The current federal administration has finally done something I agree with. They've stopped minting pennies.

For a long time, the buying power of one one-hundredth of a dollar hasn't stretched very far. Boomers might remember buying penny candy, but any Gen Xer will tell you that "12 cassettes for 1¢" sounded too good to be true even in the 1980s. (Nancy Reagan told us winners didn't do drugs, but she kept her trap shut about the predatory dangers of the recording industry.) There's not a lot of reason to carry around a penny when even vending machines spit them out.

The metal content of a penny is dictated by law,^[1] and although the Secretary of Treasury has some wiggle room to accommodate market forces^[2], as you might expect given their small practical value, it's now impossible to legally make a penny that costs less than what it's worth.^[3]

However, despite what The Wall Street Journal reported today,^[4] the penny isn't being legally "phased out." The U.S. Mint, a bureau of the executive branch's Department of the Treasury, has just decided it isn't going to make any more. At least at the present time. The current executive branch administration has proved it's nothing if not mercurial. Always emotion, the future is.

All those pennies the U.S. Mint has ever made?^[5] Yeah, they're still "legal tender for all debts";^[6] only Congress can really kill the penny.^[7] By law, pennies have to stay in circulation and remain legal tender until Congress says otherwise,^[8] and, as you may have noticed, Congress has had a hard time saying much of anything lately.

^[1]Source: Title 31 U.S. Code § 5112 Denominations, specifications, and design of coins. "[T]he one-cent coin is an alloy of 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc;"

^[2] Also 31 USC § 5112: "(c) The Secretary may prescribe the weight and the composition of copper and zinc in the alloy of the one-cent coin that the Secretary decides are appropriate when the Secretary decides that a different weight and alloy of copper and zinc are necessary to ensure an adequate supply of one-cent coins to meet the needs of the United States."

^[3] U.S. Mint 2024 Annual Report, page 10, "MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS (UNAUDITED)" : "The unit cost for pennies (3.69 cents) and nickels (13.78 cents) remained above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year."

^[4] Adedoyin, Oyin. "Treasury Sounds Death Knell for Penny Production." The Wall Street Journal May 22, 2025

^[5] Just how many pennies that is has been hard to determine. Many sources, like NBC and USA Today, are reporting 114 billion. Other sources, like Wake Forest economics department, estimates 250 billion. In either case, I think we have enough to last us a while.

^[6] Source: 31 USC § 5103 Legal Tender (1983)

^[7] Per Article 1 Section 8 Clause 5 of the United States Constitution (which, last time I checked, was still the law of the land, for whatever the law is worth these days), "[The Congress shall have Power] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures".

^[8]The last time Congress "phased out" a coin was the half-cent, in 1857. According to Wikipedia ("Penny debate in the United States"), the ½ cent coin in 1857 had the buying-power equivalent of "about 17 cents" in 2024 currency. On the other hand, if you had a 1857 Braided Hair Half Cent coin today, it would have a retail value upwards of $100, so you might not want to spend it on... well, what can you get for 17¢? Hmm. Maybe we should start phasing out nickels and dimes, too.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coins fuck you america laws news

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare wrote those lines in 1597,^[1] by which time Greenland had been called "Greenland" for 611 years,^[2] which I mention only to give perspective to the following bill introduced this week into the United States Congress,^[3] itself founded 173 years after Shakespeare died.

---

119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 1161

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 10, 2025

Mr. [Earl L. "Buddy"] Carter of Georgia introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

A BILL

To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025”.

SEC. 2. Purchase or other acquisition of Greenland.

The President is authorized to enter into negotiations with the Government of Denmark to purchase or otherwise acquire Greenland.

SEC. 3. Renaming of Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(a) Renaming.—Greenland shall be known as “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(b) References.—Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to Greenland shall be deemed to be a reference to “Red, White, and Blueland”.

(c) Implementation.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Chairman of the Board on Geographic Names, shall oversee the implementation of the renaming described in subsection (a) with respect to each Federal document and map.

(2) REQUIREMENT.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the head of each Federal agency shall update each document and map of the Federal agency in accordance with the renaming described in subsection (a).

---

I wish I could say that this bill is the dumbest thing we will see in 2025, but we all know better.^[4]

We are now living in a theater of the absurd. It's only a matter of time before someone actually makes their horse a senator.

Here's drink. I drink to thee.

^[1] Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 38-44. (You know, the balcony scene.)

^[2] "Grœnland" is the name given by tenth century Norse colonizers, but there is no record of what the previous inhabitants called it, and the current "natives" are actually newer settlers than the Vikings. At what point does the colonizer become the native? As an American who can trace my ancestry back to the American Revolution, I can only say that I don't know.

