Billy: "A penny for your thoughts?"
Alfred: "Oh how I wish I could, but alas, the exchange of ideas is without currency."
Billy: "Huh?"
Alfred: "Know the U.S. Mint?"
Billy: "Yeah?"
Alfred: "Banned the penny"
Billy: "Holy shit."
Alfred: "Shhh, Agent coming."
Federal Agent: "1 cent in exact change, boy."
Billy: "Uhh, for what?"
Federal Agent: "That thought you uttered, `Holy shit' I believe."
Billy: "But how did you..."
Federal Agent: "Remember your last Dentist visit?"
Billy: "Yeah?"
Federal Agent: "He wasn't a Dentist - works for the NSA. And that's no crown on your lateral incisor."
Billy: "But I don't have 1 cent, you see the U.S. Mi..."
Federal Agent: "I've heard it all before, enemy combatant. Perhaps an extended-visit to Guantanamo will help you find your coffee can."
Don't laugh. It could happen to you should the Right-Wing succeed. The U.S. Mint has confirmed what was only yesterday an easy way to make friends pee their pants around the campfire. Yes indeed - the Right-Wing has declared war on the penny.
Jeff Donn of the Associated Press
reports:
For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make this year, thanks to higher metal prices. "The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities," says Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at The American Numismatic Society.
...
The Mint's announcement is a milestone, though, because coins have historically cost less to produce than the face value paid by receiving banks. They are moneymakers for the government.
Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe, of Arizona, wants to keep it that way. But when he asked Congress to phase out the penny five years ago he failed; he intends to try again this year. If he fails again, he joked recently, he may open a business melting down pennies to resell the metal.
But this is, of course, no laughing matter. According to Gallup, two-thirds of Americans want to keep the penny. The other one-third? It seems Rep. Kolbe's right-wing henchmen have wasted little time. See e.g.
Forbes, "
Pennies May Soon Be a Thing of the Past" and
Kiplinger, "
No Killing the Penny."
All was not lost . . . at least at first. Hope emerged in a most unexpected place: Flomaton, Alabama. It was revealed that a Mr. Edmond Knowles had been collecting for four decades, amassing a saintly 1.3 million or 4.5 tons. Unfortunately, tragedy seized our savior and, an event all-to-common in Alabama transpired. The pooch was proverbially screwed. When Edmond's bank refused to accept his deposit, Edmond, unbeknownst to him, stumbled upon American corporatism's most dreadful archvillan:
Coinstar.
As news from the other 49 states would not arrive in Alabama for another 78 years, Edmond was unaware of the harm he had done.
A penny saved was a penny earned for Knowles, but he took another lesson from the experience, too: "I don't save pennies anymore. It's too big a problem getting rid of them." [Edmond said.]
Edmond has since vanished, and the hope of a nation with him.
Although resistance movement has since emerged under the banner "Common Cents," their whereabouts are presently unknown. In all likelihood, the movement is no more. Intelligence, unconfirmed, fictitious albeit reliable, indicates that Rep. Kolbe will soon complete a sale of metal worth $3 million dollars - his largest yet.