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topeka
Penny Pincher Member
160 Posts |
 Posted - 04/20/2008 : 22:35:59
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What would the U.S. government have to gain by lifting the melting ban?
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Silver..poor mans gold
Copper..peasant silver |
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lukeownzu
Penny Collector Member
364 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 22:43:10
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| Nada. |
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penniesmakemedizzy
Penny Pincher Member
USA
135 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 22:56:21
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| maybe they will start sorting & melting coppers |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 22:56:46
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quote:
Originally posted by topeka
What would the U.S. government have to gain by lifting the melting ban?
Plenty. If they change the make up of the penny to something cheaper than 1 cent.
The mint makes new pennies based on need of cents for everyday transactions. If the melt ban was removed, then you will have billions of pennies removed from the system. Those would have to be replaced by new pennies. I am sure the mint likes to look profitable on paper for congress.
Next, the copper would go into every day products which would help the economy. Stronger economy equals more tax revenue.
Also, Jackson metals had employees to help sort. More taxes and more jobs.
Also, the new demand would likely cause the mint to hire more people. Jobs are good. If steel was used, then I am sure the steel industry would love the new business.
There is a lot of reasons to remove the ban once it is cheap enough to make pennies again.
What does the government gain by making cents at a loss?
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 23:01:09
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Also, why do people think the government loses by the pennies being melted. What did they lose? They made a profit on making those pennies back in the pre-1981 years. There was very few years were they loss money on them.
Why do they care if someone else makes a profit 30+ years later? Sounds like a good business to me. You make money now, then 30 years someone else makes money. Them making money - makes you money for the reasons in my above post.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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horgad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1641 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 08:06:59
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The melt ban will be lifted because a "friend" of some politician will be positioned to be the biggest melter and profiteer. In other words politics as usual and money will make the world go round.
Jackson Metals and a politician backing them tried to do just that but they were fighting an uphill battle because the penny is still being used. Once the penny is no longer used the resistance to lifting the ban will be removed and some entrepreneur and his bought and paid for politician friend will make their move... |
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knibloe
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
1066 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 22:31:08
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| I agree with SWUSC that the ban will be lifted once they change the composition of not only cents but niclkels. Then they will "make money" as they replace all of those that we take out of circulation. |
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misteroman
Administrator
USA
2565 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 22:35:05
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I don't think the penny costing more to make then it is worth has much to do with metal content value.They would still have to buy blanks and people,machines would still have to make them.These people make $$$ with benefits and stuff.Plus all the extra costs of doing them. Building heat etc.I bet it would still cost close to a cent as well
D |
Buying CU cents!!!! Paying 1.2 unlimited amounts wanted. Can pick up if near Ohio area. |
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wolvesdad
1000+ Penny Miser Member
USA
2164 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 22:44:56
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I think Mistero is correct.
And I don't see the ban being lifted until the cent (and likely the nickel as well) are no longer produced and used in coinage/circulation.
Then, once they are not used in circulation, I don't think they could enforce the ban even if they left it in place.
"you can't melt those." Why? "...hmm.. umm, because... they are government property" Go play a fiddle! "but, but ...." I said go! " Well, I'm reporting you to the IRS to be sure you pay taxes on your profit!" Fine. "well okay!" Now go away! (Fed person exits stage left.) |
"May your percentages ever increase!" |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 23:01:02
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| The ban will be lifted because industry needs the copper, but that will be after all the copper pennies have mysteriously disappeared. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 08:31:08
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quote:
Originally posted by misteroman
I don't think the penny costing more to make then it is worth has much to do with metal content value.They would still have to buy blanks and people,machines would still have to make them.These people make $$$ with benefits and stuff.Plus all the extra costs of doing them. Building heat etc.I bet it would still cost close to a cent as well
D
You are correct that the overhead being allocated is a major problem with the cent. If someone in charge has a business mind, then they are not counting the fixed overhead in the picture. It is fixed and therefore it isn't affected by what coin is produced or how many.
Variable cost are different. The current make up of the cent is questionable. Zinc cost $0.006 so there isn't much left over to cover variable production cost. The nickel is worse bc the metal is over face. Other Variable cost include production labor and etc, but I bet a lot of the process is done with computers and machines.
If you could get the metal content of both to be around 25% of face value, then the mint would make money off both.
There are about 300,000 cents to a ton, so we need to get a metal that cost around $750 a ton. I think steel is in that area of cost.
Doing a half dime with the same clad sandwich would work for the five cent piece.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 08:43:03
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quote:
Originally posted by Saul Mine
The ban will be lifted because industry needs the copper, but that will be after all the copper pennies have mysteriously disappeared.
I don't think big picture cent is a good source of copper.
I get about 416,000 MT by melting all 141B copper pennies from 1959-1981
Worldwide demand is about 17,200,000 MT a year so that is like 9 days of supply.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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Cerulean
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
993 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 09:49:27
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quote:
Originally posted by swusc
There are about 300,000 cents to a ton, so we need to get a metal that cost around $750 a ton. I think steel is in that area of cost.
You are assuming that the metal density of the "new penny" is the same as the current zincer. If they used a lighter metal, like aluminum, there would be many more pennies per ton.
Last time I checked, steel was going for $500-$700 for various varieties. |
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swusc
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
553 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 14:15:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Cerulean
quote:
Originally posted by swusc
There are about 300,000 cents to a ton, so we need to get a metal that cost around $750 a ton. I think steel is in that area of cost.
You are assuming that the metal density of the "new penny" is the same as the current zincer. If they used a lighter metal, like aluminum, there would be many more pennies per ton.
Last time I checked, steel was going for $500-$700 for various varieties.
Would Aluminum be cheaper? I have aluminum weighing 30% of copper. If my math/chemistry is right--you would get around 1,000,000 cents per MT.
If Aluminum is $2700 a ton, then it would be about the same cost wise as steel.
-SWUSC |
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' Will Rogers
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard." Alan Greenspan, 1966. |
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El Dee
Penny Hoarding Member
USA
547 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 14:28:13
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quote:
Originally posted by wolvesdad
"you can't melt those." Why? "...hmm.. umm, because... they are government property" Go play a fiddle! "but, but ...." I said go! " Well, I'm reporting you to the IRS to be sure you pay taxes on your profit!" Fine. "well okay!" Now go away! (Fed person exits stage left.)
Common misconception about money. It is not government property. Money belongs to the bearer. It happens to be made and issued by the government, and if the Fed or the Mint or the Treasury is the bearer, they can shred/melt/destroy it in whatever way they choose. The people, on the other hand, are stuck with the melt ban which is unique to our two smallest coins as an attempt to thwart Gresham's Law. |
Trust the government? Ask an Indian. |
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Saul Mine
Penny Collector Member
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 00:05:46
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| The melt ban is not a law. It is a mint rule. The mint does not make laws, but people are cowed because the entire government is out of control. It hardly matters to us because both hoarding and letting people think there is a melt ban work together to make the shortage worse, which forces the price up. When the shortage begins to hurt, the mint's stupid rule will simply be ignored. |
A penny sorted is a penny earned!
Please use tinyurl.com to post links. Long links make posts hard to read. |
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Why would they?
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