It goes without saying (but obviously I’m about to say it anyway, bless my little heart) of course, Major D, that I absolutely share your love of and nostalgia for the formerly ready chances to come across and thereby acquire “old time” circulating coinage, but as with so many other things we once took for granted, that pleasure has now pretty well disappeared.

All companies have money losers. Like those cheap TVs you get for black Friday. The dimes cost more to make but still cheaper than face value of the coin, same for the quarter. Pennies don’t disappear, most people put em in a jar or on dresser (My dad hated pennies, rather throw them out than keep in pocket) and they stay there.

With that out the way, there’s only a few options.
1.Get rid of physical money (which will never happen because of dirty politics) and go all digital.
2. Make it out of cheaper material (go back to steel cents or aluminum)
3. Round everything up or down to nearest 5 cent, but now nickel costs to much to make, so everything rounded to nearest 0. And $20.00 doesn’t sell products on tv at 3 A.M. like $19.99 does.
4. Make coin smaller using less metal. Diameter wise it might work, but thickness it’d bend
5. Scrap penny and nickel and make a 2 or 3 cent coin. Again, rounding required.
6. Strike coin in other mints closer to mines or more mints in order to reduce shipping costs
7. US Mint sell on Amazon and ship all their coin bags free.
8. Reduce mint worker salary
9. Keep coins same size and thickness, but remove material (don’t remove back of Lincoln’s head, too soon for that bad taste) but since it is over 200% cost, no way you can remove more than half the metals or material.

Some are viable, some are silly. But I don’t think there is an answer. Inflation will not allow for it. Cents were made at a time quarters and dollars were a much larger portion of a person’s wages. Then a cent was a dime compared to a dollar now being 10 dollars. Prime example, in the 40s and 50s you could pay less than 15 cent and watch movies all day in a theater. Today you can barely see one movie for under $10. So at the time it was a safe bet that they could make around100 pennies for 1 cent. So the mint made profits over those years. If they didn’t invest the profit wisely that is their problem. But gubmint never follows the rules for the peasants. If I wrote bad checks I go to jail. If I don’t have money I don’t get more credit when I can’t pay my bills. But gubmint can write checks with impunity. They don’t have to live within their means, and even if they apply for a loan or credit with everyone knowing they can’t pay the bill the banks do give them more. Good old Obama was the only president to spend so fast that America’s credit rating dropped not once, but downgraded twice. The only 2 times in history. So chase and other raised interest making tons of profit of it’s loans to America. And to rub salt in the wound, when the banks failed because of affirmative action (I mean predatory loans) housing crashed (who knew) the gubmint bailed out the banks, at a higher interest.
Regarding the blimps, I do not recall seeing any blimps at football games this year. I seen Goodrich a handful of times in almost 50 years. I am surprised the cartels haven’t bought them to ferry their people in. Maybe scared Buydem will shoot em down for the tough image it’d generate.

But all this will be moot. Joe “highest bidder” Buydem (votes) will ensure a war with Russia or China or both and all those metals will go into the war machine. In case you missed it, Big Guy thinks he’s the second coming of Roosevelt. Taking all his ideas and just putting green in front of it. Want to bring manufacturing back to America, well that is expensive and it takes time to do environmental studies and get zoning. But start a war and people will beg with all that is patriotic to get it done no matter what (remember the patriot act where people gave up privacy and now sue everyday because of their invasion of privacy). So the companies will get building built with gubmint funds and not have to play by environmental rules or codes. And brand new factories will pop up tooled specially for planes, tanks, guns, and whatever else. America has no factories to retool quickly, most are now in China, except for Ford and chevy and John deere. They got free gubmint money for bailouts and they rebuilt in Mexico. China also outnumber us 10 to 1 so they can build way faster. It won’t be US vs a small island nation (japan) and small country the size of Georgia (germany) in a race to build planes, and munitions where America had the huge advantage. Now it’s BRICS. All which are much larger in size and population and coincidentally resources. We can’t build cars. Semiconductor shortage. Don’t have the metals. So no way we have material for advanced f35 or new tanks, and the strikers we used always had issues. Shortage of pilots. Nobody wants to join the military. Much fewer can pass both tests to get in. The physical fitness to stay in or pass basic, or the ASVAB. And with Saudi Arabia and Iran and other oil rich nations leaving the petrol dollar it’ll be harder to get fuel for those vehicles and rockets. Luckily buden is selling our reserve hand over fist (trying to create a crisis to scare everyone into buying electric… FYI UK is switching back to gas cars because of issues… imagine a small island nation that can’t keep a car charged for daily needs, but somehow America with same cars available will miraculously drive way further) and when the time comes, all those gas executives he keeps going after and targeted day 1 in office are going to hold him for ransom before they drill more, or build another refinery.

