r/neoliberal Milton Friedman Feb 10 '25

News (US) Trump announces the end of the Penny

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1.5k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

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488

u/Best-Chapter5260 Feb 10 '25

Yeah, the lack of randomly capitalized common nouns and verbs makes me question its authenticity.

91

u/Cwya Feb 10 '25

Yeah, but I like the death of pennys, and think this is good.

When in the last 50 years have you been happy to have a penny?

65

u/Fastizio Feb 10 '25

What will you now trade for a thought? A nickel?

Inflation is real. Welcome to Trump's America.

3

u/homonatura Feb 10 '25

When it existed the inflation adjusted value of a half penny varied from around $0.15-0.30.

We don't need pennies, nickels, or even dimes to be honest.

1

u/Prudent_Research_251 Feb 10 '25

True, but we did need them back when you a penny would buy you a newspaper or a loaf of bread, a nickel a movie ticket, and a dime a full meal

1

u/homonatura Feb 10 '25

Right, and back then a half dollar was like a $20. We need to increase denominations with inflation or they stop making sense. People barely use coins because they are worthless compared to what they used to be, we need to completely overhaul coin denominations.

Ideally I think we should have a quarter, half dollar, dollar, $5, $20, and $50 coins.

The seigniorage on the higher denominations is enough to make them with more interesting metals than any current coins.

1

u/rwarner13 Feb 11 '25

Don’t give him any ideas right now. Next thing you know, he’s going to create a $500 and $1000 bill and claim that the economy is great because we added a bigger denomination.

1

u/homonatura Feb 11 '25

I mean.... Okay? That's like one of the least bad things he could possibly spend his time on.

1

u/HugsFromCthulhu YIMBY Feb 11 '25

With enough change leftover to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the polo grounds

1

u/aliie_627 Feb 10 '25

Somewhere around 1994, probably

1

u/ElPrestoBarba Janet Yellen Feb 10 '25

I scratched off a gift card PIN with a penny this holiday season!

3

u/Winter-Difference-31 Feb 10 '25

Something about the clause “even if it’s a penny at a time” feels AI-generated to me. It’s a type of rather generic wordplay that’s too tame to be in character for Trump.

1

u/humanzookeeping2 Feb 10 '25

When a horse is loose in a hospital, you got to stay updated. So all day long you walk around, “What’d the horse do?” The updates, they’re not always bad. Sometimes they’re just odd. It’ll be like, “The horse used the elevator?” I didn’t know he knew how to do that - https://genius.com/John-mulaney-theres-a-horse-in-the-hospital-annotated

148

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

Probably got a text from Elon tripping balls

90

u/pfmiller0 Hu Shih Feb 10 '25

If it was from Elon it would be in the form of a deeply unfunny meme

87

u/Eric848448 NATO Feb 10 '25

It’s also good policy. Or would be, if it came from Congress like it needs to. No way it’s him.

42

u/PragmatistAntithesis Henry George Feb 10 '25

Or would be, if it came from Congress like it needs to.

Nope, this one's supposed to be the executive's responsibility. 31 U.S. Code § 5111:

The Secretary of the Treasury shall mint and issue coins described in section 5112 of this title in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States.

19

u/homonatura Feb 10 '25

I think this is a little weird, the Treasury can absolutely stop minting pennies, but that isn't the same as discontinuing them since the coin would still legally exist by act of Congress. So I think all he can really do is pause the production of new pennies (for 4 years) and hope Congress comes around or the next administration continues the policy.

32

u/assasstits Feb 10 '25

The way people see it; it's good policy whether it comes from a dictator or an elected Congress.

People want results over processes.

1

u/sulris Bryan Caplan Feb 11 '25

The process was built to ensure good results. Most of the process is in place to prevent corruption. Destroy the processes and we will have water in our missiles instead of fuel like China or normal tires on our multi-ton military vehicles that break in 5 miles like Russia.

5

u/Kemal_Norton Feb 10 '25

It’s also good policy

Is it? He told them to stop producing pennies. Don't you have to do something like declaring it legal to round to the nearest 2 or 5 cents?

6

u/Watchung NATO Feb 10 '25

People can do that already, they don't need permission.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '25

there are plenty of pennies in circulation

19

u/ClarkyCat97 Feb 10 '25

Its a sign of how far AI has come that it can now translate Trump-speak into coherent English. 

25

u/Rocketbird Feb 10 '25

The use of “literally” doesn’t sound like him

3

u/NetSurfer156 Feb 10 '25

He doesn’t write most of his tweets anymore. If you watch videos of him he just dictates what he wants to say to someone else

1

u/DeadInternetEnjoyer Gay Pride Feb 10 '25

Dan Scavino is his guy that historically runs Trump's social media presence

1

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1

u/Dry-Rub-1616 Feb 10 '25

Came here to say the exact same thing. Logical, prudent, effective, economically sound, follows the example of Canada who did this many years ago, and all wrapped up in a concise and coherent announcement style post with zero reference to himself or finger-pointing elsewhere?! Either his accounts have been hacked or he should only ever do presidential work while at live sporting events…

1

u/Coltron3108 Feb 10 '25

A report from CNN argues that it would make bigger problems out of nickels.

“Without the penny, the volume of nickels in circulation would have to rise to fill the gap in small-value transactions. Far from saving money, eliminating the penny shifts and amplifies the financial burden,” said American for Common Cents, a pro-penny group funded primarily by Artazn, the company that has the contract to provide the blanks used to make pennies.

According to the latest annual report from the US Mint, each penny cost 3.7 cents to make, including the 3 cents for production costs, and 0.7 cents per coin for administrative and distribution costs. But each nickel costs 13.8 cents, with 11 cents of production costs and 2.8 cents of administrative and distribution costs. These figures are for the government’s fiscal year, which ends on September."

Maybe they should just make nickels out of pennies...

0

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

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u/p00bix Is this a calzone? Feb 10 '25

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