The dollar doesn't have 100 pennies like Sarah McBride doesn't have the Y chromosome

 

Literally the very last line in this story

 Trump announces plan to stop making new pennies, citing production costs

 In the U.S., discontinuing the penny entirely may require congressional approval.

I got Elon Musk's Grok to admit that the penny underpins the dollar system and allows it to be more precise, and that for saving $192 million on annual penny production, reprogramming all the accounting software would conservatively cost $5.5 billion LOL

Eliminating the penny would take only 28.6 years to pay for itself ha ha ha ha ha.

 

The cash consumer will pay the cost of the Trump-Musk penny-elimination gambit: Is it the harbinger of a coming cashless tyranny?

"The Amish have been galvanised to head to the polls and turn the battle ground red."

 

The little guy voted for Trump, so naturally Trump is going to screw the little guy, the Amish in particular.

And not mentioned in the story below is the deep resistance to eliminating cash among the denizens of America's survivalist communities. They see this as a control issue, and a potential threat to freedom because you control the cash in your pocket, but not the digital currency in your account. Cross the authorities somehow, and your account can be wiped out with a keystroke.

We already have experienced lawful gun owners and gun businesses being de-banked over gun ownership, among other culture war issues contested by liberal elites using economic coercion.

Meanwhile The UniParty has devalued the 1913 dollar to three cents. If you've only got one, eliminating the penny means you've now got bupkis.

How does the observation go? It's always the Republicans who actually advance the liberalism which the people resist when the Democrats are in control.

Every. Damn. Time.

 

To the extent rounding up occurs more frequently than rounding down, cash consumers would be paying the price for the cost efficiency Trump and Musk are seeking, said Ajay Patel, a professor of finance at Wake Forest University School of Business. ...

. . . people at the bottom of the economic ladder will probably feel the penny pinch the most.

“The individuals paying for this benefit will be those who purchase products and services using cash and will continue to do so going forward because they are either unbanked or unable to access debit or credit cards or a digital wallet,” Patel said. ...

Laura Maike, of Burton, Ohio, notes that the Amish will feel the pinch right now.

“Here in Northeast Ohio’s Amish country, we still use pennies regularly,” Maike said of her area, which includes thousands of generally cash-using Amish. “How would this work for cash-only transactions? It would be impossible to give exact change as the purchaser or seller.”

More.

 

Mad King Ludwig bans the penny

 

Congress has the exclusive power to coin money and regulate its value, not the president, according to the US Constitution.

But since all coin and currency is worthless, thanks to Congress, does it really matter anymore?

The thieving Roman emperors infamously diluted the value of coinage from time to time by reducing the amount of gold and silver contained in the coins. 

Since we had real money once upon a time, our founders didn't want one man potentially messing with the money, so they put Congress in charge, because they really did think a president could become a tyrant.

But our perfect, holy founders who supposedly thought of everything never anticipated that the Congress itself would become the thieving bastards, the naifs.

The 1913 dollar is now worth three measly cents, but even that Mad King Ludwig will now take away.

If we were a free people, we wouldn't put up with this.

The principle remains, even if the circumstances have changed.

 Trump takes aim at ‘wasteful’ government spending by ordering end to penny production

But at least one analyst on Wall Street expects that the penny’s days are numbered. TD Cowen’s Jaret Seiberg said the halt will [be] likely to pass judicial review, leading to a shortage in the coin.

“We believe this order would survive judicial review, which is why this is likely to occur,” Seiberg wrote on Monday. “We worry about this leading to a shortage of pennies, which could force merchants to pay banks more for coins. It also adds legal risk for merchants and banks. That could create the crisis needed to force Congress to act.”

 

2009 Circulating Coin Production Totaled $601,492,000

A total of 3.548 billion coins were minted for 2009 circulation, according to US Mint figures here:

$23.54 million in 2.354 billion pennies

$4.332 million in 86.64 million nickels

$14.6 million in 146 million dimes

$133.48 million in 533.92 million quarters

$1.9 million in 3.8 million halves

$423.64 million in an equal number of dollar coins.