Senate - "Abandon the Penny"

[ZenOps]

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Abandon+penny+Senate+finance+committee+says/3976892/story.html

Not official, but the Senate has put down their recommendation to abolish the penny.

Copper is now over 25 cents per ounce, probably due entirely to the US fiat money being increasingly worthless. Stocks suck, because if a loaf of bread costs 3 Billion US dollars, that 5% you made in buying a US stock to recieve money back in US dollars when sold - will seem pretty silly.

My advice: Hoard hoard hoard! They might be making dollar value quarters and then loonies with copper before the next decade is up.

Copper, Silver, and Gold. Videogames know what real currency is.

http://www.coinflation.com/canada/ 3 cent pennies next week.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Something has value only because we as a society have placed value in it, or it can do something for us. The difference between a piece of paper, a gold brick, and an electronic bank statement is only that 1/3 of these can be used to smash someone's skull in.


Most pennies in circulation these days are primarily zinc.

[Guillermo]

Originally posted by ZenOps
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Abandon+penny+Senate+finance+committee+says/3976892/story.html

Not official, but the Senate has put down their recommendation to abolish the penny.

Copper is now over 25 cents per ounce, probably due entirely to the US fiat money being increasingly worthless. Stocks suck, because if a loaf of bread costs 3 Billion US dollars, that 5% you made in buying a US stock to recieve money back in US dollars when sold - will seem pretty silly.

My advice: Hoard hoard hoard! They might be making dollar value quarters and then loonies with copper before the next decade is up.

Copper, Silver, and Gold. Videogames know what real currency is.

http://www.coinflation.com/canada/ 3 cent pennies next week.

you're going to end up being one of those old crazy homeless guys who walks around in a sandwich board reading "THE END IS NEAR," aren't you?

[suen17]

Originally posted by NuclearPizzaMan
Most pennies in circulation these days are primarily zinc.

Since 2000, pennies are 94% steel. Zinc was only in play 1997-1999.

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/1-cent-5300004#1_1

EDIT:

Just looked it up, from 2000 onwards, pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters are all mainly made of steel. Precious metals, i.e. zinc, copper, nickel are marginally used, with the exception of the loonie and the toonie.

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Originally posted by suen17


Since 2000, pennies are 94% steel. Zinc was only in play 1997-1999.

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/1-cent-5300004#1_1

100% correct. Perhaps when I am stealing facts from wiki I should read them completely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_%28Canadian_coin%29

[BigMass]

Originally posted by Guillermo


you're going to end up being one of those old crazy homeless guys who walks around in a sandwich board reading "THE END IS NEAR," aren't you?
http://www.eatsleepgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/168646014_214cdc5ac4.jpg

[BigMass]

Originally posted by ZenOps
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Abandon+penny+Senate+finance+committee+says/3976892/story.html

Not official, but the Senate has put down their recommendation to abolish the penny.

Copper is now over 25 cents per ounce, probably due entirely to the US fiat money being increasingly worthless. Stocks suck, because if a loaf of bread costs 3 Billion US dollars, that 5% you made in buying a US stock to recieve money back in US dollars when sold - will seem pretty silly.

My advice: Hoard hoard hoard! They might be making dollar value quarters and then loonies with copper before the next decade is up.

Copper, Silver, and Gold. Videogames know what real currency is.

http://www.coinflation.com/canada/ 3 cent pennies next week.

it's actually a good idea for those with limited funds. Go to the bank and grab rolls of pennies and sift through them. Canadian pennies are great because they were made of mostly copper quiet late on so it's easy to find. Any left over you just take back. You can try the same with dimes and quarters for the silver, but those are picked through to a far greater extent

[speedog]

Apparently, a silver Canadian quarter is now worth about $4.00 in it's weight in silver - biggest problem is that you have to break the law to get at that $4.00.

[Xtrema]

Let's do away with both nickel and penny.

And turn quarter into 1/2 dollar.

