The eurozone should get rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins

Since I have the burden of proof I have to proof two things: 1. The benefits of getting rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins are bigger than the harms 2. Getting rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins is doable Benefits > harm I’m first going to show with multiple arguments what the benefits are of getting rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins. Argument 1: 1 and 2 cent coins are pretty useless At the moment the typical journey of a 1 or 2 cent coin looks like this: 1. The central bank produces the coins2. Companies buy the coins, because they have to give them as change3. Customers get the coins as change4. The coins are dropped behind sofa cushions or put in jars (1) People are supposed to pay with the coins. Not put them in jars. Doing that means the companies need to buy new coins over and over, which means the central bank needs to produce these coins over and over. This brings me to my second argument: Argument 2: the cost of producing coins It costs 1.65 cents to produce a 1 cent coin and 1.94 cents to produce a 2 cent coin (2). Since there are about 25 billion 1 and 2 cent coins in circulation (1), the total cost of producing them all was about €400 million (1). That €400 million could be spent on other things. To give an example, you could buy a Boeing 747-8 for $357 million (6) and still have more than €85 million left when using the exchange rates of $1 = €0.88207, which was the exchange rate when I wrote this (3). But the cost of producing coins is only one part of the costs. This brings me to the second part I’ll discuss: Argument 3: giving the 1 and 2 cents back as change is not worth the time When you buy something, you get change, but the proces of giving change takes time. Let’s say it takes on average 5 extra seconds for the cashier to grab the 1 and 2 cent coins, count them, give them to the customer and for the customer to put them inside his (or her) wallet. Occasionally a customer or cashier will accidentally drop some coins, which also consumes some time. This is included in the 5 seconds. But whose time is used? The time of the cashier, the time of the customer who receives the change and the time of the customers waiting in the line. Let’s say that on average one more customer is waiting in the line. So 3 people are all spending 5 seconds. But what is the price of time? Let’s use the minimum wage in Germany, which is €8.50 per hour (4). So the cost of giving back the 1 and 2 cent coins is: 3 people * 5 seconds * €8.50 per hour = €0.0354 per transaction. So the cost of time of giving back the 1 and 2 cents is bigger than the value of the money. But this is the cost of a single transaction. Let’s look at how many transactions there are in Europe. Europe has a population of 338.335.120 (5). I estimate an average person makes 60 transactions per year in which the change includes 1 or 2 cents. Therefore I estimate there are 20.3 billion transactions, which each cost €0.0354. So the total cost is roughly €719 million. That’s enough to buy two more Boeing 747-8s and still have €89 million left. Implementing is doable I’ll start with explaining how the financial system will work without the 1 and 2 cent coins. After that I’m going to prove the plan is really doable. The new system Without the 1 and 2 cent coins all cash transactions will get rounded to the nearest 5 cents. However, not every single item gets rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Only the total you’ll have to pay at the cash register gets rounded. To give an example, when your total is €7.99, you’ll have to pay €8 if you pay in cash. However, if you pay electronically you’ll still pay €7.99. Furthermore, retailers are still allowed to use the 1 and 2 cent coins if they want. Evidence: multiple countries already did it Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Hungary already decided to get rid of the 1 and 2 cent coins (7). Ireland will get rid of them very soon (2). This shows it’s very well doable to implement the system. With this I end my argumentation. I now hand the debate to con. Sources: 1) . http://www.irishtimes.com...2) . http://www.theguardian.com... 3) . http://www.currencyconverterrate.com... 4) . http://www.bbc.com... 5) . https://en.wikipedia.org...6) . http://247wallst.com... 7) . https://www.newstalk.com...