Question: Should the penny stay in circulation?

Pennies should not be abolished and are necessary to stabilise the economy. According to http://www.pennies.org... Penny keep high prices in check, not only that but many charities are fueled by the power of the penny. Realistically if the penny was gone companies would not round down to the nearest penny, but up costing the consumers money! Sure it costs about 2.2 pennys to make a penny, but really you would be paying about three cents extra for every time they rounded up when you bought something. We also honor Abraham Lincoln, so in a way its American tradition. The penny has value who honestly never tried to put pennys in a piggy bank you would be surprised!

The use of pennies in the US pricing system should be eliminated. Today, pennies have become little more than a nuisance to our economy and therefore should be eliminated. In the Harris Poll, an online, nationwide poll that surveyed 2,136 adults, a total of 59% of those adults were opposed to the abolishing of the penny. The first of two main reasons people believed that the penny should remain in circulation was that the pennies served as a historical memorial to a particularly beloved president, Abraham Lincoln. In 21 December 2005, President Bush signed into law legislation directing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue newly designed reverse side images to mark the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. As Mark Bishop, the executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, praised, many people believe that "the penny is perhaps the most visible and tangible reminder of Lincoln's significance in American History." The second reason was, as claimed by Mark W. Weller, the Executive director of Americans for Common Cents, "the fact that the penny remains popular with the public and important to our pricing system." He also claimed that the statement that the "'U.S. is among the last industrialized nations to abolish' its low denomination coin runs counter to the facts. The European Union's adoption of the euro included a one-cent euro coin or 'euro penny. [...] And in the major industrialized countries, including Great Britain, Canada, Japan, and the U.S., the penny or penny-equivalent remains in production and shares similar percentages of total coins produced into those countries. However, they are wrong. The benefits of keeping pennies are overwhelmed by the consequences of keeping them. The claim that the penny is an important memorial to President Lincoln is clearly fallacious. The 16th president of the United States who maintained the Union and thereby abolished slavery by winning the Civil War, a war that made the ratification of the 13th Amendment immediately available, is memorialized enough as it is. He is already apparent on the five dollar bill (who would want to be remembered on a coin that according to William Saffire of the New York Times, "two thirds of the time immediately drop out of circulation behind sofas, drawers, etc when he or she is already on a five dollar bill; how many of those have you seen lying on the ground). Also, he has an entire memorial of him in Washington. A 99 foot marble statue of him that cost $3 million to make. Why should we in our poor economic situation today print these pennies that obviously are trivial to the accolade of Lincoln when according to MIT graduate Jeff Gore in Ric Kahn's article "Penny Pinchers" for The Globe, "the presence of pennies wastes (3 transactions/day) x (2.25 seconds/transaction) x (3 people per transaction) = 20 seconds per day. [...] it translates to 40 x 365 / 3600 - 4 hours per person per year. [...] each person is losing $60 per year, at a cost to the nation of over $15 billion per year." not to mention that the cost to making a penny costs approximately 1.6 cents? Moving on, the claim by Mark Weller, however, is not credible. In his unpublished letter to William Saffire to argue that the coin was valuable, he, as previously stated, believed the pennies to be "important to our pricing system." Not only does the reader have to question his claim as he provides no factual evidence to support his claim but the reader has to realize that this man is speaking on bias. He is the Executive director of an organization that supports the coin. He is wealth is corner stoned on the fact that the penny exists. There is no escaping economic history: it takes nearly a dime to buy what a penny bought back in 1950. Pennies are losing value and face. The United States has no use for them. As William Saffire comically remarked, " the Brits and the French - even the French! - who dumped their low-denomination coins 30 years ago, will be laughing at our senseless jingle" The penny, hardly anything more than a inconsequential memorial to such a great president, should be eliminated. They are acting as a retardant to our American economy. On the flip side, "Edmond Knowles figures he has saved an average of about 90 pennies a day for the last 38 years [...] that would be 1,308,459 pennies, or $13,084.59." (William Saffire) *shakes head*

The Penny The first one cent coin was made in 1792, theses pennies were made of 100% pure copper. The value of copper went up and inflation made the Penny worth less. So the mint was forced to make penny with less and less copper, until only 5% of it was made of copper. In 2006 the value of older pennies rose over one cent, so pennies were worth more dead then alive. People started melting pennies to sell there copper for profit. In a better efficient, rational world that would have been it for the penny, the american government would have realized there not worth minting and would have been happy there citizens were making profits. Instead copper melting became illegal and we kept making pennies. .. Argument 1 (bad for the economy)We manufacture 4 million Pennies each year even though it cost more to make the penny then the penny is worth. It costs 1.8 pennies to make one Pennie. So 1.8cents = 1 penny. Pennies are bad for the economy and add debt every year. Argument 2 (Pennies are impractical and unneeded) the whole point of paper money is that it's easier to buy things with. Imagine buying twenty dollars worth of stuff with 2000 pennies. The penny's worthlessness will continue to get worse, meaning that it will just continue to get more impractical to buy things with pennies. Back in the olden day pennies could by things, not anymore the penny is not capable of buying anything anymore. Argument3 (Pennies are a waste of time) not a single machine accepts pennies not soda machines, news paper dispensers, vending machines, laundry machines, toll booths or parking meters because there just not worth the time to add and collect them. Since sales tax is not included in the price of items, you don't know the exact change you have to pay until looking at the register. Exact change is not enough to even bother for, because its not worth anything and you just end up wasting everyone else's time who waiting in line. Now I now there's concern about prices increasing once the Pennie is removed. I will prove why that misconception is false next round if my opponent doesn't mention it first.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. Okay after a long hiatus, I am back again and ready to rumble. I must unfortunately begin with the almost obligatory request that voters vote for whom did the better debating rather than with whom you agree with. With that out of the way I will first present my case before moving on to my opponent's. 1. Direct waste of money According to Citizens for Retiring the Penny (http://www.retirethepenny.org...) , the U.S. Mint produces about 7 billion pennies ($70 million) every year at a cost over $100 million. Thus, we directly lose at least $30 million a year producing the penny. And with the rising cost of zinc, that deficit will only grow. 2. Waste of time (= indirect waste of money) The National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreen's drug stores estimated that pennies waste 2 to 2.5 seconds per each cash transaction. If we estimate that each person goes through two of these transactions per day (which seems rather low) and that on average there is one person waiting in line (which once again seems low). This makes for 3 persons' time to be wasted (cashier, penny finder, person in line). We can then calculate that the presence of pennies wastes (2 transactions/day) X (2 seconds/transaction) X (3 people per transaction) = 12 seconds per day, or 1.2 hours per person per year. Of course, when you get home you still have to find something to do with your pennies, meaning that probably only about half of the wasted time is directly connected with a cash transaction (the other time is associated with counting pennies etc), giving a total of 2.4 wasted hours per person per year. The mean wage in the US is approximately $17/hour, implying that each of us is effectively "paying" $40 per year to keep pennies in circulation. Given that the US has ~ 240 million adults, using pennies is currently costing the nation $10 billion per year. Thus, the penny costs us $10,030,000 per year. While this may seem small compared to the total national debt, every little bit helps. In fact, if no cost cutting measures were taken other than retiring the penny, the current debt would be erased in 959,619 years! 3. China dependence The reason for influx of the price make pennies is the main ingredient: zinc. And guess who is the world's largest exporter of zinc… you guessed it: China! With every penny we make, we further increase our economic dependency on China. So retiring the penny would also make our economy more independent. Now to my opponent: My opponent has one argument: that the nostalgic value of the penny cannot be ignored, comparing it to various monuments in D.C. I will contend the actual nostalgic value in a second but first we must see that keeping the penny could in fact result in the end of it. As I have shown, we are losing tremendous amounts of money due to the penny. This annual loss helps push our economy helping to lead to a recession or a depression. When you have depression, countries are in danger of breaking apart. If the U.S. were to cease to exist so would the penny, so either way we lose any nostalgic value. Now I contend that there is no value to the penny. Considering that 58% of people save pennies rather than spend them, the new penny philosophy seems to be the one found in this Ashfield comic: http://www.ashfieldonline.com... rather than the one my opponent is indicating. As I have shown why the penny should be discontinued I bid adieu until my opponent responds.

The use of pennies in the US pricing system should be eliminated. In today's society, a penny has become more than a simple coin used to commemorate the great president Abraham Lincoln, it is now a coin of both sentimental value and economic value. This debate will open your eyes to the new and exciting world of the penny. .. Sentimental Value: When looking into the issue of sentimental value, we find that it is one of major concern to the American citizen. The best way to understand the value of the cent towards the American population, is to look at the penny or rather cent's history. BACKGROUND: "When the United States Mint was created in 1792, one of the first coins it made the following year was the one-cent coin, and it looked very different from the modern version. ï¿½ The image on the first cent was of a lady with flowing hair, who symbolized liberty. ï¿½ The coin was larger and made of pure copper, while today's smaller cent is made of copper and zinc. In 1857, Congress authorized the United States Mint to strike the cent with 88 percent copper and 12 percent nickel. ï¿½ The "shape and size" would be determined by the United States Mint Director, with the approval of the Treasury Secretary. ï¿½ The new cents showed a flying eagle on the front and a wreath on the back. ï¿½ The act of February 21, 1857, also mandated that people could no longer use coins from other countries, a practice that had been necessary because of a lack of domestic coinage. ï¿½ However, people could bring their foreign coins to the United States Mint, where they could be exchanged for U. S. silver coins and the new cents. From 1909 to 1958, the Lincoln obverse was paired with a reverse that featured a wheat design in which two sheaves of wheat flanked the wordsï¿½ONE CENTï¿½andï¿½UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ï¿½ It is commonly known as the "wheat penny. " From 1959 to 2008, the reverse featured an image of the Lincoln Memorial designed by Frank Gasparro. ï¿½ It commemorated the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. In 2009, the United States Mint issued four different one-cent coins in recognition of the bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 100th anniversary of the first issuance of the Lincoln cent. ï¿½ The themes for the reverse designs represent the four major aspects of President Lincoln's life: birth and early childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816) formative years in Indiana (1816-1830) professional Life in Illinois (1830-1861) presidency in Washington, DC (1861-1865)" {1} 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 to statistics: Results of the poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), show that: * 69% of Americans favor keeping the penny in circulation, which is virtually identical to what Americans reported (71%) to ORC in 2001; * 64% of respondents oppose eliminating the penny and establishing a price rounding system; and * 70% expressed concern that if the government implements rounding schemes for cash purchases, merchants might take the opportunity to raise prices rather than lose pennies when rounding down, with minority Americans expressing most concern. {2} A personal survey interviewing 50 of my school mates showed these results: 38--->Wanted to keep the penny 10---> Didn't care 2-----> Wanted the penny gone. We must also take in consideration that many charities use the penny to collect huge amount of donation. Take the JC PENNY Penny drive, the penny to many is far easier to donate than coins with a higher face value. Abolishing the penny will greatly affect these charity organizations as the are now unable to collect as much money as they previously did with the existence of the penny. "Some charities use penny drives to raise money. Children in New York City collected more than 65 million pennies last year for a total of $655,508.54, according to organizer Common Cents. "It is a very powerful symbol of the potential we have to turn our wasteful society into a caring and recycling and reciprocal society," Common Cents founder Teddy Gross says. " {3} Both the statistic and the survey above shows that the penny is worth a lot when it comes to the American population. The American citizen not only see the sentimental worth of a penny, they also recognizes its. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Economic worth. My opponent makes a valuable point in stating that the penny is worth far more than its face value, however we must also take in consideration that the penny is also a major part of the economic circle. If the penny was abolished, every American goods as well as imported goods will have to be rinses to the nearest nickel. This might not seen like a lot, but to the lower class which makes up approximately 15.5% of the American population. "And at least one economist says eliminating the penny would hurt the poor. When prices are rounded, most of the amounts will be rounded up, not down, argues Pennsylvania State University economics professor Ray Lombra, who has testified before Congress in support of the penny. For those who have little money, those pennies will add up. "Certainly the working poor — many of them still do not have checking accounts, credit cards — they are conducting their transactions in cash. So they are the ones who are going to bear most of the burden," Lombra says. " {3} We must also look into the fact that the nickel cost far more than the current penny. The nickel cost $7.55 approximately $2.55 over its face value. If the penny was to be eliminated, there would be an increase in the manufacturing of nickels which in turn would cost the united states more money than both the current penny and nickel production today. Following my opponents core reason to abolish the penny, we should also abolish the nickel as it cost more to produce than it is actually worth. SOURCES: {1}. http://www.usmint.gov... {2}. http://www.pennies.org... {3}. http://www.pennies.org... {4}. http://ohmygov.com...

