No Pennies After 2011… Really?
It went over the blogosphere over the last month that the US Mint would be stopping production of pennies altogether in April 2011…
My son’s Kindergarten teacher even told their class that pennies were no longer going to be minted after next year.
The argument is that it is more expensive to make pennies than pennies are worth.
I completely believed this. My son did too. My husband did too.
And then we were all informed by my son’s Kindergarten teacher that it had been an April Fool’s Joke… (and she had believed it too).
I felt really dumb, I must say.
Getting rid of the penny? How can we get rid of the penny? But then I looked into it… and it makes some sense.
According to Wikipedia– “As of March 2008, it costs about 1.7 cents to mint a penny. Now that the price of the raw materials exceeds the face value, there is a risk that coins will be illegally melted down for raw materials.”
AND- “With the average wage in the U.S. being about $17 per hour in 2006, it takes about two seconds to earn one cent. Thus, it is not worthwhile for most people to deal with a penny. If it takes only two seconds extra for each transaction that uses a penny, the cost of time wasted in the U.S. is about $3.65 per person annually, about $1 billion for all America. Using a different calculation economist Robert Whaples estimates a $300 million annual loss.”
PLUS- “Pennies are not accepted by all vending machines or toll booths, and pennies are generally not accepted in bulk. In addition, people often do not use cents to pay at all; they may simply use larger denominations and get pennies in return. Pennies end up sitting in jars and are not in circulation. Economist Greg Mankiw says that ‘The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but… the penny no longer serves that purpose’.”
AND- Prices would not be higher — “Research by Robert Whaples, an economics professor at Wake Forest University, using data on nearly 200,000 transactions from a multi-state convenience store chain shows that rounding would have virtually no effect. Consumers would gain a tiny amount – about 1/40th of a cent per transaction.”
PLUS, and us moms know this- “The reduced-cost clad zinc penny, which has been produced since mid-1982, holds additional dangers when swallowed by children and others, unlike all previous U.S. coins. If the copper plating is breached, the penny quickly corrodes into a sharp-edged object, which is more likely to lodge in the digestive tract. Injury is more likely and furthermore, zinc and copper digested from the lodged pennies may be toxic. A five kilogram dog was fatally poisoned by swallowing two pennies.”
And One More thing- Did you know that in 2002 bills went through Congress to try to eliminate the PENNY?
A Penny For Your Thoughts?
Or should I Say,
A Nickel?
Happy HCYH Day !!!!!
From one Mom to another…
Today is National ‘HOLY CRAP YOU’RE HOT’ Day!
Send this to someone gorgeous,
but don’t send it back to me,
I’ve been getting this message all freakin’ day!
Helping Police Widow Expecting Triplets
Less than a month ago I wrote this post about a mother who is now a widow.
Melissa Ayala lost her husband, a Montgomery County Police Officer, last month and is expecting triplets next month.
She has now registered at Buy Buy Baby.
And you can view her registry directly here.
The wonderful people at Graco are donating
3 car seats to Melissa for her triplets
on behalf of Graco and DC Metro Moms!
Let’s work together to help this mom out,
Please consider getting her something from her registry.
Peace.
Quotable Friday
In Honor of Mother’s Day this weekend, one of my favorite mother quotes of all time-
“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people,
promptly announces she never did care for pie.”
~Tenneva Jordan
“I see… Andrew McCarthy!”
So I recently wrote about Jake Ryan vs. Blane McDonough…
Forget who Blane is? One guess-
“What about Prom Blane?! What about Prom!”
Yeah, Jake’s so much cooler.
Since then, everywhere I look I see a John Hughes movie or something related… it’s getting weird. And then it happened…
I was Googling Blane McDonough to see where my blog article came up, while I’m flipping through channels and I stop on Lifetime Movie Network because I see the title, ‘Straight From The…’ and I’m wondering, ‘Straight from the what? Straight from the Gut?… the Other Side of the World… Straight from the Heart?’ So I stop on it and…
THERE HE IS… It’s a close-up of… ANDREW MCCARTHY !!!!!!
Andrew McCarthy was on the screen as I’m Googling BLANE MCDONOUGH…
How weird is that??!!
Even my husband gasped and said, “Andrew McCarthy!”
I feel like the little boy, ‘I see dead people,’ in The Sixth Sense.
… I just bought a lottery ticket.
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I Was In The 2012 Show !
Check Out …
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Nicole’s Book
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