USA Today says dump the penny

"Joe Fischer" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:08:51 -0500, "Mr. Jaggers"
lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com wrote:

I don't know how current this is, but check this out:

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...bal_gasprices/

A lot of those don't look right, some too high, and
Brazil uses ethanol for most of the motor fuel uses, and
Puerto Rico is a US protectorate that surely has to pay
the same price as a US city near a refinery.

But it is certain that the countries that have the
higher prices will experience much greater inflation,
and this will be a disaster for some currencies.

It could also be a disaster for the US federal
budget, which has cost of living built into all pensions
and many payroll programs.

It certainly will be a disaster for the person who
has to commute or drive long distances, they will be
cleaning out piggy banks and selling collected coins
to buy gas.
Weeks ago there were stories on the news of
pawn shops having greatly increased activity, and
people were saying they had to pawn or sell things
to buy gas.

Joe Fischer


In the UK petrol is close to £1 a litre.

Would it not make more sense to buy a car that gets better MPG than sell a
coin collection? Billy

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:02:04 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

In the UK petrol is close to ñ a litre.

Please spell out the denomination, all I see is an n
with a ~ above it. Surely it is more than a Pound.

Would it not make more sense to buy a car that gets better MPG than sell a
coin collection? Billy

Definitely not. My cars get as poor mileage as any,
so I drive less, and try to use about 130 dollars a month max.

If I bought even a 10 year old peanut for $1000,
I would have to drive it 6000 miles just to break even.
A newer car gives the same results, ___UNLESS___
I were going to get a different car anyway.

It seems this would be a good time to car pool,
ride public transport, move closer to work, get a job
closer to home, or retire.

It is such a serious problem, the cent coin seems
like a trivial thing, I really am concerned about people
all over the world that need gasoline, and the only
possible result will be more rapid inflation unless
something is done.
Inflation hurts those who have money saved
the most, but it hurts everybody, and will hasten
the day when pensions with cost of living clauses
will have problems, especially US social security.

I need to be more money conscious, I am
now buying $10 worth of gas at a time, not only
to remind myself of the problem, but also to
reduce loss if somebody siphons my gas.

It looks like shortages will develop, so one
way to prepare is to save pennies.

Joe Fischer

Joe Fischer wrote:

Please spell out the denomination, all I see is an n
with a ~ above it. Surely it is more than a Pound.

It would be even better if he had an appropriate message header;
something like "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15" (well,
that is what I use). Most newsreaders insert such headers automatically.

But yes, AFAIK a little less than one pound (£1) per liter is right for
the UK. That would be approximately ¤1.45 or $1.80 ...

Christian

On Tue, lid (Christian Feldhaus) wrote:

Joe Fischer wrote:
Please spell out the denomination, all I see is an n
with a ~ above it. Surely it is more than a Pound.

But yes, AFAIK a little less than one pound (£1) per liter is right for
the UK. That would be approximately ¤1.45 or $1.80 ...
Christian

Well I assumed that the British still used the gallon,
and that the tilde n was some higher denomination. :-)

Nobody can afford even a dollar per liter, the
longer the world waits to object to the unreasonable
and unaffordable prices, the more money the producers
will have and will be less cooperative.

This type of think can be put in perspective
better if there is a cent and one that is fairly stable
over many years.

With all the dumb and crazy things the US
government blows Billions on, I don't see how anybody
can get emotional about the need to eliminate the cent.

To just accept any movement toward inflation
changes can only hasten inflation, but maybe that is
what many people want, not realizing the difficulties
inflation brings to everybody, and how the smallest
denomination and most struck coin in the world
is so important enough to be controversial is a
mystery.

Joe Fischer

In article , Joe Fischer
wrote:

On 18 Jul 2006 02:36:52 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

Then, why are so many of 'em worn way, way down? Didn't happen in the
vault. At least I hope it doesn't.

I think there was a time when silver dollars were
used a lot, but it was before the small dollar bills came out,
and possibly mostly before WWI.

