lot of people (stupidly) thinks that the orange man is doing good because he's cutting all of those red tape to try make america great again. Somehow, they believe that as long as it's their own tribe, and they agree with the policy, breaking the rules is ok. This is how staunch institutions that is the foundation of democracy falls. Regardless of how good, a president should not have absolute power. Ruling by executive order is but another name for a tyrant king.
- cranky908canuck 2y agoAlso commented in a duplicate thread: No fan of DT, but this one does make sense (CAN chucked pennies years ago). If I read the article cited below correctly, penny minting has a smell of lobbying in a safe quiet corner: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-pennies-united-states-economy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/magazine/worthless-pennie...
- danudey 2y agoI can't read the article you linked so I'm not sure if it mentions this, but IIRC one of the reasons for ditching the penny in Canada was that it cost more than a penny of copper to make a penny out of copper. Now when we buy something we get told a rounded-off price (e.g. $3.72 is told to us as $3.70) but if we pay digitally (i.e. by card) then we get charged the exact amount.
- cranky908canuck 2y agoExactly. When this first came down, many Canadians (including me, true confessions) had their petty quibbles at the till about rounding (ok the rounding was sometimes wonky, hence the petty quibbles). Most of us have got over it.
- heavenlyblue 2y ago> but IIRC one of the reasons for ditching the penny in Canada was that it cost more than a penny of copper to make a penny out of copper. That's true for all coins, otherwise it would be an infinite money hack
- robertlagrant 2y ago> That's true for all coins, otherwise it would be an infinite money hack The government can print money if it wants to; it's just a bad idea.
- tmtvl 2y agoIsn't that backwards? If a penny contains more than a penny's worth of copper you can make "infinite" money by exchanging some money for pennies, smelting them down into copper, selling the copper for more money than you exchanged in the first place, and repeating the process until you're as rich as Bezos.
- em-bee 2y agonext move, please finally enforce the switch to the metric system! if you want to cement your legacy as US president, that would do it.
- mystified5016 2y agoI don't think anyone is in doubt about this presedency being legendary. We mostly disagree on the context the legend will be told in.
- blooalien 2y agoThis is Trump we're talking about. 100% guarantee that if the metric system crosses his mind, he'll actively try to rid the world of it any way he can. He'll claim it's "gay" or some other stupid shit he thinks and ban teaching it in schools. He doesn't care about any "legacy". He's just there to do as much harm as he can manage in the short time he's got left on this planet.
- southernplaces7 2y agoIt's partly because a large number of people smugly hold such a simplistic, stupid and completely unreflective view of the guy and the political/social currents he's both ridden and manipulated, that he has been able to get so far in politics. Trump is all kinds of unpleasant things, but a screaming orangutan of rage and stupidity he isn't. Even as it stands, his entire political career since 2016 is a very unique chapter in U.S. political history, which will be judged as such in many complex ways across the coming decades. This is not simply the result of an incredible number of coincidences favoring a complete, screaming idiot.
- lazide 2y agoHe’s basically a variant of Andrew Jackson [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson], but scammier. What always has blown me away is how many people insist Trump is dumb, while clearly being manipulated by him. I’m no fan, but the dude is clearly crafty AF and has balls the size of basketballs. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be in the white house again making everyone miserable.
- Xinti 2y ago[flagged]
- cyanydeez 2y agoBroken clock syndrome is orthographically connect to cherry picking expectations. The reason Facebook will use community notes is because it lets "both sides" think they're getting what's right.
- angoragoats 2y agoNot this time, though the order is definitely unconstitutional[0], so it follows the same general pattern. [0] Article I, section 8: “The Congress shall have Power to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…”
- ericjmorey 2y agoNope. This one is authoritarian bullshit too. Not cool with orders that violate the Constitution. Go through the legal process.
- Nasrudith 2y agoReminds me of the Japanese sen and how it was discontinued post WW2 for becoming too negligible.
- Aloisius 2y agoDon't we need a law that permits rounding of prices though? If stores round down, they can potentially collect too little sales tax. If they round up, they're charging above the advertised price which, afaik, is fraud.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> If stores round down, they can potentially collect too little sales tax. If they round up, they're charging above the advertised price The first case is a non issue. The store is making less money. The second can be settled through the courts.
- Aloisius 2y agoThe former is an issue, at least in California. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/lawguides/annotations/460-0198.pdf https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/lawguides/annotations/460-0198.pdf It can be done, but it appears a retailer has to either indicate that they are undercollecting sales tax to the customer - and make up the difference themselves - or use all-inclusive pricing rather than adding sales tax to the bill, and back out the tax from totals to calculate gross sales.
- toast0 2y agoSales tax is a state issue, so president doesn't have to care. Fraud charges could be avoided with careful asterisking, and lack of enforcement of de minimus fraud.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoWe lose money minting pennies and nickels. Both should be abolished. Dimes, quarters and dollar coins.
- whatasaas 2y agoIf we lose $100 curing all diseases should we stop doing it? It’s just an odd argument for government - the purpose wasn’t profit and the argument that it was will put entitlements on the chopping blocks with the same excuse.
- TeaBrain 2y agoResearch towards curing diseases has a clear potential benefit. The continued minting of nickels and pennies does not.
- whatasaas 2y agoYes, we agree it’s not about the cost. As long as the benefit remains, the loss can be assessed. A negative return alone doesn’t automatically disqualify a program.
- theGnuMe 2y agoThis is all going to. E irrelevant when everything is crypto
- m463 2y agoI have to say though... are the value in coins intrinsic or as a medium of exchange? Although I've heard pennies just end up in a drawer, don't they have value to the economy to exchange (many times) goods and services back and forth for coins? is it just convention nowadays, left over from storing gold?
- throwaway314155 2y agoWhat's your question exactly?
- ragnese 2y agoI have a similar question. I always heard/read that the whole "pennies cost more to make than they're worth" argument was a red herring, in that it doesn't really matter how much they cost to make "at rest". But, rather, the value of a penny is in how much wealth it allows to be transferred over its life in circulation. In other words, if a penny does cost about 3.69 cents (or whatever they say the number is today) to mint, then it is "worth it" as long as the penny is used 4 times EVER. I'll admit that I really haven't given much thought to the topic in any case. But, even in just the time it's taking me to write this comment, I'm realizing it's probably a little of both "sides" being right. After all, a penny is both a medium of exchange as well as a store of wealth/value, depending on how you use it...
- JohnFen 2y agoIt matters because if you can extract more than a penny's worth of metal from a penny, then you make money by buying as many pennies as you can get and melting them down to sell the metal.
- collingreen 2y agoWhich is simultaneously illegal, antisocial, and logistically difficult.
- JohnFen 2y ago
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoWow, an actual good idea from Trump. What a pleasant surprise.
- Clubber 2y agoWhile we're talking currency, we need to start making a $500 bill again. The $500 bill was removed in 1969 making the $100 bill the largest denomination. In 1969, $100 was worth around $860.
- dennis_jeeves2 2y agoHere is a thought - how about engineering deflation until the penny become valuable again? Will take decades though. Make the penny great again!
- merillecuz56 2y ago[dead]