Cents-less

So, we no longer make cents. Minting of pennies ended last year in the U.S. since it cost about four cents to make one of them. I felt a little sad; I have been collecting them since I was a kid. Also, it may mean making more nickels (worth five of something that is destined for extinction) which cost about 14 cents to mint. Is the nickel next?

However, it seems that the value of something is not just its price but rather, its utility. For example, our new cars are no longer worth what we paid for them as soon as they leave the dealer’s lot, but that’s not why we buy them. We buy them for transportation as well as status in some cases.

Pennies were once useful currency and changed hands millions of times over during their lifetimes. In the past, I could actually buy something with a single penny, such as gum from a gumball machine. Five pennies bought a small candy bar, and ten pennies a soda, or entrance to the municipal pool. But now their value has dropped to the point that they are hardly worth picking up; hence they have lost their utility, especially in the modern era of electronic payment.

So, I guess it makes sense to drop the cents and the nickel will soon follow, no doubt, but next time the clerk asks if it is ok to round up to the nearest whatever, I just might reply, “How about rounding down for a change?” (Pun intended of course.)

#pennies #value #utility #nickel #roundingdown