I think the fact that the US hasn't gotten rid of the penny has less to do with zinc lobbyists and more to do with the fact that doing so would be acknowledgement that the dollar is experiencing inflation

@valleyforge I'm not sure its either of those to be honest. I think it has more to do with the fact that it would devalue the money supply. A penny is worth more than a penny in terms of raw material, many people keep huge quantities of pennies for their intrinsic rather than implied value.

In addition it means rounding loss for the government on things like taxes. If you buy 1.05 in stuff and tax comes to 0.19 (random numbers) you'd only be able to pay 0.15 in sales tax and the government would have lost out on nearly 25% of their tax in that particular transaction.

@freemo @valleyforge Easy solution! Just multiply all costs by a factor of 5, now that you don’t have the penny to remind people that money used to be worth something.

Then they buy 5.15 in stuff and tax comes to 0.95, easily payable in nickels.

No, no you don’t need to thank me. I’m just glad I solved this conundrum.

(Wait what do you mean the rich are demanding we take nickels out of circulation??)

@cy

Wait your suggesting creating a hyperinflation of 500% all to get rid of the penny?

@valleyforge

@cy

That wouldnt do anything anyway. Youd get the sazme effect if we all just called a penny "five cents" from now on and called every bill by 5x its face value and pretended it was worth more. The effect would be the same

@valleyforge

@freemo @valleyforge The thing is that pennies do cost some amount to produce. The government tries to debase their currency with common metals, but now they’ve inflated the economy so much that even the penny is worth less than the metal it’s made out of.

I’m pretty sure it’s a small effect, but that’s why the government goes after pennies. Removing another minor limit to inflation, it helps hide just how much the central bank is ripping us off. Ever hear the phrase “Shave and a haircut: 2 bits?” As long as people remember that, they’ll know how much was taken from us by the ones destroying our economy.

@cy
Are you suggesting inflation is a universally bad thing? It isnt, though it cam be under certain situations. A healthy economy should undergo a slow and reasonable rate of inflation.
@valleyforge

@freemo Well, I mean, it is institutionalized theft from old grannies and handicapped people. Most people would have a hard time not calling that a bad thing. It’s like a prank war, where each prank has to exceed the previous one. It’s not too destructive if it’s slow to escalate, but it does eventually get to be a problem.

I’ll concede that inflation is a good thing when everyone’s income inflates at the same rate.

@cy

> Well, I mean, it is institutionalized theft from old grannies and handicapped people.

Can't imagine how. Presuming you follow responsible guidlines for your money whatever money you have would be in a retirement fund, either 401K or IRA/Roth IRA. Inflation in an healthy economy means such funds would be increasing, not decreasing, so not theft.

inb4: no need for them to know how to invest either, most such funds put your money automatically in a highly safe mutual fund

inb4: even in the off chance that such a person were irresoonsible with their money and kept it in a bank account rather than a 401K/IRA for at least the past 5 decades the average national interest rate from long-term savings accounts (CDs) has consistently been higher than the inflation rate. So their money still grew rather than lost.

So really by no measure is it theft, and peoples income inflating at the same rate is an issue different than inflation, in that case we are talking about living wages and has no relationship to inflation.

Really the only way the normal and expected inflation rate in a healthy economy could actually harm you, old granny or otherwise, is if you keep all your saffings in a sock under your bed for 20 years and never touch it. If you are doing that, well, thats your fault, that isnt healthy for the economy or your own wallet and should be discouraged. Money hoarding isnt really what money is for, if you want to hoard something buy gold.

@freemo Well I’ve never wasted a penny, and I don’t get a 401K or an IRA. There are people with fixed incomes, who tend to be older or less able. Ideally yeah it wouldn’t be so bad.

inb4: no need for them to know how to invest either,

well now that you brought it up, most people with investment plans for retirement don’t get to choose what they invest in. The people who do choose tend to be very… eager to fund organized crime. So it is still a problem, but not so much for well off old people.

the average national interest rate from long-term savings accounts (CDs) has consistently been higher than the inflation rate.

Let’s hope it stays that way…

Really the only way the normal and expected inflation rate in a healthy economy could actually harm you, old granny or otherwise, is if you keep all your saffings in a sock under your bed for 20 years and never touch it.

People with lower incomes rarely get a chance to save much for retirement. They’re often living on credit, and stuck with high rate interest loans to make payments on time. And even people with pensions have been y’know… cheated before on massive scales.Yes, assuming you have a stable and profitable career all your life, and you always spend frugally and responsibly and multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns have no effect on you, and nothing goes terribly wrong, and nobody manages to cheat you out of it, and you don’t have huge medical bills, and you don’t have too many student loans, then inflation isn’t a problem.

I agree that less inflation hurts people less. But that doesn’t make it healthy. Just… low enough not to worry about… except for some people.

@cy

Since we already covered that even simply keeping your money in a bank and not investing at all still causes your money to grow faster than the inflation rate... how exactly is it theft again? Literally there is no scenario where inflation has caused anyone to lose even a penny unless they keep their investments as physical cash in a sock... so everything you said aside, where is the theft, no one is literally losing a penny from inflation.

> Let’s hope it stays that way…

It has been that way for the entire US history for every living person today... so not much hope is needed.

Now if your saying that **hyper**-inflation is bad, or that there is a point where inflation is high enough its harmful, a point we have never crossed in living history, then sure. This is why I made sure to state many times that inflation is expected and good in a **healthy** economy. All the markers of US inflation being of the healthy and beneficial kind are there. But yes there is a point where inflation represents something bad, but that isnt the case now or in living history, it is **good** in its current state.

> People with lower incomes rarely get a chance to save much for retirement. They’re often living on credit, and stuck with high rate interest loans to make payments on time.

Yes those statements are correct, but they are also why inflation **helps** the people you describe, it doesnt hurt them. If you have no investments and no savings then inflation is not devaluing anything you have, so you are not hurt by it. In fact while inflation slowly devalues equity (money), it **improves the value proposition** for people in debt. In much the same way a positive amount of money has less value over time due to inflation a **negative** quantity of money also has less value over time due to inflation. Therefore if you are in debt with 100K of debt, and dont pay it off over 20 years and let it sit there, but inflation occured at 100% (unrealistic numbers but to prove a point), then you effectively owe **half** the debt you owed before (it takes half the value to pay off your debt it did before).

So you're actually arguing in the wrong direction, the poor who tend to have no savings and live in debt are **directly benefiting** from inflation.

Again literally the only people who are harmed by inflation in a healthy economy, and at nominal rates, are people who 1) DO have a decent sized life savings and 2) keep all or most of that savings as physical cash, in a sock, under their bed for a long period of time.

> I agree that less inflation hurts people less. But that doesn’t make it healthy. Just…

So no, inflation doesn't just hurt people less, it actually **helps** people, when at healthy levels. It increases the value proposition for those in debt, and **discourages** rich people from hoarding money without putting it to use, which stimulates the economy and helps increase the wealth of others.

It doesnt hurt people less, it **helps** people **more**.

It is really frustrating how ignorant everyone is about economics and how much people assert a strong opinion on it anyway. Nothing against you personally, you should feel welcome to an opinion and engage in discourse. But it does show you are not educated on the basics of this topic, and that is frustrating as it is so common.

@icedquinn

Agreed, and I said as much. While keeping money in a bank will ensure your money grows faster than the inflation rate, it wont do so by very much. So while it is a very safe way to store value, it is also a very poor one. A 401K or IRA is far better and will on average get you true positive returns well above inflation. Even so 401K and IRA are relatively safe investments and wont have huge returns compared to other investment techniques, but such techniques also require more expertise to some degree.

@cy