The United States should cease production of the penny Much of this argument will be tied into convincing those who are reading, and can vote. But, like the penny those who cannot vote, still have a valued by opinion in this matter and can be counted by their comment. The penny"s value is beyond its own self-evident worth it will be proved to be a reflection of our labor. The penny holds a liberty which serves and greater good and is worth in its added cost beyond face value. 1.The Penny is a part of an impartial system of measurement and as a part of the system it is expected to be held as part of its measurement and value. Not a just cost and value. When it shows a negative number by its own profit. It is a part of the overall machine showing wear or abuse in that system. The penny is simply just .0001% of a dollar. The measurement outside of its well-known value is a direct relationship to our method of keeping time. Its transposition is to the ten-thousands by volume. 2.The pricing of metal makes it profitable to harvest pennies out of an economy. The obligation behind all taxation is immediately to the United States Connotation Separation process. The removal of the penny means an instant pay raise for inappropriate spending. Spending which should have been going to safeguarding the harvesting of United States Private Property, its penny and the value by weight of metal. The pennies copper or metal is incapable of self-regulation. The Federal Reserve Note in line behind every penny most certainly has this ability. It only fails when squandered elsewhere. 3.The penny is an economic indicator to inflation it is part of a clock system. I have recently started argument that the national Debt Clock is indeed inaccurate. Part of the inaccuracy is how it aligns Debt spending by its lowest value. The mistake is in increments. The lower values in debt accurately run backwards as mentioned in my opening reason the penny has a negative transposition valued at Ten-Thousand. The hard thing to want to take is this measurement is for loss not profit. In the Axiom of GOD we TRUST, the reason for this somewhat obscure logic all people want to know about the possibility of loss first as an indication or warning. 4.The pennies worth for harvest was not always 1 cent it was driven by inflation. When the pennies is gone that means the nickel is next in the line of inflation driven harvesting. Instead of 1 cent it will be .05 cents which is taken. The Government has always operated by rounding up to the nearest .05 cents. To justify this action which can destabilizes an impartiality, how any-one can say this action of round up has improved cost is hiding the examples of its overall performance. After all the Governing body has been collecting four times more than the rest of the Nation and the rising spending provides us with a quarter or less in stability or progress.

In the US, pennies should be abolished. As part of its new budget, Canada will get rid of its penny, saving taxpayers more than C$11 million, according to the Royal Bank of Canada. Since production in 1908, the bank has produced more than 35 billion pennies, but circulation will end sometime in 2012. As part of cost cutting measures, Canada will save at least C$150 million in production and handling costs once the penny is completely abolished. It costs the Canadian government C1.6 cents to mint a penny, a coin made from copper-plated zinc and copper-plated steel. However, it won't only be the government that saves money. Banks Pay Saving pennies in a piggy bank may be fun for children, but for banks, the transportation, handling and storage of coins costs about C$20 million each year according to Canadian officials, a cost that has to be passed on to customers in the form of fees. Eliminating the penny saves a portion of the costs associated with processing coins. More Efficient Some argue that cash registers will have to be reprogrammed to accommodate the switch, but since the penny will remain in circulation until most pennies are out of circulation and taxes will continue to be calculated to the penny, cash registers and other business machines will operate as they always have. Catherine Swift, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says that businesses welcome the change, since fewer coins will eventually make their business more efficient. Other Countries Have Done It Canada is one of many countries that have ended the minting of their lowest-value coins. In 1992, Australia eliminated their one- and two-cent coins from circulation. In January 2008, Israel eliminated their five agorot coin. These countries join at least 15 other countries including Great Britain, The Philippines, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore and Mexico that have all eliminated at least one of their coins to lower government costs. When Will the United States Do It? The most notable hold out is the United States. In 2006, The Legal Tender Modernization Act was introduced by Representative Jim Kolbe. The bill aimed to require that all transactions be rounded to the nearest 5 cents but this legislation failed to pass Congress leaving the U.S. with the same problem as Canada. Producing the penny in the U.S. costs a lot more than in Canada, according to CNN. To produce a U.S. penny, the U.S. Mint pays 2.4 cents per penny, and that's up from 1.5 cents in 2006. That, along with the production of the nickel, costs the U.S. government more than $100 billion each year, and if it can't be retired, President Obama wants the cost reduced. That, according to officials, is difficult, because the administrative costs of producing a penny account for nearly half a cent, leaving very little room to cover the cost of raw materials.[1] [1]http://www.investopedia.com... My old arguments. Cost of Producing the Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, and Golden Dollar Coins. $1 Coin Quarter Dime Nickel Penny 18.03 cents 11.14 cents 5.65 cents 11.18 cents 2.41 cents (United States Mint, 2011 Annual Report, pg. 11) 1. PENNIES COST MORE TO MAKE THAN THEY ARE WORTH This will send the US economy down the drain in the future, with inflation. Pennies are worth less than nothing, because of the cost to make one. 2. IT WOULD NOT INCREASE COSTS BY AN EXTENSIVE AMOUNT The cost of anything would be rounded to the nearest 5/10 cents. EXAMPLE: $1.01 would be rounded to $1.

Get rid of pennies Roadmap- I will go over the benefits of the penny then refute my opponents arguments. C1) While individually pennies are not worth much, over time they add up. A) In 2002, Gallup polling found that 58 percent of Americans stash pennies in piggy banks, jars, drawers and the like, instead of spending them like other coins. Some people eventually redeem them at banks or coin-counting machines! So many Americans actually do use the penny. B) Furthermore, the penny is used to raise money by charity organizations. People who would not be willing to part with a larger bill are often willing to give up Pennies. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has raised 150 million dollars through its "Pennies for Patients" program over 15 years. Without the penny, this cancer research would not have been possible. C2) Pennies help fight inflation "We think the penny is important as a hedge to inflation," says director Mark Weller of Americans for Common Cents. "Any time you have more accurate pricing, consumers benefit." Small business owners and small purchases rely on the penny. Loss of the penny will create inflation and price instability. http://www.offthekuff.com... C3) The rise of credit cards defeats the purpose of rounding coins. The common complaint about pennies is that they are inefficient to use. Credit cards however operate by computer. They can handle as many digits as needed. As credit cards become more common, pennies will be used less. So these disadvantages become less noticeable. Onto my opponents case "But, in the case of nickels and pennies, the government lost almost $100 million dollars alone in 2007." First, I would like to point out my opponent provided no sources for this claim(or any claim he makes). The argument should be discredited on that basis alone. Second, the federal government has a budget of three trillion a year. 100 Million dollars would be .0003 percent of the yearly budget. This would have a virtually unnoticeable effect on the budget (It would save everyone money in the pennies, which as my opponent has abolished would result in no benefit for most tax payers). This is significantly outweighed by the extra money a 99 cent purchase would now cost (1 percent). http://www.wallstats.com... "So, a simple remedy is to stop minting the Jefferson nickel, and make the Lincoln penny worth five cents" This part of my opponents case would have a significant negative impact on the economy. Suddenly, every penny a person owns would quintuple in value. The amount of money in the US economy would change. Assuming Congress was even considering passing this bill, there would be a mad dash by consumers to acquire as many pennies as they can. This would create much instability in the market place. In summary, I provide 3 reasons we should keep the penny in circulation, disprove the only reason my opponent actually gives to abolish the penny(100 million spent) and prove how his implementation would hurt the economy far more than it would help.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service To start this debate, I'd like to define some of the key terms and state that I am con, firmly arguing why the US penny should not be taken out of service. Definitions: Penny Taken Out of Service: All pennies within the United States will neither be minted nor accepted as legal tender. Plan: As I am Con, it is not my job to address a plan, so the plan must be addressed by Pro. Burden of Proof: Here, I'd like to establish a 3-pronged burden of proof for Pro. In order for Pro to win this debate, he/she must prove the following three items: 1) The harm of the penny is sufficient enough to justify its removal from the market. 2) Taking the penny out of service will minimalistically harm the economy. 3) Their plan is good enough to transition into this change smoothly with minimal harm and maximum benefit. If any fragment of these three items is left unproved, then I, Con, will win this debate. Arguments: I would like to bring 2 major points into this debate. Argument 1: Economical Harm The US penny should not be taken out of service because it will harm the economy. Even though it is only one cent, the penny is extremely important in the way the US economic system works. How can we achieve the same amount of exactness in change and payments as we do with the penny? The only answer is rounding, but that is detrimental to the economy. According to pennies. org, propositions take the penny out of service and utilize the nickel as the coin of lowest value create public anxiety about higher prices and inflation. Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) are concerned that merchants would raise prices without the penny. And, most likely, they are correct. Professor of Economics at Penn State University Raymond Lombra, Ph. D. said to a Congressional committee that rounding cash sales up or down to the nearest nickel would cost consumers over $600 million annually. For example, you are a merchant who runs a clothing store. You charge $11 for a t-shirt, and the sales tax in California is 7.5%. You have a customer, and he/she pays in cash. The amount comes down to $11.86 with the sales tax. But, wait" you have no pennies! How do you get the extra cent when there are no cents? The only answer is to round the price down to $11.85, but then you're losing a cent! When the penny is taken out of service, multiply this example by millions per day, and, as Raymond Lombra puts it, $600 million is now lost per year versus when the penny was still in service. $600 million dollars being lost just from taking a coin out of service is an extremely significant amount that cannot be ignored. A whopping majority of 77% of the general public is worried about taking the penny out of service. Without the penny, the the general public will lose money and the US economic situation will worsen. Argument 2: Charities The US penny should not be taken out of service because charities need pennies. There are a plethora of small charities that depend on penny drive to bring in donations. People think nothing of pouring out their old penny jars to support these drives, but they won't part with nickels so easily. Many corporations, national charities, schools, and local philanthropies have realized the worth of the penny. Through the use of point-of-sale collections, penny drives and competitive penny fundraisers, these groups have turned thousands of idle pennies into real dollars for everything from college scholarships to cancer research and housing for the homeless. One major example is Pennies for Patients, and without pennies, it would be nickels for patients, but that doesn't sound good! Pennies always have a worth to someone no matter who he/she may be. Pennies rescue people battling terrible diseases such as cancer. Pennies can save lives. College scholarships and cancer research rely on pennies. We, the opposition, want the best in the future, and the best is not to eliminate the penny.

