The United States Postal Service has announced that the cost of a first class stamp will be rising to 44 cents.44 freaking cents. That's up from the equally mind-boggling stupid price of 43 cents. WTF?
Why didn't the simply make it 45 cents? It won't cost us that much more per year to mail in our tax refund checks, and it should mean that the USPS can go that much longer before they raise the rate again. Or maybe they could even return to 6 day delivery.
So why don't they do it? Because some turd-for-brains congress critters are protecting the penny. And it's costing us a lot of pennies.
Pennies, in case you didn't know, cost us taxpayers more than their face value to manufacture. And the only things you can spend them on are stamps and taxes.
It's not much, this extra cost, but every four pennies cost five cents to make. And because you can't buy anything for a penny, you end up with wads of them in your pockets, received as change for every single purchase you make. You try to spend them, but every other entity on the planet rounds their costs up to the nearest nickel. So 3 pennies becomes 9 pennies becomes 27 pennies, and so on.
Eventually, it's like a jingling copper-plated tumor on your thigh. You can't pay tolls with it, you can't put it in the vending machine or the parking meter (itself a crime against the taxpayer; your elected officials are charging you for parking in a space that your tax dollars bought and paid for, but that's another diatribe.).
You can't even buy a gumball for a penny anymore.
So what do you do? You dump them out somewhere; a cup or a jar, and you shove it into a corner. Maybe you use a coffee can of pennies to prop open a door. Or it just sits in the garage, next to all the other crap you can't bear to throw away, but won't bring into the house.What happens? The cashier runs out of pennies. Businesses complain that they are taking a loss, and the US Mint makes MORE pennies.
The US One Cent Piece: a Monument to Taxes and Government Excess.
I actually throw them away sometimes, or purposely drop them for children to find. They also make good ballast for putting a bottle of water in the toilet tank to reduce water waste. You say you can actually spend them? Hmm, never thought of that. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOops, forgot I was still logged in to my podcast mail account. That was me above.
ReplyDeletePennies cost 1.4 cents each to coin. Our government actually loses money by making money.
ReplyDeleteSo lets make them out of something else. I never have any problen spending my pennies. Perhaps you have stopped ingaging in commerce with actual people, like at a cash register. Myself, I rarely use vending machines (WAY to expensive!). Frankly I believe once you lose the penny it won't be long before the dollar is like a yen. How about $100 for a burger!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing you can spend pennies on are taxes and stamps.
ReplyDeleteIf that's what you need to buy, then I guess I can see clinging to these expensive little tokens.
BTW, the cost of a penny is due not to the material, but the costs of fabrication.