Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand—Brian Greenspun: Save those pennies

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

POOR OLD Ben Franklin. He's the guy who has told us through the centuries that a penny saved is a penny earned.

And now the United States Congress is considering doing away with that very penny, which has formed the bedrock of investment strategy in the United States. If you save your pennies, the dollars will add up. And if you add up enough dollars in your lifetime, you'll have little need for Social Security and other government assistance.

So goes the theory that Mr. Franklin would have espoused, had he known that the baby boomers would come along and threaten to end Social Security as we know it. Incidentally, Ben Franklin wouldn't have a clue what I am talking about right now because programs like Social Security not only didn't exist, but couldn't have been contemplated in 18th century America.

But back to the penny. There is a move afoot -- not the first one -- to remove from the U.S. Mint the obligation to continue to produce the copper and zinc coins that have been a rock-solid part of the American currency system since 1787. Since that time the U.S. government has produced some 130 billion little pennies with 10 percent of that amount being minted just last year. That's a lot of zinc and copper and tons of extra weight for men and women to be carrying around just to fulfill a monetary system that includes the virtually worthless coin of the realm.

That's why Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe wants to do away with the need to reproduce the Abraham Lincoln-headed nuisances. Instead, he would allow merchants and others to round up all of America's purchases, presumably to the nearest nickel or, perhaps, to the nearest dime, and forgo the need for wealthy America to carry that which carries little interest and far too much weight to create a hue and cry against this latest movement.

I think if Mr. Franklin were alive today he might say "Stop!" That makes my two cents plain necessary.

First, let me join the chorus of complainers in this great and abundant country of ours who believe that pennies are a nuisance. They add very little in value to our commercial system and take up too much room in our pockets and purses. They also create too much clinking and clanking to allow us to stealthily make our way through everyday life. There is no place to really put them at the end of the day and nobody, except the cashiers who constantly run short endeavoring to please the tax man, wants to see them. And they can buy nothing or very close to it in today's marketplace. In short, they are virtually worthless!

So, you ask, why not join Congressman Kolbe and his effort to rid ourselves of these nuisances that cost as much to make as they presumably are worth? Why not order their demise forthwith and go to a system in which nickels reign supreme and pennies are relegated to the scrapheap of history? Why not consign the mighty penny to the place where silver dollars went and cannot make it back?

There are any number of answers. Mine is simple. Because.

Because there is no need to do anything so dramatic. Pennies are a pain in the neck. About that there is no doubt. But it is the reason for them that really causes us to double-think their continued justification. And that's the tax man who sees fit to charge percentages of dollars that can't possibly be rounded out to anything but single-cent pieces. The retailers would be just as happy to charge us a round number for our purchases and forgo the need to collect Uncle Sam's portion, which invariably breaks down in the single-cents range. Rather than pay an extra penny to the government, most people would rather put their pennies in the charity boxes, which are located most conveniently at every check-out stand in the country.

Doing away with them will probably save a few dollars of production costs at the federal level, but what's a few dollars when we spend in the trillions. Doing away with them will probably result in windfalls for merchants who will round off the purchase prices and make billions on the breakage. And doing away with them will probably make many of us happier that we don't have to lug them around in pockets filled with other, not so extraneous matter.

At the same time, though, doing away with Mr. Lincoln's look-a-likes will take from the American psyche something very important, more so today than at any time in our history. We live in a world in which our children and theirs have little or no understanding of hard times. The Great Depression is something for the history books. Down stock markets are aberrations and not the norms of cyclical economics. The need to save our pennies has never been less understood by so many people. People who, fortunately, have never walked an unemployment line, stood for hours for a bowl of soup or begged for work when there was none to be had.

Ben Franklin's admonition to save a penny, and thus earn one, still has great meaning if only we are prepared to teach it to the coming generations. How will we do that if the penny no longer exists? How will we do that if the penny is as much a history lesson as every other event that in our lives had meaning and in theirs won't even matter?

There are some inconveniences in modern America that are worth keeping. I believe the penny is one of them because, more than most, it still has the ability to teach a lifelong lesson to young people who so far have never had to learn one.

And that is that nothing of value is too small or insignificant to overlook in our society. If there is any value, it should be saved. Be it a penny or be it a person.

Old Ben Franklin would approve of that lesson. He would vote to save the penny.

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