Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
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Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
"It costs the government more than 5 cents to make a nickel and once you incorporate the cost of minting and labor it's 13 cents..."
All this results in a "loss" of 100million.
This seems logical enough, but when a government is minting money does it make sense to count "manufacturing costs" as if the government were a business that sells.. uh ... money?
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Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
"It costs the government more than 5 cents to make a nickel and once you incorporate the cost of minting and labor it's 13 cents..."
All this results in a "loss" of 100million.
This seems logical enough, but when a government is minting money does it make sense to count "manufacturing costs" as if the government were a business that sells.. uh ... money?
"The US Government wastes 100 million dollars making nickels!" (places pinky on lip like Dr. Evil)
—is just the kind of obnoxious factoid that will never go away. Obnoxious because NOT making nickels won't automatically save 100 million. You still need to run the mint.
When it comes to printing money the question is "what do you WANT" to do? You are creating the value.
IDK I just don't want to hear about this forever and now we will.
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"The US Government wastes 100 million dollars making nickels!" (places pinky on lip like Dr. Evil)
—is just the kind of obnoxious factoid that will never go away. Obnoxious because NOT making nickels won't automatically save 100 million. You still need to run the mint.
When it comes to printing money the question is "what do you WANT" to do? You are creating the value.
IDK I just don't want to hear about this forever and now we will.
A mint’s job is to replace currency that's worn out but also to adjust the currency supply.
I'll focus on that first practical task: replace worn out coins so there are still useful coins around. Banks make orders for coins and bills. They must still be ordering nickels for some reason.
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A mint’s job is to replace currency that's worn out but also to adjust the currency supply.
I'll focus on that first practical task: replace worn out coins so there are still useful coins around. Banks make orders for coins and bills. They must still be ordering nickels for some reason.
@futurebird The problem is that sometimes the reason is "Legislation currently says we need to print nickels.".
Like he said in his video about pennies, these currencies don't actually end up getting spent anywhere - because most places won't even accept them anymore.
And it's why the U.S. discontinued half-cent coins - you couldn't spend them even if you wanted to, in a way that made printing them worth the recirculation costs.
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@futurebird The problem is that sometimes the reason is "Legislation currently says we need to print nickels.".
Like he said in his video about pennies, these currencies don't actually end up getting spent anywhere - because most places won't even accept them anymore.
And it's why the U.S. discontinued half-cent coins - you couldn't spend them even if you wanted to, in a way that made printing them worth the recirculation costs.
@futurebird Or TL:DR; we're not *replacing* the worn out currency - we're just making more currency that will be worn out because it sits around.
(At least here in Canada, I've very rarely seen a place I could actually use a nickel as a transaction, except *maybe* to offset the change I would get from using a loonie or a bill to pay for something, turning the change into something like a quarter?)
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@futurebird The problem is that sometimes the reason is "Legislation currently says we need to print nickels.".
Like he said in his video about pennies, these currencies don't actually end up getting spent anywhere - because most places won't even accept them anymore.
And it's why the U.S. discontinued half-cent coins - you couldn't spend them even if you wanted to, in a way that made printing them worth the recirculation costs.
These points are fine. I even could get on the "get rid of small coins" bandwaggon. My issue is with describing things the government does like it's a business, and leaving people with the impression that "if they just stopped making nickels they'd have 100million to do --" when this isn't the right mental model for how a government mint works.
Also not putting the number 100million in perspective.
Do we want to have nickels to "facilitate commerce?" that's the question that matters.
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These points are fine. I even could get on the "get rid of small coins" bandwaggon. My issue is with describing things the government does like it's a business, and leaving people with the impression that "if they just stopped making nickels they'd have 100million to do --" when this isn't the right mental model for how a government mint works.
Also not putting the number 100million in perspective.
Do we want to have nickels to "facilitate commerce?" that's the question that matters.
It's really important to me, and to everyone that when I take out a ten dollar bill I know how much it's worth and I can use it. I don't need to worry about it being fake too much, and I'm not wasting time trying to run my life by bartering.
Currency is infrastructure. Are pennies and nickels outdated infrastructure no one wants anymore? Possibly.
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Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
"It costs the government more than 5 cents to make a nickel and once you incorporate the cost of minting and labor it's 13 cents..."