Convert the penny!!! The proposal to eliminate the penny has been a major issue ever since its cost of production exceeded its value. You claim that it currently costs 1.3 cents to make a penny. The numbers I've seen were a bit lower, stating that it costs around 1.23 cents. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the penny's cost of production does indeed exceed its value. The negative seignoirage value does cost the government money in terms of producing the penny. However, the economy is not solely, nor even mainly based on the cost of producing legal tender. The economic consequences of eliminating the penny would be disastrous, and in comparison to the possible and probable effects on the economy, the loss of $150 million in production is a minor one. The elimination of the penny would consequently make the lowest possible unit of currency 5 cents. This would lead to an adverse effect on consumers. When a purchase is made and the sales tax added, the final number would not be rounded up to the penny, but rather the nickel. This leads to a negative effect on consumers. This "rounding tax" as many economists call it, would lead to a cost of approximately $3 billion over the course of five years according to some numbers. This is much higher than the $750 million lost to producing a coin with a negative seignoirage value for a time span of five years. The penny must be retained for the good of the overall economy. The cost of production is minor compared to the consequences.

The penny should be stopped from circulation I will be arguing in favor of the following plan: 1: All Pennies currently circulated as U. S Currency shall be no longer be accepted as commerce by the United States Treasury Department. A: The production of pennies will be halted immediately. B: Those pennies not in circulation, but already produced, shall be melted down. C: The remaining pennies shall not and will not be allowed to be held by any U. S citizen with any intention other than collecting 2: Pennies shall be no longer used as a form of debt payment in the United States or its respective territorial holdings, nor shall it be continued to be produced as a coin of regular commercial circulation. 3: The United States Mint shall be responsible for executing the contingencies of the aforementioned plan, in the interest of the U. S Treasury department. 4: All laws in conflict with this legislation are hereby declared null and void.

The United States should cease production of the penny I agree with ceasing production of the penny in the United States for the following reasons. 1:The penny costs more than 1 cent to make As of 2011, it costs 2.41" to make a 1" penny. This is clearly unsustainable. With 2.4 billion pennies made in that year, that means that the US wastes around 3.5 billion dollars every year to attempt to keep this coin relevant. 3.5 billion dollars is a lot of money, and it can't even do anything because pennies have essentially zero buying power. 2:Pennies do not function as a coin. Although they are based on the same dollar system, cards, dollars and coins typically are used on separate products. Coins are typically used on cheap, high impulse spending. For example, vending machines or parking meters. Yet, the vast majority of these products do not accept pennies. Pennies get most of their circulation by a company called Coinstar, which is a company whose sole purpose is turning left over change into more useful dollars. This means that pennies cannot function as they are designed, and should be moved out of circulation. 3:Pennies have essentially zero buying power. Among coins, coins such as the dollar coin or the quarter are circulated quickly because of the high impulse nature of coins. Pennies; however, have no buying power. For example, it takes 100 pennies to buy one dollars worth of goods. By contrast, it takes 10 dimes. The pennies lack of buying power means that they are often unused, left in a jar or other coin stash. Whenever money is not being circulated, the economy slows. This is often more important with larger tender, such as dollars or half-dollars, but pennies left unattended can quickly add, especially with billions put into circulation every year. Pennies do not function in the current economy. 4: Federal Property does not accept the penny In US military bases, the penny is already banned. There were no repercussions that were not solved by simply rounding to the nearest 5 cents instead of the nearest 1 cent. Because of this, we can see that there are in fact no detriments to the economy caused by the penny. 5: The penny is a bipartisan issue. If this was to become a reality, the only way to create such legislation would be through Congress. In the current American system, partisanship reigns supreme. Issues are debated, but bills are hardly passed, and as such, something needs to be done. The penny is an issue with supporters on both sides of them spectrum, meaning that if the bill came to Congress, there would not be a blue-red split that occurs in so much legislation. This bill could be the bridge between the two parties, meaning that an effective Congress could actually occur, all the while solving a problem that is simple to fix. Pennies are a serious issue, and the United States government needs to take care of this important and simple issue by ceasing production of the penny.

Should the penny be kept in US currency The removal of the penny will cause an economic breakdown, sure. But so have many other things- and we got over it. The penny is soon going to be obselete, along with most other coins and even bills. Technology is growing by the minute. Credit cards are a more efficient way of payment, as compared to it.

We should get rid of the penny If you check the link you literally just copy and pasted it...and also first round is acceptance. Sorry if this comes off as rude, but in all honesty I doubt you know much about this topic as you just copy and pasted it. Thanks for accepting my debate though! Also welcome to debate.org (oh and just to clarify by we I mean the US)I will state my arguments for keeping the penny.Argument 1- It costs more to make a penny then it is worth [1]It costs 2.41 cents to make one penny, and approx. 7.4 billion pennies are made each year [2], so do the math and we are wasting over 10360000000 pennies a year, or 103600000 (over 100 million), dollars a year on pennies alone. This is money that could be spent much more effectively, like on public schools! (Another source I found said pennies cost 1.7 cents to produce, which would still equal to over 50 million dollars lost)Argument 2- We already went along fine without something worth one cent [3] According to popular youtuber Hank Green "..in 1972 a penny was worth what a nickel is worth today, and yet in 1972 the economy managed to function just fine without a coin that was worth 1/5th of a penny." It has worked before, it will work again.Argument 3- They are uselessMoney could easily be rounded to the nearest fifth, and are simply not worth the time and effort to take out and fiddle with exact change[1]http://www.usmint.gov... (at the bottom of the page)[2]http://coins.about.com... [3]http://www.youtube.com...

Should the penny be kept in US currency The penny may have sounded like a good idea when It was invented, but except for certain transactions of "$22.01" it isn't necessary. The penny costs more than it is worth to make! Sure, it would cause a ripple in the world of money, but we can get over that!

The US should abolish the penny Okay, dropping a few definitions of my own, not conflicting with any Pro provided. Hope Pro doesn't mind. Consumerism - the theory that an increasing consumption of goods and services is economically desirable. Instant gratification - The consumer receiving the good/service immediately or in an expedited manner upon paying for it, instead of a delay. Definitions adapted from merriamwebster.com My argument for keeping the penny is a simple one. Not everyone has a credit card. There are those of us who have to make do with the money in our pockets when we go spending. The penny allows for cashiers to make change more easily. For example, a $0.99 item (after tax) is being paid for with a one dollar bill. Well, the change for that is... wait for it... one penny. Sure, that is a specific example, but still, convenience. For reference, consumerism is still alive and well here in America. The penny, as it is now, is a medium of exchange, legal tender, for all debts, public and private, here in America. An announcement of an attempt at abolishing the penny would result in an uproar unless it coincided with a sporting event. The way the debate statement is phrased, abolishing the penny would cut down on the money supply a bit, but so would contractionary fiscal policy. We are paying 1.7 cents per penny for convenience. Sure, there are downsides, such as a bunch of pennies being really heavy, but they have machines like Coin Star* for that. You are paying for convenience when it takes 10% from your monies, but you can now get bills and nickels on up, and drop the penny in the chain's pet project charity of the week's box if you so desire. The term for such a thing is instant gratification. Another example of instant gratification from our daily lives is fast food, such as In-N-Out or McDonalds. You get your food very quickly, allowing you to resume your life sooner than if you went to a sit-down restaurant. There are those that would say, "Hey, fast food is cheaper than sit-down." Yes, that is true. However, fast food can and does serve more customers overall, which means they can have lower prices, to attract more customers. Yet again, In-N-Out would be a prime example of this. A better example of instant gratification would be the one-day or two-day shipping options when shopping online. "You want this thing? You want it now? Pay a little extra to get it!" As far as I can tell, *This, and all the other examples given aren't advertising; I'm just using the examples I know. A very good question for those penny-punters (not pinchers) would be "What then? Do all existing pennies become worth the alloys they are made of?" Chances are, they just saw an example of waste and wanted to smite it, initiate sweeping reforms, and get a statue (made of smelted pennies or something pretentious yet awesome like that) somewhere. A buyback program would work... up until pennies don't show up in multiples of five. Would we round up or round down in such a case? If we round up, we're throwing money at people. If we round down, we're taking even more money from people. If we round up, the government loses in the short run, which is bad for the politicos, but good for the people. If we round down, it looks better on the balance sheet for that year, but a lot of people just lost a few pennies. Admittedly, people would probably lose less than they spend on a cup of coffee on any given day, but there would still be a bit of outrage, and outrage is bad for the incumbents. And now the rambling bit that I really should write better, but because of reasons, I only had twenty minutes to write this, because of a prior engagement that I should have remembered earlier that, fortunately, let out early. Wishing wells and/or the Uncomfortable Truths Well would have a lot more nickels, dimes, and quarters in them. We already have issues with fractions of cents. Don't make it worse by getting rid of the penny. It's easier to use a Coin Star, take it to the cashier, and deposit it in a savings account than it is to do a buyback. How much change do you have lying around that you won't find for a couple years? How long is the aforementioned buyback program in effect? Which way was it going again? Were they rounding up or down? Will it simply take place at a bank, or will there be specialized facilities? All of these are legitimate concerns. In conclusion, the penny is still a viable medium of exchange and store of value. By all means, we should keep it around.

