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I am 100% in favor of getting rid of the penny. Heck, we could probably get rid of everything south of the quarter, and I’d be happy.<\/p>\nFirst of all, WTF penny? Go away. I am 100% in favor of getting rid of the penny. Heck, we could probably get rid of everything south of the quarter, and I’d be happy.<\/p>\n
Ok, so the main reasons people keep giving for wanting to hang onto the $1 bill are that it’s cheaper to make, and it’s more convenient. First of all, $1 coins are crazy cheaper in the long run. $1 bills are technically “cheaper” to make, but coins last much longer, making them a lot more economical. That’s the whole reason the treasury would prefer to make the switch, and why they are advertising the coins.<\/p>\n
Though a coin costs about three times as much to produce as a bill, it will circulate for an average of 30 years<\/strong>, whereas a dollar bill lasts 22 months<\/strong>, and for the last few of those, has all the charm of a grimy, germy handkerchief. In 2002, the United States General Accounting Office (now called the Government Accountability Office)* said we’d save $500 million a year in production costs if we shifted to coins; another GAO document puts the savings even higher, at $747.5 million.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Convenience is all a matter of personal opinion, but I would much rather keep a few coins on hand for things like vending machines, parking, tolls, laundry, and car washes. Getting those things to take $1 bills is sheer torture, if they take them at all. I understand that men don’t carry a purse. Fine. But you have these things called “pockets” where you already carry the rest of your change.<\/p>\n
The catch is, people have to use them. Surveys suggest that the public prefers keeping the bill, by margins that vary widely from poll to poll, but the chief hold-up is habit. Shoppers won’t use dollar coins till they see businesses taking them; businesses won’t use them until banks give them out routinely; and the banks aren’t going to invest in infrastructure changes, like new coin-counting machines, until they see the public using the coins. Everyone’s waiting for someone else to move first.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But overall, I guess this response proves my point. Until they stop making $1 bills, people aren’t going to use the coins. Most people are
sheep<\/del> creatures of habit, so as I said before, the only way to get the $1 coin accepted is to stop printing $1 bills.<\/p>\n
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