All this results in a "loss" of 100million.
This seems logical enough, but when a government is minting money does it make sense to count "manufacturing costs" as if the government were a business that sells.. uh ... money?
@futurebird This reminds me of the old canard “Cost of photocopying.” “But you have to count the wages of the photocopier operator.” Why? Do you not pay them when they're not photocopying? (Remember the days when a photocopier had a dedicated operator?)
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@futurebird Or TL:DR; we're not *replacing* the worn out currency - we're just making more currency that will be worn out because it sits around.
(At least here in Canada, I've very rarely seen a place I could actually use a nickel as a transaction, except *maybe* to offset the change I would get from using a loonie or a bill to pay for something, turning the change into something like a quarter?)
@AT1ST @futurebird Finland decided to not make any 1 and 2 cent coins. I think they do 5 cents, and shops round your total to the nearest 5 cents.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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A mint’s job is to replace currency that's worn out but also to adjust the currency supply.
I'll focus on that first practical task: replace worn out coins so there are still useful coins around. Banks make orders for coins and bills. They must still be ordering nickels for some reason.
@futurebird 1/2
there are many employers who would love to pay their employees only with a "digital payment card" which can only be used at cooperating retailers, has fees for all transactions, and is "not a bank", leaving the employee's finances entirely at the mercy of the employer. These horrible people have a use for anti-currency arguments like "stop making nickels" : they de-legitimize the most important alternative. -
Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
"It costs the government more than 5 cents to make a nickel and once you incorporate the cost of minting and labor it's 13 cents..."
All this results in a "loss" of 100million.
This seems logical enough, but when a government is minting money does it make sense to count "manufacturing costs" as if the government were a business that sells.. uh ... money?
@futurebird I've personally been on the "stop making pennies and nickles" bandwagon for a decade or so now. It's a waste of metal and manufacturing imo. I know Canada got rid of their penny and now you only really find it in circulation here in the US where people use it accidentally or interchangeably with the US penny.
While we might not suddenly have $100 million or whatever if we stopped making them, it would free up some labor and manufacturing infrastructure/land to do something more useful for most people. And I think that's what people are kinda saying when they say it costs more to make these coins then the value we give them for spending. Maybe I'm projecting tho and most people think they'll get a rebate or something if we just stop minting them
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@futurebird I've personally been on the "stop making pennies and nickles" bandwagon for a decade or so now. It's a waste of metal and manufacturing imo. I know Canada got rid of their penny and now you only really find it in circulation here in the US where people use it accidentally or interchangeably with the US penny.
While we might not suddenly have $100 million or whatever if we stopped making them, it would free up some labor and manufacturing infrastructure/land to do something more useful for most people. And I think that's what people are kinda saying when they say it costs more to make these coins then the value we give them for spending. Maybe I'm projecting tho and most people think they'll get a rebate or something if we just stop minting them
️@redpy5 100 million isn’t gonna do much on the federal level at all. And that is almost certainly overestimating the “savings” — I can support getting rid of pennies but this should be a question based around what we need money to do for us— arguments about the “cost” miss the point. Do we like having pennies? Do people find them useful? that’s the metric.
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@AT1ST @futurebird Finland decided to not make any 1 and 2 cent coins. I think they do 5 cents, and shops round your total to the nearest 5 cents.
We did the same thing in Ireland. 1c and 2c coins remain legal tender because other eurozone countries still use them, but we no longer mint them, and any amount paid with cash is rounded to the nearest 5c. (Debit card payments are not rounded).
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Against my better judgement I clicked on the CGP Grey video about "why nickels should be discontinued" they say something like:
"It costs the government more than 5 cents to make a nickel and once you incorporate the cost of minting and labor it's 13 cents..."
All this results in a "loss" of 100million.
This seems logical enough, but when a government is minting money does it make sense to count "manufacturing costs" as if the government were a business that sells.. uh ... money?
@futurebird @cammerman Funnily enough, I was just typing up notes on why governments should not be run like households. The different relationship to money has much to do with it:
"[G]overnments are not like households, and there are a number of reasons why. The first and most obvious one is that the government owns its own bank. Not only does it own its own bank, that bank is actually the creator of all the money in the economy." – Richard Murphy (https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/23/the-curse-of-the-household-analogy/)
