Did You Know It Costs More Than a Penny to Make a Penny?

http://gizmodo.com/5734677/did-you-know-it-costs-more-than-a-penny-to-make-a-penny

by felix0702 • 16 years ago

2 5 16 years ago

gizmodo.com

atomical• 16 years ago

I don't mean to be crass but I think I could figure this out on my own.

felix0702• 16 years ago

hahaaa. I guess I still live in a cave.

pzxc2• 16 years ago

The nickel is worth more than its value too. http://www.coinflation.com/

bartonfink• 16 years ago

Did you know that each penny can be used more than once in its lifetime, so the cost of minting is amortized across so many usages that it's almost certainly not worth trimming? This author didn't.

pzxc2• 16 years ago

But each owner, including the government, gets to spend it once (unless they reacquire it by trading something of value for it). If I give away a Porsche, it costs me one Porsche. If you then sell it or give it to somebody else, and they give it to somebody else, and so on 1000 times, that doesn't help me. The cost to me is still one Porsche.

By your logic, if we could make a penny out of Adamantium that cost a trillion trillion dollars to make, it would be worth it, because the penny would last forever and be re-used an infinite number of times. But the cost of the penny to the government is not amortized across all the transactions it is used in UNLESS the government is a party to all those transactions (which it is not).

Did You Know It Costs More Than a Penny to Make a Penny?

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