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No Need for Pennies in Our Economy Essay

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Every day we buy things, and to purchase these items, most of us use credit cards or bills. Do we use pennies for virtually any transactions? The answer is no, we don’t. Consequently, the penny is far and away the least useful monetary value we have. Pennies are inefficient and should be cut out of the currency. The rationale behind this conclusion is simple: the price tag of minting a penny is more than one cent. Unfortunately for the penny, two other reasons prove that we require it no longer. The first reason is that not only will the removal of pennies make us more effective, it will drop prices similar to what happened in Australia and New Zealand when they abolished their “pennies”. The second is that we know that we do not need it …show more content…

Finally, who better to illustrate the need to abolish the penny than the very Department of Defense itself. In the Prairie News Register, David R. Carroll also explains, “It [Department of Defense] abolished the use of pennies... because pennies were considered ‘too heavy’ and ‘not cost-effective to ship’” (Para. 2). Military bases overseas simply round transactions to the nearest five-cent denomination. Overall, this leads to faster transactions and more productive environments. Because the world we live in is based on competence and speed, even the slightest boost to our organization will have major positive effects on society, and the pennies will give us that slight boost.

Unfortunately, some people believe that prices will rise in the event that the penny is discontinued, notwithstanding evidence to the contrary. Their reasoning being that businesses will have no incentive to drop prices, prices will not drop. In the rather unlikely event that this does happen, removing pennies will still be the better choice. According to “Penny Anti”, “On average, the customer will lose two and a half cents in each transaction. If someone engages in two such transactions per day, over a year they would lose $18.25 compared with the person given their pennies” (Para. 12). The person given their pennies would lose an estimated average of $50 in time due to pennies. Furthermore, the government loses approximately $100 million, making the

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