I was given more silver dollars as a gift (birthday,
Christmas) than I ever received in a transaction.

I'll have to try to check number of dollar bills
printed after 1926 and compare that with the total
number of silver dollars minted.

In western movies they show coins being used,
but the era depicted was way before the 1930's.

In the early 20th century silver dollars mostly circulated in the West;
Texas, Montana, etc. In the more urban parts of the country people
used paper instead. I suppose if you look at the really worn dollars,
it might be that most of them are San Fancisco, Carson City or New
Orleans mintages.

Silver dollars seem to have circulated briefly in the old Confederacy
in the late 1800s, but it seems that a huge counterfeiting ring cranked
out so many fakes in the 1890s that it soured the folks there on the
habit.

Joe Fischer wrote:
On Tue, lid (Christian Feldhaus) wrote:


Joe Fischer wrote:

Please spell out the denomination, all I see is an n
with a ~ above it. Surely it is more than a Pound.

But yes, AFAIK a little less than one pound (£1) per liter is right for
the UK. That would be approximately ¤1.45 or $1.80 ...
Christian


Well I assumed that the British still used the gallon,
and that the tilde n was some higher denomination. :-)

Nope, the USofA is the *ONLY* country left in the World today (bigger than a
tiny speck island) that does not price petrol in litres.

And even before the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, etc, dumped their obsolete
volume unit for the litre, one could still not compare them with things here
in the USA - the British 'imperial' gallon was about 25% larger than the USA
version.

Anyways, there are approximately 3.785 litres in a USA gallon.

At todays's exchange rates:

1 pound/litre is about USA$6.89/USgallon (£1 = USA$1.8190)
1.50 euros/litre is about USA$7.11/USgallon (€1 = USA$1.2522)

Today, 87 octane petrol is USA$3.06/USgallon here in Appleton, WI.
That is USA$0.808/litre, €0.645/litre and £0.444/litre.

(€ = euro and £ = pound)

Nobody can afford even a dollar per liter, the
longer the world waits to object to the unreasonable
and unaffordable prices, the more money the producers
will have and will be less cooperative.

This type of think can be put in perspective
better if there is a cent and one that is fairly stable
over many years.

I'd *LOVE* to see the local petrol stations set their pumps to round the final
price to the nearest five cents as opposed to the nearest one cent as each
tiny little baby squeeze now gives two or three cents more fuel, making it
extremely hard to stop them at an exact dollar amount.

With all the dumb and crazy things the US
government blows Billions on, I don't see how anybody
can get emotional about the need to eliminate the cent.

To just accept any movement toward inflation
changes can only hasten inflation, but maybe that is
what many people want, not realizing the difficulties
inflation brings to everybody, and how the smallest
denomination and most struck coin in the world
is so important enough to be controversial is a
mystery.

When I checked an artical on the CNN website yesterday, about 2/3rds of their
poll respondants said 'dump the 'penny' (over 6000 had voted).

--
___________________________________________ ____ _______________
Regards, | |\ ____
| | | | |\
Michael G. Koerner May they | | | | | | rise again!
Appleton, Wisconsin USA | | | | | |
___________________________________________ | | | | | | _______________

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:14:45 -0500, "Michael G. Koerner"
wrote:

When I checked an artical on the CNN website yesterday, about 2/3rds of their
poll respondants said 'dump the 'penny' (over 6000 had voted).

I am in the 1/3rd.

Do any of them think of any possible consequences
other than not having to bother with the cents or the fact
that there would be a trillion pieces of scrap that the
government might have to deal with?

Making the cent no longer legal tender, and not
exchanging them for money might start another
confederacy. :-)

Doing away with them could cost more than
just stopping the presses.

Joe Fischer

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:02:27 GMT, George D wrote:

I have seen us, in the last 50 years, move closer and closer to big
brother and I am
against all of these removals of freedom.

You have an odd concept of "freedom". I'd suggest you save your
intensity and effort for _real_ threats to it; helmet and seat belts
aren't it.