Stop the Minting of the American Penny Contrary to the original post, the penny does actually provide a real purpose in our modern world. And not only this, this debate has been won by the Con side throughout various times in our nation's history. There exist many jobs in the zinc and zinc-related industries that produce these pennies, as well as transportation jobs in relation to delivering pennies to various institutions. By ceasing the production and minting of the penny, we see many of these jobs that would be otherwise lost. These providers of zinc and copper would lose contracts worth tens of millions of dollars every year if such pennies ceased new production. In 1982, these pennies were made from brass, and were also engaging in a higher production cost. However, in this year, zinc was used to provide 97.5% of the composition of the penny, with the thin copper plating on the outside of the coin. Initially this saved the government millions of dollars, but we have seen recently the rising prices of zinc. It is true that such rising zinc prices have increased the price of the penny, but there is no reason why the composition of the penny cannot be revisited as a way to cut down on costs on production, without having to cut the coin all together. Hypothetically, if the cost of ink and paper exceeded $1, would we eliminate the dollar? If it exceeded $100, would we tell all the Benjamin Franklin enthusiasts that his likeness and portrait will be less commonplace? Of course not, as there are many materials that can be made to provide coins and currency, and the re-visitation of such denominations is a sufficient way to address such concerns. As another example, in 1943, the Mint produced pennies made of zinc-coated steel to conserve copper for military use, yet we still kept the penny as a valid denomination. So conclusively, the point is not to abandon the penny all together, but provide steps to reform the concentration and the composition of the material that we use in making such a denomination.

The US should abolish the penny I would like to thank Forthelulz for accepting this debate On to my arguments: Argument 1: Pennies are a waste of money As of now it takes 1.7 cents to make a penny when a penny is only worth 1 cent. Because the US makes billions of these per year the costs add up. In 2014, around 8,146,400,000 new pennies were made that year. Take the cost and multiply it by the amount of new pennies circulated in 2014 and you get 57 million dollars wasted every year to keep alive this dead currency. That is money that could be used for better things. Even if the cost of pennies were reduced if they were made of something that represents their true nature like plastic, this does not solve the fundamental problem with pennies. Argument 2: Pennies fail as currency Let me build a scenario, you want stuff from a shop keeper. Rather than bartering like savages, you use money as a means of exchange. That is what money is meant to do. Money is used as means to facilitate the transaction of goods. Pennies fail to meet this function that because they are very inconvenient to use. For example, try to pay for $10 worth of groceries with 1000 pennies in your pocket. Even if you just pay in exact change pennies still prove an inconvenience. When you get to the counter and fumble with getting the right amount of pennies, you waste other people"s time. Pennies not only make transaction of goods more frustrating and inconvenient but in many cases, they also fail as a mean of transacting goods. Say you rather not waste people"s time and go to a machine to take your pennies and return a good or service. However such machines are virtually nonexistent. Toll booths don"t accept them, vending machines don"t accept them, parking meters, laundry machines, or anything else because they aren"t worth the time and effort to count, transport, and store them. The only machine that exists today that accepts pennies is Coin Star. It is but a leech on the economy that takes 10% of your hard earned cash and returns 90% of money that you should already be able to use. Back then, pennies could actually buy things, but the rising cost of pennies and inflation ultimately makes pennies a useless currency and the reason why most pennies end up in jars. Conclusion: Because of the cost of the US penny and the fact that it fails to facilitate the transaction of goods, we should move on and abandon the penny. Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com... https://en.wikipedia.org...

The Penny Should Die. Hello. My name is AppleAddict439, and i thank the challenger for accepting this debate. Let"s start in 1792, with the first U.S mint. Back then, pennies were made out 100% copper. There was no zinc in the actual penny. But, the market changed. The value of copper went up, and, due to inflation, the value of the penny went down. After that, the penny became almost completely zinc. Then, in 2006, the old pennies were found to have a value above 1 cent, so people began to melt them down to make a nice, tidy profit. Then Congress decided that pennies were actually worth something (they"re not) and passed a law against melting U.S currency. So, let me get to the data. Math time! Each second, the U.S mint produces 1,040 pennies a second, 30 million pennies a day, and (as of 2016) produce 13,000,000,000 pennies each year. 13,000,000,000!!! But, for each cent we make, we lose a little bit of money due to the fact it takes (as of 2016) 1.5 cents to make 1 cent. Now, you may be thinking: "Wow. really makes a difference. 0.5 cents lost for each penny. That"s so much." Actually, if you thought that, you are partly right. It is so much. After 13 billion pennies were made this year, with 0.5 cents lost for each penny, that means that in 2016 we lost 6,500,000,000 dollars to the penny making franchise. Now, we could be using that money to fix U.S debt and the U.S deficit, but no. We have to make pennies. Pennies are bad for us and bad for the U.S economy because: Say you want to pay for a 20$ toy. That"s 2000 pennies you have to carry around" Pennies add, on average, 2.2 seconds to each cash transaction, which causes a 1 billion dollar loss in money each year due to productivity costs. If you want to spend your precious pennies, it will be hard. For example, vending machines, laundromats, tollbooths, parking meters, newspaper machines, or telescopes. Pennies, essentially are DEAD WEIGHT in cash transactions. So, there are probably the penny diehards who are listening to me reading this that are thinking: But" It"s never been done before! We"ve never removed the penny, nor have others!" Well, that"s wrong. New Zealand, Finland, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada have removed their one cent coins or pennies. They now round to the nearest 5 cent. But- others say-we"ll remove Lincoln! That would be oh no: UNPATRIOTIC. Well, Lincoln is still on the 5 dollar bill, and- get this: some military bases round to the nearest 5 cent. To put it simply in the words of CGP Gray: Pennies waste money, waste time, are a money fail, and are worth less and less each year due to inflation. And that's it. I Look forward to the next round.

Pennies should not be abolished and are necessary to stabilise the economy. Pennies, just like any unprofitable variation of currency. are a waste of time and money. For instance, according to http://www.usmint.gov... it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny. Not only is the penny cost inefficient, it also should be noted you can't use pennies in parking meters, vending machines. and in some ATMs. Abolishing the production of the penny, just like how Canada did, will result in less taxpayer money spent on a pointless object. Therefore, the penny's production should be abolished in order to improve the country's GDP. Although the opponent may argue that pennies save citizens from taxes, the Canadian model shows that there is no net effect from rounding if the price is .01 or .02 the price is rounded down. If it is .03 or .04 it is rounded up. This only applies to cash transactions and not cheque, credit or debit transactions.

The penny should be stopped from circulation You did not state why pennies should not be in circulation. Anyways, melting down pennies will cost a huge amount of money. Secondly, halting the production of pennies will discourage the use of pennies; and therefore, make it harder for future penny collectors to collect old pennies. I do not see any reason why pennies should be abandoned; it costs money and results in no benefits. I do not have much time; therefore, I will stop right here.

The penny should be stopped from circulation Alright, I was planning on presenting my advantages and arguments in my second speech after presenting my plan. Let's have a look at a few statistics revolving pennies: 1: Pennies in circulation: 200 billion, totaling 2 billion dollars 2: Cost to produce a penny: 1.99 cents 3: Pennies created in 2013: 7 billion, totaling 70 million dollars Doing some math we can see that if we make 7 billion pennies in 2013, and it costs 1.99 cents to make a penny then we spent 13,939,000,000" (13 billion 930 million cents) to make our pennies in 2013. That's a total of 139,390,000$ (139 million 390 thousand dollars) to make our pennies. As a total, we are losing 69,390,000$ (69 million 3 hundred and 90 thousand dollars). Based on these statistics and the total losses provided by these pennies there is no reason to not pass this plan, we would also be making up for some of these losses by melting down these pennies and using the metal for other enterprises. An interesting thing to consider about this is that it has been done before, in 1857 the half penny was eliminated. There were no serious side affects and the value of the dollar was much higher. When no serious side effects came into play when the value of the dollar was higher, it is clear that it will have minimal side effects on the current economy. Sources: http://www.kokogiak.com... http://coincollectingenterprises.com... http://1.usa.gov...

The penny should be immediately discontinued. I will attack his case first then defend mine. 1st Cont:It is a waste of money. when you think about it food is a waste of money as well. Why should we pay thousands a year to other people/countries to grow food when we can grow it ourselves? So pennies are a small waste of money, but was it a waste, once again, to build the monuments? 2nd Cont:They are a waste if time. If they are a waste of time why do we continue to make them? We make them because they help to even our money transactions. We can't just round everything to to nearest nickel, because then half of the products would be MORE expensive then before, therefore wasting cash as well. We need the penny to help keep the current prices steadier then they would be otherwise. 3rd Cont:We would lessen dependence on China. Maybe we would but then we would relie more on the countries making the other ingredients for other coins, like steel(iron), nickel, and we would still need alot of zinc. 4th Cont:Penny has no value. The 58% of people who save them are saving them for a reason...to spend them! Therefore, more money into the economy in a bigger amount. and the whole germ situation, that WILL NEVER CHANGE. Dollar bills are made of linen, a very easy-to-contaminate cloth that holds even more germs then the penny, therefore if we went off hygiene, we hould eliminate currency altogether. O.k., now i will defend my case. Argument, the U.S. would be in danger of breaking apart. The penny will not be the reason for the destruction of the U.S. The trillions of dollars of national debt will do it. Those amount grow by THOUSANDS of DOLLARS, not by pennies.

The U.S. should stop the production of pennies. Pennies should be retired because they are practically worthless and cost more to produce than they are actually worth. Over time, pennies have been losing value. Today, there is not much you can buy with a single penny. You may say that you can add them together to get worth, but that takes finding 100 pennies, which is a waste of space and time. A single penny costs 1.7 cents, while only being worth 1 cent, so every penny produced costs the U.S. government 0.7 cents. So about every 143 pennies, the government is losing a dollar. That is just a waste of money and is easily preventable.

