geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: tp4tissue on Thu, 22 May 2025, 23:09:16
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Don't understand, if they phase it out, how will people give exact change?
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I have always loved the 1 cent coin, and avidly collected them as a kid. In the 1950s-1960s I was able to find all but about a dozen of the rarest ones in circulation. It was not until I was in my 30s that I coughed up the price of those final ones and completed my set. (since the rarest one had less than a quarter of a million minted, that is all the complete sets that can ever exist)
Under Reagan in 1982 most of the copper was removed from the coin and afterwards they were stamped out of zinc with copper plating. Soon I started keeping all the pre-1982 cents that I came across because they were worth more than their "face value" in "melt value" already. Compare them and you can see how much better the older ones were struck.
So while we are now hearing that its costs 4 cents to actually mint a 1 cent coin, those pre-1982 (actually the switch was made during 1982 so those can go either way .... ) are now worth $0.04 in copper.
Collecting "half cents" and 2 cent coins is also fun, but I lost interest in the 1 cent coins when Reagan took the copper (ie the value) out of them. The "Lincoln cent" came around in 1909 as the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and changed from the "wheat" reverse to the "centennial" reverse after 50 years. They (we) should have dropped the turd of a coin in 2009 after 100 years, and vendors will round up for the upper 3 cents but down for the lower 2 cents to make nickels. (early US coinage had "half dimes" (aka half dismes) minted from silver - which were our first US coins).
Last but not least, the US has never minted a "penny" - that is a linguistic holdover from the "old country" !
https://www.ebay.com/itm/286589211817 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/286589211817)
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Moving to cash-less would be so easy if it weren't for having to buy illicit droogs, and the outrageous taxes.
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It’s funny how a 1 cent coin can cause this much debate.
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Becoming a cashless society means giving 100% control of your purchases, information, and finances, to big banking corporations.
I think with the way things are currently progressing, that outcome is inevitable, but I'd like to stave that off for as long as possible.
I think cash will always be kept around, but in the near-future be looked as something archaic and a pain to deal with, like paying with checks and landlines.
But when the bombs drop, all the finances you'll have access to are the clothes on your back.
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Becoming a cashless society means giving 100% control of your purchases, information, and finances, to big banking corporations.
That would be how I see it. And "crypto currency" is not an improvement, just more "big banking" but with no transparency.
When there was a functioning government of "We the People" that was actively involved in making and enforcing rules and regulations focused on benefit to the population, our economy was generally healthy (while still far from perfect, of course). The crucial factor is oversight and regulation, the part that the Evil Ones despise the most.
edit - re-reading this, I must clarify a couple of concepts. First, I believe in the founding principles of our country:
to Form a More Perfect Union
Establish Justice
Insure Domestic Tranquility
Provide for the Common Defense
Promote the General Welfare
and Secure the Blessings of Liberty
And in particular here are "Establish Justice" and "Promote the General Welfare" which are the 2 that we see swept under the rug most often these days. Those are the 2 that particularly interfere with exploitation and grift, and are the 2 that are most carefully targeted for subversion.
And Second, perhaps the principle that drives the rest, the Radical Right (sometimes using the disingenuous descriptor "libertarian") operates on the notion that the "gub'ment" should rigidly control all of society - except for anything surrounding money, which can never be regulated. Other people feel that it is the distribution of money that is one thing (along with environment and health) that SHOULD be most closely monitored and regulated so that the principles above ("Establish Justice" and "Promote the General Welfare") are maintained in a fair way.
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to Form a More Perfect Union
Establish Justice
Insure Domestic Tranquility
Provide for the Common Defense
Promote the General Welfare
and Secure the Blessings of Liberty
And in particular here are "Establish Justice" and "Promote the General Welfare" which are the 2 that we see swept under the rug most often these days. Those are the 2 that particularly interfere with exploitation and grift, and are the 2 that are most carefully targeted for subversion.
The-constitution is BS, for the same reason the-Bible is BS.
Writings, of this type, are juvenile, idealistic, and non-binding.
You entrust it to "humans," and what you end up with is repetitious failure, because NO GOVERNMENT thus far has had to deal with, "diminishing energy", "reverse growth." We've moved into a world where life is rapidly unsustainable because we've poisoned it.
It's still not on the radar of governments. Look at even UN goals, next to "sustainability" is "economic growth." As they are commonly defined, the goals are polar opposites.
It's not the wording that needs to change, the CORE of mankind is rot and hollow.
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We've phased out other denominations before, not a big deal, everything just gets rounded, same as we do for anything under a penny now.
Should have been phased out years ago.
As for cashless, that's a different problem.
Honestly, with all of the cameras these days, do you really think cash is all that private if the feds want to know? People gave up privacy between Facebook, frequent shopper cards, Ring, traffic cameras, plate readers, facial rec, warranty info, EULAs, and the internet the internet in general at this point... You have to work so hard to be unnoticed in society that anyone who tries to hide ends up sticking out more not less. And for the record, TOR is no different, even with encryption.
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The 3 letter agencies run more than half of the tor endpoints.