[speedog]

Funny as Canada already has half dollars available - they're called a 50 cent piece.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by speedog
Funny as Canada already has half dollars available - they're called a 50 cent piece.

But no machine will take it.

If we are trying to get rid of cents, let's do it right. All the coin mechanism changes for vending machines and such ain't cheap.

[Jay911]

When I spent 3 weeks in Australia over the summer/fall, it took several days for me to realize that they didn't have any pennies. Their financial transactions weren't any harder to get done than anywhere else.

Then again, they also list their after-tax price for everything, so you don't have to calculate GST and/or PST or whatever the hell else there might be. If it says something is $13.45, it's $13.45.

[ZenOps]

It may not be such a crazy idea.

If you hoareded silver dimes and quarters back in 1967, they would now be worth 17.7x their face value (Actually you could have hoarded all the way into the mid-70s as they were still circulating well into that period)

Thats 43 years for 17.7x return. Nowadays, with any stock - you would be lucky to get a 2x return in 20 years. If you invested in Citibank or Bank of America, its more like lose 10x in one devastating month.

I know people who are happy to get a 2x return on a house over 40 years... Crazy people.

[adam c]

Originally posted by ZenOps
It may not be such a crazy idea.

If you hoareded silver dimes and quarters back in 1967, they would now be worth 17.7x their face value (Actually you could have hoarded all the way into the mid-70s as they were still circulating well into that period)

Thats 43 years for 17.7x return. Nowadays, with any stock - you would be lucky to get a 2x return in 20 years. If you invested in Citibank or Bank of America, its more like lose 10x in one devastating month.

I know people who are happy to get a 2x return on a house over 40 years... Crazy people.

right cause everyone on beyond was alive back then

[ZenOps]

Hey, if you want to save for a kids future right now... A pure copper penny could easily be worth a dollar (sooner than anyone might think)

If your grandfather was foolish enough to store away a $100 paper bill under his mattress for his kid, then you would have $100 today. If he had converted it to coinage - $1770. Both are considered to be legal tender.

The "ING guy" will say give your $50 a month to me, and I will make you 2% interest a year (maybe) I say - buy 5,000 copper pennies.

Even otherwise educated people in the US will risk their lives to steal copper electrical wiring, that alone should be an indicator of where things are going.

The US has 8,000 tons of gold reserves, which sounds like a lot - but when you compare it to the US dollar and the amount they owe it really only works out to be a little over a half years worth of interest payments.

If you don't want to break Canadian law, hoard US pennies. You are alllowed to export $100 a day legally. Although copper pennies in the US are quite rare compared to Canada.

[e36bmw///]

nm

[e36bmw///]

nm

[ZenOps]

Old Quarters are over 5 grams (technically supposed to be a around a quarter of an ounce, but more like a fifth.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_quarter

Its actually closer to $4.50 cdn per silver quarter. (80% silver)

2.33 grams is a dime (technically supposed to be 1/10th of an ounce, but not quite)

Just like everything else, they shrink in size and metal value with time and a hyperinflated dollar.

A Metal Yuan is actually appreciating in metal value.

[Supa Dexta]

The time you waste posting this shit you could go work a part time job and make more then you do off your stupid ideas.

[ZenOps]

Originally posted by e36bmw///



First. Are you saying that US currency is backed by gold??

Second. Just because you can export $100 of coins into Canada, doesnt mean you can melt them. It's still against the law.

Its illegal to melt a Canadian coin in Canada. In the US, it was legal to melt pennies and nickels all the way to Dec 2006.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-12-14-melting-ban-usat_x.htm

US currency is not backed by gold, I already mentioned that if the US sold all its gold it would be able to pay about 6-7 months worth of interest on the debt it owes - nevermind covering the debt itself or the ridiculous amount of circulating fiat currency.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/08/gold-standard-zoellick-markets-currencies-g20-dollar-world-bank.html

Not that I would necessarily melt a penny. Hyperinflation scenario: $3 Billion paper dollars in trade for a loaf of bread, or one pound of copper in trade for a loaf of bread. Copper has inherent value, paper does not, electronic money is even worse than paper as you are at the whims of some banker who can add or subtract $600 Billion with a keystroke and presidential approval.