Good thing we have all those illegals that’ll fight to earn their place here. What do you mean they are fighting refugees like our forefathers? It ain’t like they get free healthcare, and a living stipend, and pay no taxes, amd qualify for minority loans, and get free education just for breaking a law. They’ll show their appreciation for accepting them from the dangerous world they left for better jobs. I mean they fought valiantly until they had no choice but to flee. They stood up to cartel and corrupt gubmint. They left that war torn country and entered America carrying American flags in appreciation for our help and love. Wait, you mean they fled their country for fear of death and entered America proudly waving their homeland flag, while burning the American flag because they claim we are all racist.
As I think of it. Going back to all the ww2 documentaries and talks and discussions and history lessons, I recall the role blacks took once Eleanor roosevelt told hubby to let em fight. I remember them talking about the Japanese that were rounded up and put into American penal systems, bit some were uses to fight. I recall the native Americans who were windtalkers. But I cannot recall any time a conversation or a test or anything spoke of how those that were being targeted factored into victory. I know they didn’t carry huge flags as they fled to neighboring countries. They did have flags (star of David) on their arms but that wasn’t their choice. I know they were forced to build factories and vehicles and everything else for their oppressors, but no mention of an all Jewish fighter squadron. No Rosie the Rivoter version of them on posters. It is as if they didn’t fight for themselves or for the countries helping them either. Odd.

Now Ukraine is a different story. The women and kids fled, the dudes stayed and fought. With rocks and sticks and bare hands. Now they have all of NATOs best weapons at hand. Except for our US soldiers of course. They tasted freedom and never want to go back. It is worth fighting and dying for. It is their home. Zelensky is their George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. The Ukrainians are the continental army. The patriots. They have presented russia with their declaration of independence. Now, like Jefferson and Franklin, Z is touring the world looking for investors and suppliers. Even had big guy fly into a war zone to declare biden would suck his rooster until the final drop (of blood… what you think it was going to be you dirty mind) hits his chin. No matter how much American taxpayers suffer.
Sure you may lose social security and no longer get Medicare, but they can sleep better at night. Biden will build a taller wall around his home for free.

Final thought. Good Ole Obama went on an ammo buying spree. So much so that it was almost impossible to get rounds for months at a time, and if you did was limited to 1 box. It was to bolster military and law enforcement (defund the police my eye) cache. Some, if not a lot, went to cartels via Fast and Furious, other payloads arrived in middle east as paper weights for those pallets of cash he was dropping. But yet, here we are and the papers say russia can’t produce ammo, but neither can America keep up with supply. So no way penny will be made of brass now because we need for ammo. So even with a military budget that trumps the next what? 20 countries combined, we are behind. And guess who has the potash mines for gunpowder. Yup. Russia and China. Semiconductor. Yup Taiwan, which is China (for we all know treaty isn’t worth the paper it is printed on)

Basically, now would be a great time to convert all your dollars into rolls of pennies. Get lots of nickels too. And if not a lot of room, grab gold and silver and some aluminum (you’re gonna make a fortune selling custom made hats, just don’t make them too origami like as you could be deemed a symapthizer). Covid is over. Bin laden long gone. Russia and China are the new bogeyman. As they say, never let a crisis go to waste. And if they show us what they show us, I’m scared what the other hand is doing. Don’t be surprised if biden ships our border wall to Ukraine as a form of aid. Our elected officials don’t care for Americans. We only can pay so much in taxes. They are selling us so they can try to squeeze the other 7.6 billion people.

Borrowing an old phrase, to everything, Major D, there is a season.

I tend to look at it the other way around, which is that it is not the instruction that is at fault but rather the so-called students’ lack of any desire to learn anything worthwhile. Rooms full of texting, video game playing and blankly staring transfixed classes make for a nation of woefully undereducated citizens.

Cents can be eliminated with simple rounding, while nickels can either be made of cheaper alternative metals or also scrapped through the use of bigger rounding. In either and/or any case, Antonio, the world won’t end and you can always sell your old cents as antiques rather than contemporary coinage. 🙂

Canada rounds the value up or down to the nearest five cents. We could do that here, if only the quality of math taught in schools equaled the task.

Do away with pennies, but then you have the issue of Nickels. They also cost more than their face value. Where do we stop? Get rid of currency altogether? To whom will I sell my coins to if there’s no longer demand?

Businesses likely don’t give a hoot since the law is such that practically all of the tax dollars that pay for the over-priced cent come from the public anyway, and the public has trouble agreeing on how long their neighbor’s lawn should be allowed to get so there might be a certain lack of cohesiveness in that regard.