The use of pennies in the US pricing system should be eliminated.

"With this being said, we can clearly see that the penny seen as one of the first American formulated coins, possess a both patriotic as well as personal value. " Sadly, my opponent misinterpreted this statement. I made this statement to convey the fact that the penny should be continued because it is a patriotic symbol. It means that abolishing the penny is virtually equivalent to abolishing the American flag. "The fact that the penny is a medium of patriotism does not matter. Our economy is suffering with, as I stated above, at least $15 billion from time wasted with these pennies" If this statement made by my opponent is true then using the train of taught. we should neglect the statue of liberty simply because it isn't proportional to the "ULTIMATE" goal of economic stability. The statue of liberty as we all know it, is a symbol of both patriotic as well as personal value. The same statue of liberty brings in approximately $40,000 - &70,000 annually, however we neglect the fact that the statue of liberty needs maintenance. $1000 for the statues torch/lighthouse, "$10,000 for maintenance(annually)"{2} a huffington post article recently reveled a plan for a $25.5million renovation. {3} The past renovation cost us approximately "$15 million dollars" {2} With all the fact giving, we can clearly see that the despite the fact that the statue of liberty isn't in proportion with our economic goals, we continue to renovate as well as maintain it because it serves as patriotic symbol to both our populations and our Great nation. In the same way, The reason that the penny serves as a patriotic value should not be irrelevant when it comes to this debate. This reason should be enough to continue to manufacturing and circulation of the penny. . "Furthermore, there are a lot of places that don't even accept pennies. Vending machines, toll booths, laundromats, and pay phones will spit them out or even sound an alarm. Many people simply place their pennies in a jar, or a 5-gallon water jug. " This only concedes to the idea that the penny allows for charity organizations to make more money. Since few places do not take the penny, it now becomes easier for an individual to donate more penny than any other coin due to face value. "I agree with my opponent that the penny does serve towards patriotism but the fact that our economy is losing more money than necessary in this poor economy is a sure indicator that money should be treated as money. If it is of no benefit or as Greg Mankiw stated, not facillitating exchange, which the penny is clearly, then we should eliminate it. " My opponent contradicts himself by stating that he does accept the fact that the penny has sentimental value, but at the same time he states that we should eliminate anything with no benefit. This contradiction then translates to. .. Since the penny is of sentimental value, then the penny is of benefit to the public mind which then protects it from being eliminated. "Many people believe that eliminating the penny would, in fact, harm the amount of money spent towards charities. This argument ignores that fact that the charitable organization could simply ask for a donation of a nickel. " This might be seen as the logical thing to do, however, we must look into the fact that the like I mentioned in my first NC and this rebuttal, It is harder for people to give up there penny than to give up there nickel. If you were to eliminate every penny in the making, giving up the nickel would be even harder because the nickel can now be seen as the only way to complete a purchase (all item will now be rounded to the nearest 5 cents). "ake a hundred people giving a donation of a penny. The charity would make $1.00. Now, take 84 people donating a nickel. That charity would be making $4.20 a $3.20 profit. If my calculations are correct, JC PENNY's Penny Drive would have made $2,753,135.87 asking for a nickel. " If 84 people give a nickel to the charity organization, then it is also likely that 8400 people would give the penny. Since the penny has a lesser face value, more people are likely to give the penny than nickel. {please give me your evidence for the JC penny claim} "Economics Professor Ray Lombra may have believed that most prices would have been rounded up but a Washington Post article says otherwise. "Robert M. Whaples of Wake Forest University has analyzed 200,000 transactions across seven states, and he concluded that consumers would not actually suffer. Purchases at gas stations and convenience stores are just as likely to come to $7.02 as $6.98, so the rounding up and rounding down would cancel themselves out. On average, shoppers would lose nothing. " Statistically, there would be no loss of money by rounding. " If this was actually true, the the economy in general would suffer. The first scenario stated by my opponent says that an Item worth $7:02 would be rounded to %6.98. If this business normally makes 3,000 sales, that is a loss of $1,500. This hurts the owner as there business is now losing money and this also hurts the circle of selling and buying, which then hurts the economy in general. "My question to weirdman would be why more production of the nickel be necessary. It would take four pennies to pay any $0. X4 (X representing any positive integer less than 10) but one would technically only need one nickel at most to to pay for any $0. X5. Also, utilizing the time to figure out the exact change of these prices would be worth it. " A greater production of nickel will have to take place because with the penny gone, the nickel would have to become the lowest denomination and thus a greater need for the nickel to complete a pay would take place which means a greater production would need to take place to maintain stability. Sources: {1}. http://www.debate.org... {2}. http://www.lighthousefriends.com... {3}. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... {4}. http://www.nytimes.com...