Tuesday, December 25

Quintuple your money, for free!

Now That a Penny Isn't Worth Much, It's Time to Make It Worth 5 Cents (New York Times)

How do you deal with the fact that our pennies and nickels are currently worth more as raw materials than as coins? Melting down the coins for their metals is now illegal, for one, but still the problem remains that we are minting money at a loss, and the problem will only get worse with inflation.

Economist Francois R. Velde of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago argues that we should abolish the existence of a one-cent coin, and pennies should be reassigned a value of five cents.

As far as I can tell, the plan he proposes would indeed save hundreds of millions of dollars (and also help the poor), with minimal adverse effects. How clever!

No comments: