Practically in the same breath the newscasters tell us how horrible our economy is, they announced recently that the penny is getting a makeover. Ah but not just one makeover but four designs to commemorate Abraham Lincoln.
Back when I ran on the college forensics speech circuit with my fire ant and mushroom speeches (yep, I was dazzling them with my knowledge of fungus and a bug that would probably never make it to Minnesota!) another guy was talking about how the Penny would be extinct by the year 2012.
It was a pretty interesting speech the first time or two I heard it (and believe me he was infinitely better than having to listen to the guy who talked about how many bugs are really in your food.)
We put them in jars and in little dishes by cash registers. We collect them with our fathers and grandfathers in those little blue cardboard books.
Do you really think it's appropriate in this day an age to make more of something that most people just toss into the bottom of their purse and then toss into the bottom of a jar? And according to snopes.com - it truly does cost more than a penny to produce one.
While I don't really understand all of the workings of the US treasury and how many pennys they typically produce a year, I'd think if they just encourage every American to bring their excess jars of them to a bank or town square, they'd find that they really don't need to produce more and I'm sure they could throw a parade or maybe make a federal holiday for Lincoln. Oh wait - they already did that!
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