By Anthony Biondi (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 4, 2012
People have been talking about it all week, some even celebrating. All I know is that I’m not particularly happy. I mean, the penny may have been more of an annoyance than anything, but it is the single digit, a necessary piece in any calculation. I can’t have two cents without the penny.
And now that the penny has been revoked, we are going to be running into a few problems as it works its way out of the system. Most obviously, businesses and stores will have to round their numbers to the nearest five. This includes tax calculations, so there will be no more of the 99-cent marketing campaigns.
The unfortunate side of this is the inevitability of rounding up. The hike in prices will be minor, and in some cases miniscule, but it will still be a hike. In this day and age when prices have gone up enough already, another small hike may be just the wrong thing. This move is supposed to help the economy, but in some ways I think it will make it more difficult.
There is a major problem here. Digital banking and money that is dealt with digitally will still contain the penny, and won’t be rounded one way or the other. This won’t be much of a problem immediately, but with bank money and credit cards keeping track of a currency that no longer exists, it puts certain limitations on banking groups and card companies. A physical payout can never contain those imaginary cents, and banks will never want to just round up. This gives extra money to the banks and financial holders. Though not necessarily a bad thing, I’m afraid it may end up being more complicated than that in the future.
On a more positive note, my wallet will no longer have to deal with the frustration of those tiny copper coins. But is removing the penny solving the problem? We no longer need to produce them to make up for our own carelessness in losing so many in a year. However, the nickel may just take its place. The lowest value coin is always going to be the most tossed around. We may not have as many of them as pennies due to their slightly higher monetary value, but they will now carry the mentality of its copper cousin. Since prices have to round to compensate, the nickel has to fill the shoes of its predecessor. We didn’t lose an annoyance; we simply replaced it.
I have to wonder if the removal of the penny is going to save us. It may save us money in the short run, but where do we end up later on? The world is a global market now. The rest of the world will still be giving us single units of change. We will still have to deal with the penny on a regular basis, and that’s only going to get harder now that it’s just a theoretical concept. These are only just the beginnings to the problem of losing the penny. It was a good idea in theory, but in the end I think we just shot ourselves in the foot.