The US should abolish the penny The problem with pennies as stated in my first argument is that pennies are no longer convenient. Even after that penny in the $0.99 transaction is returned, the penny will most likely end up in a jar dead to the economy not fulfilling its role as currency. The fact that machines such as Coin Star exist that take advantage of the inconvenience and uselessness of pennies to make money off of people just proves my point. Many businesses and organizations recognize the cost of transporting and counting the pennies isn"t worth it. One of these organizations includes a little organization known as the United States Military, where in overseas bases have banned the use of pennies. They also contradict your definition of consumerism as because those who use exact change to pay for items waste the time of those waiting and overall, the rate at which things are sold decreases. There is a simple answer as to what happens after the penny is abolished. There are many countries around the world including New Zealand, Canada, etc. that have gotten rid of their lowest unit of currency and ended up fine. None of these countries have saw high degrees of inflation or drop in charitable donation. The US could easily take after those countries. Also this sort of process isn"t anything new to the US as we went through the same process when ditching the half-cent coin in the 1800"s for the same reasons we should ditch the penny. Abolishing the penny would actually do it good. As the amount of pennies decrease as they are melted, lost, etc. their value begins to increase again. Take a look at the half-cent coin now and they have more buying power than the US dime. Sources: http://www.nytimes.com... http://factually.gizmodo.com...

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished Although Con did defy my rules, Con messaged me in a friend request his/her apologies. Voters, please do not take off points as long as Con does not do it again. Con, if you would, please repost your arguments when it is your turn. I don't care if you copy and paste what you had written, as long as you stay with the format. Anyway, onto my arguments. I have two main arguments for my case, both of which are comprised of smaller points. My first main argument is that U.S. pennies are just a drag on not only the economy, but all of us in general. My first proof is that pennies just aren't worth the time to earn them. The average hourly wage for workers was $22.33 in 2013 (Source: http://www.bls.gov...). That means more than a cent every two seconds, and five cents every ten seconds. Even if you use the median wage, the calculations are still very close. It takes such a little time to earn pennies that it wouldn't affect finances if it was removed. As further proof that pennies aren't worth the time, look to the grocery store. In the U.S., unlike other countries, the tax isn't included on the price tag. The vast majority of people just can't do the math in their head without a calculator, and most just wait until the checkout to find the true price. This means it takes time to count out the pennies, wasting time. It may not seem very important, but it could make a huge difference if pennies were removed. As a matter of fact, there's relatively little that pennies are used for now. No modern vending machine accepts pennies. The only one that does is Coinstar, which is a machine that takes your coins and gives you them back, with a slight amount taken away. Essentially, it is an ATM for solely coins. Lastly, it would benefit the U.S. economy to get rid of pennies. Pennies cost more to make than their face value (no pun intended) (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com...). There is potential of saving money by getting rid of the penny. Con, if you would, please re-post your arguments. I will even allow you to add new ones as long as they are not rebuttals.

That Pennies Should Be Abolished The big problemI live in New Zealand. We abolished the one cent coin ages ago. In fact, we've abolished everything beneath the ten cent. That means you can lose up to five cents on each purchase, assuming that shops do round fairly (they never do - it's usually more like 9 cents per purchase) by not using physical money. That might only add up to twenty cents a day (assuming maybe ten purchases), but that's $67 a year. In the US, currency is somewhat more valuable than in New Zealand, but still $67 is quite a considerable sum of money. The international banking system is based around the cent. When you transfer money, whether locally, at POS, or internationally, a fixed number with exactly two decimals is used to describe how much is being transferred. Even if pro abolishes physical pennies, the value of currency that pennies represent will continue to exist. The net effect is that card payers pay the exact price, and penny payers pay two cents too many or too few each time. And here's the problem - remember how we said right at the start that money needs to have an "agreed upon value"? And how pro was claiming that anything that prevents money from having an agreed upon value will be failing to fulfil the purpose of currency? Well here his own model clearly gives each good not one "agreed upon value", but two - one value for those who pay with one form of cash transfer, and another for those who choose to use a different mode of cash transfer. The harm here is that without an agreed upon value, you can't have a standard of value and thus no stable economy (. http://www.investopedia.com...). Not that the US economy is currently a bastion of stability, but this can only compound that issue. If pennies were really that useless, consumers wouldn't accept themHow many times have you gone to a shop and seen somebody refuse to take their change because they claimed it wasn't worth their while to pick it up? Consumers are not dumb. They support pennies (. http://www.pennies.org...), by and large, because they want to have pennies. They provide some value, otherwise they have no obligation to accept them. But they do. There is demand for the penny. Like pro doesn't see the point in pennies, I don't see the point in bottled water. If you have a safe water source conveniently already in your kitchen, why not use it? But that's no reason to abolish it, because other people clearly do see the value, and it's not doing me any harm for them to drink it. In the same way, it's no reason to abolish pennies, other people clearly like them, and there is no harm to pro if other people accept them. The model is pretty hastily thought throughYou know what will cost more than all the pennies are worth? Collecting them all up. It's a huge deadweight loss since it doesn't actually provide any real economic benefit. And then what? So the treasury has this big pile of coins, are they going to sell them to Walt Disney for a new Scrooge McDuck set? Just dumping that much metal is not exactly a great idea for the environment or anybody. And all the cost that the US has paid in making the coins will have gone to waste forever. They Cost More Than They Are WorthIf you read pro's own source #1, you'll note that Obama changed the Fed's secret recipe for minting coins so that the numbers pro cites are now all wrong. This problem has already been solved and it didn't require the abolition of the penny. The "Coin Modernization, Oversight & Continuity Act" provides that the treasury has to keep looking for new ways to drive down this cost still further. On the other hand, changing the factors of production in favor of other coins actually works out to be more expensive for the country as a whole (. http://www.pennies.org...). Sure those coins are worth more, but it also means you have to pay more - and with US money becoming relatively less scarce as more is made, you lose out in the end. Opportunity CostOpportunity costs of earning are not realised in spending. Sure, it might take twice as long to earn a penny at the checkout than at your job, just like you can probably buy a TV much faster than you can earn the money to buy one (unless you work for, say, Panasonic). That's normal, and it's OK, because to be an opportunity cost they would actually need to compete for the same time. News flash, those two seconds are probably not going to get you to work any faster, and if you arrived to your work two seconds early your greedy boss is too lazy to fill out all the accounting to give you two seconds of overtime. The marginal two seconds spent at the checkout are therefore not time lost that you could be earning something at your job. Moreover, it's not the same penny - one is change, the other income. Inefficiency in one aspect of a product, in this case the handling, does not really justify the abolition of this product, but even if it did pro has failed to show any kind of real opportunity cost. UselessThis was my opponent conjecturing that the opportunity cost was so big, nobody could be bothered emptying their piggy banks any more. I'm not sure how wealthy my opponent is, but as I understand it, jobs in the US remain scarce, poverty remains a problem, and piggy banks are so dry of funds that I wouldn't be surprised if the national meteorological service declares a nationwide drought tomorrow. Absolutely people are digging into their piggy banks. That's probably because you guys have just come out of a depression. In time, businesses will naturally begin rounding their prices due to inflationary pressures making pennies less cost-effective for them to calculate. At the point where pennies can no longer be spent, then perhaps there might be a case for them being useless. Since pennies can still be spent, however, they have a use, and are therefore useful. The motion fails.

Stopping production of the penny in the United States would be a good decision. Sorry about the late response, to my arguments.1. It costs more to produce it than it is worth.2. Other countries have done it with success.3. We've gotten rid of coins before.1. It costs more to produce it than it is worth. The cost to produce a penny is approximately 1.83 cents to make, and it is only worth 1 cent. This being so the government loses $55,000,000 doing this transaction. [1] Although this is basically zero compared to the current national debt, it would be a good start in lowering the debt.2. Other countries have done it before.Finland, New Zealand, and Canada have all ceased making one cent pieces for transaction [2]. They have all done this without harm to their economy, and it has gotten easier to make transactions with cash, as prices are rounded to the nearest 5 cents for cash users. (credit users still use one cent numbers, but they don't need pennies). [4]3. We've gotten rid of coins before. We used to have a half-cent piece, but that had lost all of it's value. The dime even is now worth about as much as the half cent was, so it is time to change. [3] [4]Sources [1] http://en.wikipedia.org...(United_States_coin) [2] http://coincollectingenterprises.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...(United_States_coin) [4] Video http://www.youtube.com...