[Tomaz]

Huh... Now I understand why my mother keeps a large bag of quarters hidden in the house!

[texasnick]

Originally posted by Jay911
When I spent 3 weeks in Australia over the summer/fall, it took several days for me to realize that they didn't have any pennies. Their financial transactions weren't any harder to get done than anywhere else.


Yup, they just round up or down. Sometimes you win, sometimes the store wins. It was a very simple system and seemed to work just fine.

[ZenOps]

Technically.. If noone melted down or ever lost a penny or went to the US or China: Every single Canadian in Canada - should have over 600 pennies stored somewhere.

Its a very nice cushion for when the US dollar castastrophically fails. $6 worth of insurance.

[BigMass]

Originally posted by texasnick


Yup, they just round up or down. Sometimes you win, sometimes the store wins. It was a very simple system and seemed to work just fine.

there is no rounding, winners or losers. You set your price to a 5 cent mark and include the taxes. So what you see is what you pay. Then at the end of the year when the store does its taxes, it calculates to the penny and pays through their bank account.

[BigMass]

The ability to melt coins is not even import because you’re holding silver as a store of value not to use later on in industry. You know how much silver is in a quarter and that’s where your value store is. It’s like buying a 9999 pure silver coin. It’s almost irrelevant that it’s 9999 because you’re not going to melt it down anyway. Krugerrands were the original bullion coin and they are only 22k. The only reason you care about purity, and bullion type is due to stupid government laws regarding taxation.

[dirtsniffer]

fuck pennies, we should have gotten rid of them years ago.
this thread is way off course. Does anyone here actually think pennies serve any purpose in the canadian economy?

[mazdavirgin]

Originally posted by BigMass


it's actually a good idea for those with limited funds. Go to the bank and grab rolls of pennies and sift through them. Canadian pennies are great because they were made of mostly copper quiet late on so it's easy to find. Any left over you just take back. You can try the same with dimes and quarters for the silver, but those are picked through to a far greater extent

Melting or destroying currency carries a VERY substantial amount of jail time...

[BigMass]

Originally posted by mazdavirgin


Melting or destroying currency carries a VERY substantial amount of jail time...

What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

[ZenOps]

I don't think the majority of people melt them either.

Its too expensive, the fuel on a small smelter would out simply outweigh the crappy ingot you would get.

The penny is already in near perfect form. I bet you could use it as straight currency in other countries (much like you can use no dollar denomination 1 ounce Silver Maple Leaves as currency where you definitely cannot pay with a piece of paper.)

[texasnick]

Originally posted by BigMass


there is no rounding, winners or losers. You set your price to a 5 cent mark and include the taxes. So what you see is what you pay. Then at the end of the year when the store does its taxes, it calculates to the penny and pays through their bank account.

That depends on where you go and what you use to pay. I worked in NSW for about 6 months 2 years ago. When you buy fuel, how are you going to round to the nearest 5c on the pump? It is most certainly rounded to the nearest 5c.

It's called Swedish rounding and it has been in use in Australia for decades. Just because you went there on vacation for 3 weeks and didn't buy anything that had a price that wasn't a multiple of 5c doesn't mean that's not what they do over there.

[BigMass]

Originally posted by texasnick


That depends on where you go and what you use to pay. I worked in NSW for about 6 months 2 years ago. When you buy fuel, how are you going to round to the nearest 5c on the pump? It is most certainly rounded to the nearest 5c.

It's called Swedish rounding and it has been in use in Australia for decades. Just because you went there on vacation for 3 weeks and didn't buy anything that had a price that wasn't a multiple of 5c doesn't mean that's not what they do over there.

fair enough. point taken