Period 3
12/18/2014
AP Language
Can we all just agree that the penny should be removed? Is it possible that simple nostalgia and our fond memories of "take a penny, leave a penny" trays are protecting a coin that's worthless to pretty much everyone besides the multinational conglomerate that helps produce it? And if not, why exactly is the penny worth keeping around? The penny for some time has been the “throw-away” change thus having a negative impact on the economy, because with all the accumulated pennies, is all the money thrown out of the economic cycle. Thus since the penny has been giving a negative impact to the economy, in turn it should be eliminated. One of the many reasons the penny should be deleted is because of the cost to actually manufacture one. The penny itself is created to hold the monetary value of the one cent, the lowest value, yet it costs 2.4 cents to manufacture each one thus making the tradeoff of creating a penny to be negative since the output is more than the input thus concluding towards a disincentive. “This, although is a small loss of money, can result in and will amount to the loss of millions of dollars over the cause of several years.” (Source A) Within today’s society, people have a hard time to buy anything with even the dollar. Even if someone is able to buy something with the dollar, the dollar simplifies to 100 pennies and since it costs 2.4 cents to create each individual penny, essentially 1.4 dollars are wasted. With America already submerged in a national debt of $18.34 billion, these costs that outweigh the benefits will not only raise our national taxes to compensate for the lost money, but will also dig into the education programs to raise funds for lost money thus cutting children’s education. “Essentially, the penny is so worthless that it does nothing but waste more money and time.” (Source B) With the fact that in today’s society the penny has essentially no monetary value, it really helps no