The penny should be immediately discontinued. (Kleptin Tourney) This is a RD 1 debate for Kleptin's tournament, and I will be assuming the role of Sportsguru from the following debate: . http://www.debate.org.... Feel free to peruse it prior to reading this one. Sportsguru will, in effect, be opposing himself (or at least arguments inspired by his own). Hence, if you see chunks of text directly quoted from the above-cited debate, I'm not plagiarizing. :) I affirm, resolved: the penny should be immediately discontinued. No definitions were provided within the referenced debate, and the topic was assumed to mean that the US should stop minting pennies as a form of currency. This resolution does not require me to do anything extreme, like pull all current pennies from circulation (hence the use of "discontinued"). We'll stick with that interpretation. Any others would be considered extra-topical, especially in light of the purpose of this tournament. Onto case: 1. Pennies are a complete waste of critical resources. a. For all its use within the American economy (i. e. next to none), the penny is produced at a cost to the U. S. Per the group Citizens for Retiring the Penny, the U. S. Dept. of Treasury produces approximately 7 billion pennies (worth $70 million) each year. The cost to make all those pennies was around $100 million. [1] As Sportsguru predicted a year ago, this cost is only rising. ABC World News reported in 2008 that the cost of minting pennies is right around $130 million. Each penny produced costs the U. S. 1.7 cents. En total, the U. S. loses around $50 million during the penny production process. [2] Talk about ill-advised spending. In times like these, with a global recession, a U. S. economy in the throws of a depression, poor government spending, and the public quickly losing faith in the ability of its elected officials to properly money-manage, this gesture, though relatively small, would be a step in the right direction to much needed expenditure examination. It is a piece of the reform so desperately needed to encourage the economic health of the U. S. b. The transaction time in penny exchange costs the U. S. economy further. Though we don't often consider the time costs of a monetary exchange involving pennies (or change, for that matter), we should. Efficiency is a primary concern of a struggling economy, and any step toward improving efficiency while maintaining a just system should be taken. The National Association of Convenience Stores as well as the Walgreen's drug stores assert that transactions involving pennies waste approximately 2-2.5 seconds per cash transaction. That may seem like a pittance , but the resulting wasted time is exponentially terrible when considered on a national scale. I won't bore the readers with the calculus here, suffice to say that each American wastes around 2.5 hours every year on penny transactions. This would be mirrored in all consumer industries that take pennies within their transactions. If we then calculate the opportunity cost per person in the U. S. (i. e. what that 2.5 hours means in dollars in terms of salary), each person in the U. S. "pays" the government around $30-$40 just to keep pennies in circulation. Granted, some of that can be factored into the original production cost of $150 million (through taxes), but considering that the opportunity cost adds up to closer to $10 billion per year for the nation, pennies cost much more to keep in circulation than their production value. Though this $10 billion may seem like a tiny drop in the heaving, "perfect-storm-esque" sea that is the national debt, imagine the programs that can be funded on that money each year. 2. Increasing out dependence on China (and other foreign countries) is detrimental to both the domestic and foreign interests of the U. S. As is well known, China currently possesses the highest concentration of utilized zinc resources in the world. [3] Furthermore, they are actively trying to corner the market on this particular resource. Just this year, Chinese zinc giant Metallurgical Corp of China is seeking to bid on Anglo-American Zinc, worth approximately $1 billion. [4] If this acquisition is completed (which it likely will be), China would successfully purchase a huge chunk of the American industrial market, which is crucial because the US currently has the second highest concentration of zinc resources in the world. But, you might ask, why don't we just produce the zinc ourselves? Easy answer: we import because companies like Anglo-American can't undersell our foreign competitors. This is evident at the sale of Anglo-American. What's worse, it appears that Anglo-American will be controlled by a country other than the U. S. The other major bidders are all out of the country. We are already far too indebted to other nations, especially China, to be able to operate freely within the world economy. These expenditures further damage our political capital, as we appear weak and unable to control our domestic affairs. Furthermore, as is clearly illustrated by the U. S. political lobby system, indebtedness translates directly into policy compromises. Considering China's current state of affairs, do we really want to compromise influence that we might have over, say, their human rights abuses? In conclusion, for the good of the nation and its citizens, I strongly urge a vote in favor of eliminating the penny. [1] . http://www.retirethepenny.org... [2] . http://abcnews.go.com... [3] . http://www.mapsofworld.com... [4] . http://www.reuters.com...

Should the U.S. keep the penny This argument will be about whether or not we should take the penny out of circulation. I will be arguing that we should get rid of it while my opponent will be arguing that we should keep the penny. The debate will go like thisRound 1: Opening statementRound 2: RebuttalRound 3: Closing I look forward to debating with whom ever my opponent will be and I will now give my opening statement.We should get rid of the penny because they are useless. Each penny costs 1.7 cents to make meaning that we are wasting money every time we make money. By getting rid of the penny we could save millions of dollars each year that we could spend on more important things.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service Another reason I didn't feel the need to formally reply is you did not cite where your facts where from (in round two), or in this case when! You scrutinize me for using estimates from 2011, but your source here was from 1990. . http://www.pennies.org...This is why consumers and merchants, one average, wouldn't lose money let alone $600 million:A merchant owns a store, A person wants to buy a few items where the total comes to $11.05 the sales tax is 7.5%. After sales tax The amount due is $11.88, making the cash due $11.90. With this scenario the merchant gains 2 pennies wow! The same merchant owns the same store. a person buys a few items totalling $11.93 the sales tax is 7.5%. This makes the total $12.82, or cash due $12.80. Oh no, the merchant lost 2 pennies, glad he gained two before so it equals out! Minting CostSorry about the outdated info, that was my bad. I will point out that it is still costing more to make a penny then it is worth, my point is still valid. No it is not on the decline as you have assumed your own source you deemed viable said:"A new report shows the cost to produce a penny was 1.7 cents in the 2014 fiscal year. That’s down from 2.4 cents in 2011 but still more than face value. And that won’t change" . http://blogs.wsj.com... The stock on zinc (not copper as pennies are primarily zinc) has risen in the last five years and is currently rising. . https://www.google.com... How do you think that the pennies usefulness outweighs its cost? Charities It looks like you are the one dancing to this one. First my statement can be proved and is not contradictory. The quote was: "The penny is the most donated coin,yet it can be quickly overshadowed by the nickel (5-1)" The meaning was clear, a nickel is worth five pennies, a donation of one nickel will always beat a donation of four pennies. (proof) You on the other hand have no proof, You again assume that people will not donate nickel's or will be stingy. As I outlined in round two assumptions like this make charitable people look bad. Australia is another country who abolished the penny way back in 1992. The charitable donations still rose even though they has no pennies to give. . http://www.jbwere.com.au... I am Canadian I believe that I have the right to use the international experiences of the loss of the penny in a debate. Using countries comparable to the USA is is a great way to estimate what will happen to the economy after the abolishing. I do know that the Canadian economy is not the exact same. I also know my fair share about the American economy. The reason I do not compare America to America is because no matter which America you compare it to they still have their penny. Furthermore I have only given examples of my own experiences with the penny being abolished effect on commerce (I can use other Canadian or Australian examples if you wish) and gave an idea for charities. I did use other arguments outside of Canada. Burden As stated I believe this burden is the instigators. You have only given ONE clear argument which was refuted twice. In reply to your points they can be tackled quite easy to what I have said earlier and what is assumed when starting a debate: 1) Removing the penny is justified: It costs too much to make and is not worth it. What other follow through do you need? 2) Will not harm the economy: I have stated that it will help the economy by decreasing debt and will not do any harm with a complete rounding system. 3) The plan to phase out pennies: oh I assumed you knew, it is your argument. Getting rid of pennies will be done the only way that makes sense, phasing them out from circulation. Here is the normal process used by Australia and Canada (Yes, most likely USA): Stop minting the penny (the process of making the penny), merchants will stop giving out pennies as change but will accept them for a period of time, (if you have exact change as a customer you don't round up or down), the banks end up with the pennies and then they are re-purposed by the government. The only other way to take pennies out of the system is to make pennies worthless, not legal tender. This wont happen for obvious reasons. Other arguments to refute: Pennies are a waste of time and time is money. Many people don't bother to take their pennies as change let alone spend them in stores. The people that do spend pennies end up wasting everyone time. "National Association of Convenience Stores and the Walgreen's drugstore chain have estimated that handling pennies adds 2 to 2.5 seconds per cash transaction. Assume that the average citizen makes one such transaction every day, and so wastes (to be conservative) 730 seconds a year. The median worker earns just over $36,000 a year, or about 0.5 cents per second, so futzing with pennies costs him $3.65 annually. " . http://www.washingtonpost.com... This estimate does not include the time wasted from picking up found pennies, the cashier or business time wasted by customers counting pennies, the cashiers time wasted by counting pennies at end of shift, rolling your pennies because you have so many, and taking pennies to the bank to be changed. Pennies are not accepted for all purchases. Electronic transactions are becoming more and more common and the penny is becoming less useful in that respect. Vending machines, phone booths, toll booths, and parking meters are some examples of electronic merchants that do not accept pennies. Pennies are bad for the environment. It is no secret that many pennies end up just dropped, you can find them on the streets and in the sewers. Unlike that banana peel rotting on someone's lawn pennies do not biodegrade efficiently. What is worse for the environment are the mines, Specifically zinc mines (Pennies are made of very little copper) "Red Dog Mine, which is the largest zinc mine in the U. S. is by far the #1 polluter on the EPA's list, because of large quantities of heavy-metal and lead rich mining tailing's. The process of refining both metals can release sulfur dioxide (SO2), lead and zinc into the environment. " . http://www.treehugger.com... In conclusion, It is obvious that taking out the penny will result in a better future for the USA, financial and otherwise. Because of Con's constant assumptions, a single outdated, uneducated argument, and inability to create a rebuttal it is clear that Pro is the front runner in this debate. Thank you for reading this and Con, Good Luck.

In the US, pennies should be abolished. I. Forex/Stock ExchangeMy opponent still does not get it. Rounding up to the nearest 5 cents adds up. Lets say a investor buys 500,000 stocks worth 7.13$, and we decide to remove the penny. If the nickel is rounded up .02$, then the investor loses 100'000's of dollars. Likewise, if we decide to round the penny down, then the seller or company likewise loses 100'000's in equity.II. Inflation ControlYou can control inflation with any kind of currency. The difference between controlling it with a nickel and controlling it with a penny is vast though. Using a penny can round down a inflation percentage to the nearest 0.1. This can help the economy and the world market tremendously.You might as well just kill the banking industry if you're going to round to a nickel, not to mention the federal reserve will crash, and with it, billions of corporates. III. Just make the penny cheaper My opponent has not considered simply removing more silver, zinc, or copper from the penny. Instead of removing it and costing the nation about 100 billion dollars, we could just lower the materials we put in the penny as they leave the US mint. Actually, we do every few years. The penny gets cheaper and cheaper overtime, and the reason the mint is keeping it 2.00$ now, is because we have a inflating economy.Soon the value of the penny and its cost will equal each other. Come on people. Let's not pull a Canada here.

Get rid of the penny!! True, the government makes more money in seignoirage than it loses. Still, just because the government makes money overall, doesn't mean it shouldn't cut out a losing endevour. The present system of nickels and pennies still loses over $150 million a year, regardless of how much it costs to make bills. If we adopt the plan, thats an extra $150 million dollars in the government's pockets that isn't adding to the deficit. Not to mention the fact that adopting the plan would be intrinsically profitable, making money instead of losing it, since the Lincoln nickels would be worth more than cost. Your second objection is that we need pennies for transactions etc. But, transactions are already rounded. When you buy gas, the price per gallon isn't $3.59, but $3.599. Thats what that miniature number farthest to the right on the sign means. So, rather than rounding off tenths of cents, we would be rounding off full cents. Some argue this would lead to a 'rouding tax' where buyers are robbed of pennies on every transaction. But, a study was conducted, and simple logic would show, that out of the countless transactions performed everyday, there are an even number of transactions that would round up and round down, leaving the monetary advantage null. So, we should abolish the penny because they are personally annoying, and would save taxpayers $150 million dollars a year without effecting transactions.