^[3] Source: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161/text

^[4] I mean, for one thing, a man convicted of 34 state felonies, found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation, and charged with fomenting rebellion against the federal government and stealing classified documents from the federal government has been sworn-in as president, and in just the past six weeks we've witnessed, in no particular order, the United States under his direction withdrawing from the World Health Organization; sanctioning the International Criminal Court; starting trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and Columbia; threatening Panama, Greenland, and Denmark; buying-out the contracts of an estimated 75,000 government employees without the funding to do so; ending the corruption prosecution of the mayor of New York City accused of taking bribes from Turkey; ordering the Army Corp of Engineers to fight future fires in Los Angeles by releasing water from California dams into streams that do not reach Los Angeles; blaming an airliner crash in Washington DC on handicapped people; re-renaming Mount McKinley and Fort Bragg; firing 17 Inspectors General in the Executive branch; pledging to permanently displace all Palestinians so that Gaza can be turned into "the Riviera of the Middle East"; banning Constitutionally-granted birthright citizenship; eradicating "anti-Christian bias in government" before demanding an apology from a bishop for suggesting the president show mercy to marginalized communities; ending the "weaponization of the federal government" by appointing a man with an enemies list of "conspirators" to be FBI Director, blocking all transgendered people from the military; ordering colleges to give medals to non-transgendered athletes; refusing to enforce the anti-bribery Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because its bad for business; selling meme coins; restarting Ronald Regan's Star Wars missile defense project; removing any reference to climate change from the Department of Agriculture; freezing Congress-allotted funding agencies including FEMA, USAID, EPA, CDC, NIH, CFPB, NOAA and others; axing any mention of "Diversity," "Equity," and "Inclusion" from government websites and databases (with sometimes hilarious results); ignoring election pledges to take action on inflated grocery prices; assuring Russia that Ukraine will never join NATO; replacing the board of the Kennedy Center with loyalists so that the president could be elected chair in order to stop "wokey" productions; appointing an accused statutory rapist to Attorney General, an anti-vaxxer to lead Health and Human Services, a conspiracy-theorist to lead National Intelligence, an avowed dog-killer to lead Homeland Security, an accused alcoholic to lead Defense, and the world's richest man to lead deregulation efforts in the name of "Government Efficiency"; and, of course, pardoning everyone involved in the January 6 riot. Note that I did not mention getting rid of the penny; it is well past time for the penny to go (although the president doesn't actually have the power to do that). At least he hasn't gassed any protesters again... yet. It's going to be a very long four years.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coins fuck you america georgia laws shakespeare

On July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the official motto of the Untied States of America by act of Congress (Public Law 84-851). I had long been opposed to such a statement appearing on the noisemakers in my pocket, but I recently learned that the primary impetus behind such an act was a direct response to the "godless" Communists, our Cold War enemies. The motto has been challenged in the courtroom, the battleground of the intellectual, and the Supreme Court ruled in Aronow v. United States (1970), "[the motto's] use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise." There you have it, a ruling by the Supreme Court that God is a figurehead for America. So I'm okay with it now. In God we trust, you pinkos!

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coins cold war in god we trust

Signs that you're getting old: you don't recognize the coins in your pocket. Arriving home from the grocery store, I reached into my pocket and withdrew 32¢: one quarter, one nickel, and two pennies. And I'd never seen any of them before.

I know that they're making quarters for every state in the union, but this one was quite unexpected: it's Puerto Rico. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a self-governing US territory. Puerto Rican citizens have dual US/Puerto Rican citizenship, but are not subject to US income taxes. Though its citizens are allowed to vote in US elections, they have no direct voice in the US congress. So why exactly are they on my money? While I think it's cute that Puerto Ricans have finally taken their place beside the Indians Native Americans as currency mascots of protestant Manifest Destiny, I'd personally much rather see a powerful bison or majestic eagle on my coins than an advertisement for a tropical tourist trap that I'm paying to help support.

Speaking of buffaloes, the nickel in my pocket was the most familiar coin. On one side was Thomas Jefferson and on the other was Monticello. That's what was on nickels when I was a kid. Heck, it's what was on nickels when my grandfather was a kid! Only now Mad Tom sits off to the left of the coin, smirking at me. I'm sure he didn't pull that sort of sass with my grandfather, or his generation never would have given up their buffalo nickels. A quick search through the spare change cup on my desk uncovers not one or two but five (!) different nickel designs, none dated prior to 1996. That's 6 different coins in just over a decade! If they weren't all exactly the same size, I know I'd be in trouble at motel vending machines.

The two 2009-minted cents I received showcase Abe Lincoln on both sides, presumably because you can never, ever get enough Lincoln. "Heads" is the Lincoln portrait that's been tarnishing on pennies for a century, and "tails" is what will no doubt become known as the "lazy Lincoln" portrait of young Lincoln shunning his wood-chopping duties to read what I'm sure was the 19th-century equivalent of Us Weekly Magazine. An internet search reveals that there are 4 different cent designs released this year in a tribute to Lincoln's 200th birthday, with more due next year.

Why so many all-new, all-different coins? Both pennies and nickels have in recent years cost more than their face value to make, so why are we making so damned many? Is the US Treasury desperately hoping that people will take these coins out of circulation as "collectibles" so that the world won't ever catch on to just how many they're minting? (Hello? Inflation?) If so, they should go ahead and start making Obama coins. I'm sure that there are still quite a few people out there who would each save a few hundred Obama 3¢ pieces figuring to use them to put their kids through college once they've skyrocketed in value.

Meanwhile, if you're forced to stand behind me at Target, I apologize in advance for the wait. It's probably probably because I'm trying to figure out what combination of round collectible discs will add up to the 69¢ I need to buy penny candy. Now I know why all old people need glasses.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coins history