It's not an odd concept of freedom. It's a deep, encompasing one. To you,
it may be easy to accept the government taking away bad choices from less
intelligent or less risk averse portions of the population. To some, it is
easy to accept anti-sodomy laws. To some, it is easy to accept sneek and
peek searches. To some, it is easy to accept random police roadblocks
seaching for whatever they may find. To some, it is easy to accept
anti-narcotics laws. To me, they are all unnecessary encroachments on an
individual's right to persue happiness as he or she sees fit. Aside of the
anti-sodomy laws, which are rarely enforced these days, we live with all of
those things and more, every day. It's not about whether seat belts are a
good idea or whether homosexuals should be allowed to have sex. It's about
whether the government should be allowed to force a decision. That is the
crux of freedom. Sometimes, when the freedom at issue concerns only some
"other" group, (like less intelligent or less risk averse motorcycle
riders), it's easy to take the freedom away. Sometimes, when the freedom at
stake is a moronically bad idea in the first place, (like not wearing you
seat belt), it's easy to take the freedom away. But every encroachment upon
personal liberty creates a less free society in which it is marginally
easier to allow deeper encroachment because the environment is marginally
more accepting.

It is best not to start in the first place.


IF


PS -- FWIW, it is that concept of freedom that I imagine when I see
"Liberty" on our coins.

In article writes:
....
Definitely not. My cars get as poor mileage as any,
so I drive less, and try to use about 130 dollars a month max.

Interesting, that is just about the amount of money I am spending on it.
But here it is over US$ 7 per gallon.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:15:53 -0400, Iagos Fool wrote:

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...

You have an odd concept of "freedom". I'd suggest you save your
intensity and effort for _real_ threats to it; helmet and seat belts
aren't it.

It's not an odd concept of freedom. It's a deep, encompasing one. To you,
it may be easy to accept the government taking away bad choices from less
intelligent or less risk averse portions of the population.

I'm also in favor of them fixing big holes in the road that might kill
me. I don't give a damn about some idiot getting brain damaged, in
terms of their own problem. Where it becomes my problem is when they
then go on the public expense account.

To some, it is
easy to accept anti-sodomy laws. To some, it is easy to accept sneek and
peek searches. To some, it is easy to accept random police roadblocks
seaching for whatever they may find.

Hardly the same thing as trying to prevent public expense for something
easily preventable.

To some, it is easy to accept
anti-narcotics laws.

Not going there.

To me, they are all unnecessary encroachments on an
individual's right to persue happiness as he or she sees fit. Aside of the
anti-sodomy laws, which are rarely enforced these days, we live with all of
those things and more, every day. It's not about whether seat belts are a
good idea or whether homosexuals should be allowed to have sex. It's about
whether the government should be allowed to force a decision. That is the
crux of freedom. Sometimes, when the freedom at issue concerns only some
"other" group, (like less intelligent or less risk averse motorcycle
riders), it's easy to take the freedom away. Sometimes, when the freedom at
stake is a moronically bad idea in the first place, (like not wearing you
seat belt), it's easy to take the freedom away. But every encroachment upon
personal liberty creates a less free society in which it is marginally
easier to allow deeper encroachment because the environment is marginally
more accepting.

Like I said, you also have an odd concept of what a "freedom" is. If
you're exerting any effort at all on this topic, I'd suggest you take
inventory of your other freedoms, prioritize them, and see which ones
are more important than the freedom to not buckle your seat belt. I
suspect it'll come in at the bottom of the list.

It is best not to start in the first place.

Great. So let's not fix big holes in the road then either, take your
chances. And let's tell people they're free not to pay property taxes -
after all, who needs a fire department? Let's opt out of paying taxes
for schools, because my kids are grown/in private school/whatever.
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. I don't need some brain-damaged
guy living for decades on title 19 because he "exercised his freedom" to
not wear a farking seatbelt.

And, for the record, I'm _damn sick_ of dragging those idiots out of car
wrecks.