That Pennies Should Be Abolished They Cost More Than They Are WorthIn 2006 the cost to produce a penny rose above one cent. This is because the raw minerals of the penny exceeded the one cent which the penny itself is worth. This problem has only been worsened, and in 2011 it cost the US Mint 2.4 cents to produce a one-cent-penny[1]. This means that every year, with the US Mint producing 4.3 billion pennies[1], the United States is spending $100 million on $43 million worth of pennies, effectively donating $57 to no one every year. With the penny costing us more than it is worth, then we should not produce it anymore.Opportunity CostWe've all heard that age old saying "Time is money", well it turns out that this old saying in fact has a fancy term in economics: opportunity cost. As defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary: "(Opportunity cost is) the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen."[2]. As I will demonstrate, the handling of a penny is a form of opportunity cost Before I make my argument I must make this point clear: it doesn't matter what people handling pennies would have done otherwise, only that they spend it doing something not worth their time in the first place, because in economics, time really is money, and their time is worth more than thatThe median wage in the United States is $17 per hour[3]. This means that it takes the average person two seconds to earn one cent, and as such it is not worth one's time. Even if it takes only four seconds to handle a penny, that means that two seconds are wasted in terms of productivity in terms of the handling of pennies. This is equivalent to losing $1 billion each year in productivity[4]. Another economist, Robert Whalpes, has estimated the opportunity cost of penny production at $300 million[5]. Regardless of which of these figures is correct, the underlying problem remains, which is that the very existence of pennies, costs the US people money, and lots of it. Abolishing the penny would solve this problem.Pennies Are UselessThe purpose of money is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Pennies do not serve this purpose.Pennies are not usually accepted in bulk, only being used to give people exact change, and as demonstrated, this exact change is not even worth its opportunity cost. If one wished to avoid these problems of opportunity cost to other people waiting in line to pay for their goods and services, then they would have to use a machine: none of which, except Coinstar, accept them. As a result of this, most pennies just end up in glass jars out of circulation. To quote Greg Mankiw, a Professor of Macroeconomics at Harvard University: "The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but... the penny no longer serves that purpose"[6]. When a coin fails to fulfil its purpose, it is time to get rid of it.ConclusionI have provided three arguments: the penny costs more than it is worth, it provides a significant opportunity cost, and it fails to fulfil its purpose as money. All of these arguments stand. As such, the resolution is affirmed.Sources1: http://tinyurl.com...2: http://tinyurl.com...;3: http://tinyurl.com...;4: http://tinyurl.com...;5: http://tinyurl.com...6: http://tinyurl.com...

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...

In the US, pennies should be abolished. I. Pennies are used to control inflationI don't think the OP understands why we have pennies. It's not to control prices, per say. It is to control inflation rates. Let me explain. Pennies have low value, being only .01$, which means we can pump however many out we need to control inflation to the number. It is the most precise way to control inflations rates.If you control inflation rates, you control prices. If you control prices, you control how much consumption and investment goes through the economy. With that said, it is 100% neccesary to have pennies for monetary control of the economy.II. Forex Trade will CrashThe Opposition needs to take into consideration the volatity of FX trade. Currecy exchanges are very profitable to the US. Here are two reasons why removing the penny would crash USD exchange over FX.1. We can not control the USD to ensure ultimate deals by trading USD over Forex.2. Foreign traders will be forced to round to .05$, decreasing the amount the USD gets bought and sold.III. NASDAQ and the Stock Exchange will be hurt NASDAQ is the national stock exchange of America. The opposition has not thought this out. Most stocks are rounded to the penny. For example. Green Energy Co. sells stock for .13$, or the stock of Speedwat right now is 18.14$. The problem with abolishing the penny, is that all stock purchases need to be rounded up to the nearest .05$, which for investors who purchase 1000's of shares monthly, this will completely hinder their investments.That .01$ adds up, and with the stock market up 140%, this would be the worst possible time for the US to remove the penny.

The United States should cease production of the penny 1.To understand the penny's value you must look at time, as the penny equals the second, and how it relates to trade within it, to know the penny is not just the .01 cent you are giving up in an economy, it is the seven numbers .02, .03, .04, .06, .07, .08, .09 in a clock. The time increase can be seen in seven new numbers. That increased will run .05, .10, .15, .20, .25, .30, .35 .Who among us really needs less time? 2.The cost of discontinuing the penny will instantly mean a direct sale tax increase across the boards. As these determinations may be based on the dollar but paid by the penny. 3.The cost of a penny is an economic indicator. What indications will be lost or hidden when it is removed from production. 4.When the penny is taken from an economy there is no longer the lowest proportion savings relevant to time set in production cost within manufacturing goods. This means instant higher cost in bulk purchased materials. 5.Nobody by the hacker ever thought to ever steal a penny. They do add up quickly and you want to it x5 . The pennies cost was never recoverable it serves a different purpose in the axiom. It has a logical reason of value no self-evident.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. I will follow my opponents order, and then give my conclusion. Contention 1: My opponent attempts to prove that the United States can grow all of its own food by saying it has been done before. Not only does he give no evidence of this, but this is not relevant to the debate. Within the last few decades, the population has exploded within the United States, creating not only a higher demand for food, but less space to grow it. As this portion of the attack falls (and as I have shown, this portion must hold up for the attack to hold up), this attack falls and my contention 1 stands through the final round. Contention 2: My opponent claims that since more than half of the prices are marked to be rounded up to the nearest nickel, people would have to pay more. However, as he ignores the three factors I mentioned that randomize rounding (multiple item purchases, sales tax, and stores changing pricing strategies), this attack fails and my second contention stands. Contention 3: My opponent attempts to prove that our dependencies would simply shift because the supply of other coins would increase. However, he gives no logical reasoning or proof that this would happen. In fact, this scenario seems very illogical. He then goes on to a red herring asking about a slippery slope leading to "using 100 dollars to buy a gallon of milk." Hence all of this attack must be ignored and my 3rd contention stands. Contention 4: My opponent STILL misunderstands this attack. The point of the germs reference is simply showing that the penny has so little nostalgic value that people are worried about the germs. As this attack remains unblocked, it stands through the final round. Contention 5: My opponent assumes that since it costs billions extra to make pennies it must cost at least as much if not more to make other coins. However, this is only possible if there is a bigger difference in the price to make vs. actual value in the other coins. As he has given no proof of this, the assumption must be ignored. As all of my contentions and attacks stand at the end of this debate, I must strongly urge a vote in affirmation of today's resolution.

Should the U.S. keep the penny I think we should keep the penny, because if not then yo momma will have to raise her price to a nickel. And what yo momma gives me is only worth 3 cents. So yo momma would be getting a free 2 cents every time she services me.

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished I would love to pour out all the reasons why pennies should be abolished, but I need to save some of them for my closing arguments. First, it's not worth your time for pennies. Literally, if you pick up a penny off the street, you could have made more money in that exact frame of time. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median hourly wage for all occupations is $16.87 per hour. Do the math, and that means a tiny bit more than a cent is earned every 3 seconds, and 5 cents every 11 seconds. This clearly shows how little the value of the penny is. Ignoring that, the U.S. could save money by getting rid of the pennies. According to the U.S. Mint, it costs more than 2 cents to create one penny. This means that the U.S. is losing tons of money by creating pennies. Also, a single penny can't buy you products anymore. The only machine at all that accepts pennies is... ...Coinstar. Coinstar is basically like an ATM, but only for coins. I have at least two more legs my opinions stand on, but I'll save the best for last.

The Penny First off, thank you for allowing me to debate this with you. The United States's money is based on a basic cents system, with 1 cent being a unit. The value of the dollar has dropped nearly 80% in the last few decades, and prices have inflated to new highs. Very little can be bought with pennies, and yet they should not stop production, even at the cost of 1.8 cents per cent. Refutations: 1. Pennies cost 1.8 cents to make, which con points out is more then the penny is worth, but does not consider the value of repeat use, especially by something as durable as a penny. Estimates on how long a penny last range from 20-25 years, going through thousands of exchanges, each time adding value to the actual cost of producing the penny. In the end, the penny stimulates the economy far more than the 1.8 cents they cost, lasting 25 years compared to the dollar bill's 18 months of existence. (1) 2. While I disagree that paper money was to make things easier to buy, con is correct, little can be bought solely with pennies. Although I will go into it extensively later, paying with pennies is not their use, but instead is for reaching the exact cost of something. 3. Machines do not accept pennies, as they are not taxed and always round up to a clean number, something prices in stores would not do. As for their usefulness, I would argue that when one pays in cash, just as many or more pennies are exchanged then any other type of bill. Almost any price will come out with tax not a perfect five cent round. If something costs 4:53, you have to add an additional 3 cents, only payable with pennies. If you pay with a five dollar bill, then you will receive at least two pennies in change. There is nothing else you could make up that difference with. Arguments against: 1. If the penny was eliminated, it would make pricing things nearly impossible. Unless every price is rounded to a five cent mark, the only thing you can pay with cash is pennies. Add ever-changing tax to that cost, and it is almost impossible to price anything. Con claims he can refute this, which I will hold them to. I am yet to see a good refutation to this point, and I will be impressed if con has one. 2. Many charities work off pennies, either receiving all their donations or a large percentage of them from pennies alone. Such charities include Habitat for Humanity, World Wildlife Fund, and the Salvation Army. These charities and many more rely on pennies, because of people's willingness to part with pennies. (2) 3. The nickel's value has dropped just as much as the dollar and penny, are rarely used in purchase, and nickels cost 11.2 cents to produce. (3) Would you have them eliminated as well? What nonsense. No, nickels are similar to the pennies, and the arguments are valid for both. We work on a cent system, and eliminating the one cent and five cent are fiscally ridiculous. I will begin with this. Good luck, con! (1) http://www.factmonster.com... (2) http://www.pennies.org... (3) http://www.businessinsider.com...

