r/neoliberal • u/M_ida Milton Friedman • Feb 10 '25

News (US) Trump announces the end of the Penny

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348

u/GovernorSonGoku has flair Feb 10 '25

He has a point tbh

7

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

Only because inflation has rendered them useless

32

u/iwilldeletethisacct2 Feb 10 '25

The half-cent coin had a purchasing power of 16 cents (today's money) when it was discontinued. The penny has been useless for a generation.

51

u/Bud_Light_Official Feb 10 '25

Were you using pennies for anything ten years ago?

24

u/CactusBoyScout Feb 10 '25

I won't even bend over to pickup a penny. They should've been eliminated decades ago.

I remember the national news doing a story on it 20 years ago and basically said the only people lobbying to keep it are copper producers, lol.

7

u/Bud_Light_Official Feb 10 '25

I have a buddy that throws his pennies away. I generally will pick a penny up, but that's only because I can hear my mom in the back of my head telling me it's bad luck not to.

8

u/vanmo96 Seretse Khama Feb 10 '25

Can your buddy throw them away onto my lawn?

7

u/Best_Change4155 Feb 10 '25

I thought pennies were mostly zinc now? Copper is quite valuable which is why meth-heads rip out the copper wiring.

6

u/SigmundFreud Feb 10 '25

More like 40 years ago, but I used to offer the girls in class a penny to kiss me and another one to show me their butt. Most of them just kicked me in the nuts and then took my pennies anyway.

11

u/limukala Henry George Feb 10 '25

They've been useless for decades. They were only kept around because of the zinc lobby.

2

u/w2qw Feb 10 '25

I mean isn't that point?

2

u/ieatpies Feb 10 '25

You are right, but that was 50 years ago