But then how would anyone put their two cents in?

Hell yeah! And make our bills different colors. And maybe add a picture of Will Ferrel on a bill. Or a penguin.

I agree!

Yep, and its pretty darn obvious, too... I do not know why we have not already done it, but I guess we just hate change. (Sorry)

Rather than eliminate the penny, why not back our money with something of real substance(i.e.) putting us back on the gold standard. Money would actually be worth something and inflation would be greatly reduced as there is a finite supply of gold. A penny would then have some "real" value.

I currently have 55,000 pennies. Haven't spent one in years. They make an impression on the grandkids when you dump 'em out on the floor & tell the kids to start counting. Someday I'll take the pennies to the bank and buy myself something cool.

And the nickel, too! And replace the quarter with a 20¢ piece ($.2) so we could simply drop a digit in money transactions.

You'll need a 50-years notice at the least

Pennies are worth more if you melt them down and make jewelery. 5 pennies can be made into a $10.00 pair of earings.....

Several times in the past the penny was to be gotten rid of but the "People from Illinois" put a stop to the idea because of Lincoln's pic and Illinois is the birth place of him.

Cut a penny into now and you will see it is NOT copper but just clad and has been for several years.

And why not get rid of penny loafers at the same time?

I come from one of the numerous other countries which has already done this. It's a good idea. In most currency systems the value of coins and notes tends to go up by a factor of about x3 per step. And inflation -- on a very rough long term average -- tends to devalue money by a factor of x3 in about 25 ~ 30 years. So it makes sense to eliminate the smallest coin, and change the smallest bill into a coin, about once every 25 ~ 30 years.

@tommy1mn:We could argue about the gold standard for hours, but let's not. Its biggest problem is something that you almost bring out then: there is a limited supply of gold. However, the total value of the economy continues to increase not just due to inflation but in real terms, because of population increase, technological advances, and the accumulation of real wealth which outpaces depreciation. Thus having a finite amount of money to represent all that wealth causes deflation where the value of the money continuously increases.

Why is that a problem? Well, for one thing it was the chief cause of the Great Depression, and also of grinding poverty for workers at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In technical terms, inflation is a negative feedback system which (usually) tends to put a check on the pressures causing inflation, but deflation is a positive feedback system in which a little deflation tends to cause even more until it spirals out of control. Inflation is a minor nuisance. Deflation can be disastrous.

historical precedent has found it more more useful to just move the decimal point on the dollars. Today, there's not really anything a nickle can buy either. So if all-at once a penny was worth ten-cents and a nickle could buy a Coke, we'd all be happy.

Of course the initial switchover would be really inflationary, but with the government printing money like it doesn't have any, probably the 'blip' would be unnoticed.

Ban the penny as soon as possible - Coz it would becomea collector's item in a couple of years - you could buy a copper penny on ebay for a dollar.

Our current currency is too complicated and outdated:

Coins: penny, nickel, dime, quarter, 0.50, 1Bills: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100

My proposal is to eliminate the penny, dollar bill, and any units that are so rare they're more novelties than serious money:

Coins: nickel, dime, quarter, 1Bills: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100

IMHO, no coin should be minted that is worth more than its own face value. When it's illegal to melt down pennies for recycling _because they're worth more melted down than as money_, you know something's wrong.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

That said, I will admit to tossing my fair share of pennies or not picking up a penny that the cashier drops while handing me my change.

However, elimination of the penny inherently poses many problems. For example, everything that used to cost $0.01, $0.02, $0.03, or $0.04 would now have to cost a nickel.

I believe a better solution would be to make making pennies cheaper. Mint pennies from plastic. There are significant advantages making money made of plastic compared to traditional paper and metal. Just google it.