By Dr. Robert Thorson
Here’s my advice for this year’s holiday shopping season: Let’s get rid of the U.S. penny. This would end the stupefying insult of a price ending in $0.99, as well as several other more serious problems.
When I see a price ending in 99 cents, my rational mind gets mildly annoyed for having been misled into thinking I’m getting a good deal. Next, it rounds the price up to an even dollar. Third, the thinking, Dr. Jekyll part of my brain begins to doubt itself, wondering if its irrational Mr. Hyde part is actually fooled into believing that a price ending in $0.99 is somehow better than one ending in $.00.
I suspect that the Mr. Hyde part of our brains is actually in charge. Otherwise the rational absurdity of 99-cent pricing would have long since disappeared from typical family restaurants such as the franchise “99 Restaurant.” High-priced eateries don’t need this marketing gimmick, pricing their menus in whole dollar amounts.
Though the annoyance of holiday season pricing prompted this column, there are plenty of more important reasons for getting rid of the penny. They’re a drain on the economy. The U.S. Mint puts about 8 billion new pennies into circulation annually. Why?
Certainly some are fumbled onto the ground from our pockets before seeking the tranquil entropy of archaeology. Others are swept into the municipal waste stream, destined to add heavy metals to landfill leachate. But for the most part, pennies disappear into what amounts to currency limbo, the jars, boxes and dresser drawers of our lives. There they hover in a timeless state, neither quite in circulation nor quite out.
Meanwhile, the U.S. keeps cranking pennies out at a cost nearly twice what they’re worth. Every penny in your piggy bank constitutes a hidden tax. Congress is now debating whether to allow the penny to be cheapened into dross by making it out of steel, or whether to do away with it all together. I prefer the latter idea because it would extinguish “99” pricing to the right of the decimal point. From my point of view, a mink coat priced at $999 is far better than one priced at $999.99.
The cost consciousness associated with penny manufacture began when the U.S. Mint switched to making them out of inexpensive zinc, instead of expensive copper – merely coating them with copper instead. But at this point, the price of zinc is rising so fast that it’s pushing the penny crisis to its limit. According to a recent Associated Press story, the price of zinc, a globally traded commodity, has risen 450 percent since 2003.
Junking the penny would save energy by reducing the mining, shipping, manufacturing and distribution of metal, and by lightening the load in our automobiles, where pennies ride without much notice for years. It would save time (remember that time is money) at the checkout counter because we wouldn’t have to fumble through our nickels, dimes and quarters make exact change to the nearest penny. It would remove the twinge of guilt for taking pennies out of the tray at convenience stores.
More important, it would help save our surface water and groundwater. As an element, copper travels on the same geochemical pathway with more noxious heavy metals, notably arsenic, cadmium, lead and sometimes mercury.
Mining and smelting copper produces residues of these unwanted metals in such abundance that the nation’s largest Superfund site surrounds the copper mines of the Upper Clark Fork River near Butte, Mont. The epicenter of this Superfund site is a toxic open pit mine in what had once been dubbed the “richest hill on earth.” Now, it’s a permanent drain on the U.S. economy and a source of embarrassment for its owner, Atlantic Richfield Corp.
Finally, junking the penny would help rescue the image of Abraham Lincoln, my favorite president. Better to have him archived and fondly remembered than to have him associated with worthlessness.
The time has come for the penny to ascend into currency heaven, leaving the land of limbo for good.