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

The background provided by weirdman in undoubtably true. No denying history. However, he contended that "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. " On the other hand, my point was that the penny possessed such negligible value today such that the economy is actually losing money manufacturing it and where a dime is worth a penny during 1970. One can imagine the value it may have possessed in the past but that is not the point of this debate. It is about the penny now. (Please correct me if I am getting your point about the penny being of personal value incorrect. )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. 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. "The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but I have to acknowledge that the penny no longer serves that purpose. When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful. " Greg Mankiw, EconomistI 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. Another popular belief I forgot to mention is the one my opponent brings up. 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. My opponent mentioned that 15.5% of the American population is of the lower class and therefore would have problems. However, that means that 84.5% of the population is of the middle or upper class. Take 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. 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. 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. I thank commentor "Janus" for bringing up a relevant question. No, we would not round to the nearest bill. My point was the we would eliminate the penny. Therefore, we would round up and down accordingly to mathematics and thus, prices would statistically cancel out. Sources used in the previous and current post:(1)KNS FINANCIAL 16 March 2011<. http://www.redeemingriches.com...;(2)Lewis, Mark. "Ban the Penny. " Forbes. com 5 July 2002. 8 February 2006<. http://www.forbes.com...;(3)Kahn, Ric. "Penny Pinchers. " Globe. com 9 October 2005. 10 February 2006<. http://www.boston.com...;(4)Saffire, William. "Abolish the Penny. " nytimes. com 2 June 2004. 3 November 2006<. http://select.nytimes.com...;(5)Weller, Mark W. Letter. Unpublished letter to the New York Times. Americans for Common Cents. 7 Nov. 2006 <www. pennies. org>(6)"Abolish the Penny? A Majority of the Public Says 'No'" The Harris Poll #51 15 July 2004. 8 March 2006<. http://www.harrisinteractice.com...;(7) "President Bush signs Lincoln Penny Redesign Into Law. " Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. 22 December 2005. 8 March 2006<. http://www.lincolnbicentennial.gov...;