Stop the Minting of the American Penny Yea sorry about the mishap. Thanks for being understanding though. That being said, this will be my last round for arguments, so I will respond to the Pro side’s last post and provide more clarity on my position. Section 1: The Penny has an Economic Impact in Industry, and Industry Tries to Help. In my last round, I reported that if the penny suddenly stopped being produced, that there would be a significant impact in the zinc industry that could cause large contracts with the government to be essentially voided. One such contract is with Jarden Zinc Products[1][2], who currently have contracts worth millions with the government to produce such pennies, and such voiding of coins for production would significantly have an impact on this industry. These companies don’t try and stifle the American government either, as such industry uses modern technology to reduce the cost of the manufacturing. Multi-ply plating technology is now used to reduce cost when compared to through alloy coins, and makes these coins possess a unique electro magnetic signature (EMS) which provides for greater coin security.[1] So yes I see the Pro’s side in that robotics can help manufacture durables (or pennies for this debate) cheaper, and that’s great, but against Pro’s argument, you don’t see people abolishing the car…. Or milk. It takes people to come up with such testing and technologies to try and achieve ideas to manufacture better, so yes this is not only jobs being lost, but innovation as well. Section 2: Financial Impact of the Penny’s Absence If the penny were to cease production, there would be many undesired consequences from this action that would be counter-intuitive from the Pro side, but would quickly become devastating realities for the general public. Intrinsically, if the penny were to be removed from production, there could be no way to sustain prices realistically without rounding to the nearest 5 cent piece. Millions of transactions are managed every day in the United States, and with 28% of Americans either not owning a savings/checking account, or trusting on payday lending services[3]. With this data, the amount of cash/coin trades each day is purely not dismissible, not withstanding that cash is used in 46% of all transactions in the U.S[4]. Demographics with comparatively low incomes (predominantly the young, elderly, and minorities) use cash more commonly than people with higher incomes. Because only cash dealings will be subject to rounding, any move to eradicate the penny would be regressive and hurt these demographics of Americans who have no other choice and do not possess the means to make non-cash transactions. According to one report[5], the Treasury would essentially lose money without the penny. First, the Mint's construction and circulation costs include fixed elements that will continue to be incurred whether or not the Mint manufactures the penny. The report approximates this fixed component at $13 million (2011). In addition, there is $17.7 million in operating costs apportioned to the penny that would have to be engrossed by the remaining denominations of circulating coins without the penny. Moreover, under present Mint accounting, the nickel expenses eleven cents to produce (and the nickel isn’t even being targeted in this debate). In a scenario where nickel manufacturing doubled without the penny, the study determines that with current fixed costs, abolishing the penny would prospectively result in increased net costs to the Mint of $10.9 million, compared to the current state of manufacturing. Section 3: Proposed Solutions As I previously stated, there are better ways to resolve this debate, and the best way is to make the penny worth 1 cent again. In 1982, the United States changed the composition of the penny to reduce manufacturing costs, and such similar solutions can be found again in contemporary times, ending an outdated 30-year solution. An option that could sustain such reduction is costs calls for a core of some sort of ceramic material, with similar heft as zinc[6]. Ceramics are metal-based and consequently much denser than plastic, though not as heavy as metal itself. Ceramics could be made from 2 inexpensive compounds: silica (SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3, or possibly with a bit of denser oxide such as titanium oxide added for weight. The ceramic penny core likely could be anodized with a copper skin fairly cheapl, thus no longer requiring the use of zinc to manufacture our pennies. Section 4: Current Trends Over the past couple years, the prices of the metals needed to produce the modern penny have actually decreased. According to a report from the Department of Treasury[a], after attaining a peak cost of 2.41 cents in 2011 due to the substantial growth in global metal prices, the cost of manufacturing has dropped to 1.83 cents for 2013.[4] In the 2014 fiscal year, the cost to yield a penny fell additionally to 1.70 cents.Congressman Steve Stivers (R-OH) has introduced a bi-partisan bill to mandate the use of steel in the manufacturing of pennies, dimes, and nickels. . Research has shown this bill could save the U.S. government up to $2 billion in material costs over a 10 years. References: [1]: http://www.export.gov... [2]: http://legacy.utsandiego.com...; [3]:http://www.forbes.com... [4]: http://www.frbsf.org...; [5]: http://financialservices.house.gov... [6]: http://www.livescience.com... [7]: http://riponadvance.com...;

The Penny Rebuttal: 1. My point here was that pennies stay in currency a long time, and have much more usage potential than a dollar, and certainly more than the 1.8 cents they cost. As for printing extra pennies, thereby reducing the value, that does not support stopping the production of the penny. Pennies can be, and are, created at such an amount simply to make up for the pennies that were either destroyed or fell out of currency. 2. I did not mean to say I agree with you, I was actually trying to indicate that I was going to use the same argument later. While the penny does not have much buying power, it is used extensively in currency. One often gets more pennies back from a cash purchase than any other type of money. This leads into the third part of the next section. 3. I like your point here, but you forget that our money system is cent-based. And while the penny does not have much buying penny, it still has its value, whether you want to donate it or roll it up into a neat little parcel and exchange at the bank. Also, just because the penny doesn't have much value today because of inflation doesn't mean it will never have value again. If you eliminate it now, re-starting production would be even more fiscally infeasible than it is now. Other Rebuttal: 1. The system suggested would indeed work to price things without the penny, but would be difficult and unruly, and end of costing one a lot more a year. The more you break up earnings and values down, the more accurate something's cost can be, and the less it will end up costing. 2. While in theory this is correct, that these charities will not lose money, it is interesting that more nickels and dimes aren't given, since their worth so little, and that pennies make up such a large percentage. 3. Fair enough. The point here I was making, however, is that the same arguments could be made for nickels, and then possibly for dimes.

Convert the penny!!! This is actually the response I expected. I am familiar with Robert Whaples' point of view, and I even read his article entitled "Why keeping the penny no longer makes sense." But despite the viewpoints of Robert Whaples, Greg Mankiw, and a few others, the economy truly would suffer due to the elimination of the penny. In Whaples' article, he claims to have obtained data on "nearly 200,000 transactions" and states "the number of times consumers' bills would be rounded upward is almost exactly equal to the number of times that they would be rounded downward." These words of "nearly" and "almost" accompanied by a complete lack of data make his view flaky at best. In reality, the rounding tax is not a myth. On the surface Whaples' claim may seem to hold water. But upon a deeper analysis we can find out why it is untrue. Currently we still have the penny, but even now due to the sales tax percentages, costs are being rounded up or down to the penny. Here's the problem: whenever a customer purchases an item that would end in a half a penny after tax, that item gets rounded up to the penny. One half lies exactly between being rounded up or down. Yet it gets rounded up every time. This may seem trivial, but such trivial percentages have allowed businesses like casinos to rake in a large portion of money. The mention of casinos may seem out of place, but the same principle with rounding pennies in convenience stores applies. The house (or the store in this case) has a small advantage since there are slightly more totals that will be rounded up rather than down. This effect insures that the stores come out on top. The effect is cumulative, just as most of the economists have claimed. Furthermore, when looking at the sales tax percentages we can see that this number of one half comes out even more often than expected from a random set of numbers. The tax percentages tend to end in eighths, quarters, or halves. This gives an even larger advantage, and studies done with common cash purchases has shown that somewhere between 60% and 93% of transactions would be rounded up. While the rounding tax and the devastation of the economy should be enough to dissuade others from eliminating the penny, it is not the only reason to save the penny. The people that have proposed this notion claim that prices would still be the same when it comes to payments by check, credit card, or debit card. Only cash paying customers would apparently suffer since there would be no more pennies. This means that the one cent unit of currency would still exist on paper. There would just be no tangible one cent pieces. Our current system uses the same units of currency on paper or in the form of tangible cash. So eliminating the penny would move one step closer to eliminating tangible currency. This may seem like nothing, but it can open up a huge can of worms. Once people become used to the idea of currency that only exists electronically, further steps in the same direction can be made. When every purchase by every person is made electronically, the items that each individual buys will be able to be tracked. This is not a good thing. The current president has already violated privacy rights by viewing all of the books that people read and check out of a library. Further rights can be violated when the government can track every purchase by every person. I saw that you are in favor of George W. Bush, but you should still acknowledge that privacy would be violated if every individual's transactions can be traced. Since you stated that you are also in favor of flag burning, I think you may understand the philosophical necessity of freedom and rights. On your profile it also states that you are against a flat tax. I am as well, because it would damage the lower class. Similarly, the rounding tax (which is NOT a myth, despite Robert Whaples' claim) would also adversely affect the lower class since they are the ones more likely to make purchases with cash rather than credit cards or checks. So the two reasons to save the penny are that the economy would suffer overall, and the movement towards an elimination of tangible currency is a step in the wrong direction.

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...;

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished You should not eliminate the U.S. penny! First of all If we eliminate the U.S. penny, everything will have to be rounded to the nickel. Merchants will probably round everything up in their favor! Costing us more for everything we buy. Last Charities need pennies, alot can add up from pennies and that helps people because most likely people going to give away their pennies because it's 'cost less' to them.

Pennies should be abolished Pennies are a waste of time and money. For instance, according http://www.usmint.gov...;, it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny. Not only is the penny cost inefficient, it also should be noted you can't use pennies in parking meters, vending machines. and in some ATMs. Abolishing the production of the penny, just like how Canada did, will result in less taxpayer money spent on a pointless object. Therefore, the penny, along with the nickel should be abolished in production.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. When you think of America you think of things like the Statue of Liberty or the sunn beaches of Miami or LA. When it comes to symbols of america though, it is hard to beat the iconinc penny. it is the commenest coin in America and is therefore easy to recognize when you see a penny in the newsparer or ont the internet that it means haing to do with currency. We cannot simply get rid off the penny. That is like blowing up the Lincon Monument or toppling the Washington Monumet. It just simply isn't even thought of.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service Before I begin, I'd like to point out that Pro lacks actual arguments, he/she simply posted refutations to what I said, which, in my opinion is not enough to win. Refutations to Refutations: Refutation 1: Minting Cost My esteemed colleague has stated that, as of 2011, it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny. However, I'd like to point out that they have cited a source from 2011. As of 2014, pennies only cost 1.7 cents to make, down 2.4 cents from 2011 (. http://blogs.wsj.com...). Therefore, the evidence shows that the amount it costs to make the penny is actually on the decline. Soon, it will not be much of a loss for the US to make it, meaning that there is not an adequate reason to abolish its use. Refutation 2: Debt "Removing the penny is only good for debt" is what Pro states. I strongly disagree as we will lose $600 million/year with the rounding system as earlier showed in my first argument. The United States' debt recently hit $18 trillion, and I believe Pro and I have a common interest in lowering that debt. However, the solution is not to take the penny out of service. Also, after this statement, Pro brings up a source and says that the US will save 7.6 trillion dollars/year without the penny, yet he/she fails to provide any reasoning behind this. It's just going to happen. .. somehow. .. I don't think so. Therefore, Pro's case has one more flaw. Refutation 3: Economical Harm Refutation My mistaken opponent stated that the penny will only affect cash transactions in response to my argument about economic harm. However, they have ignored a chunk of the argument in saying this since the source I stated about the $600 million a year being lost is talking about cash purchases. (Here's a link: . http://pennies.org...) Therefore, Pro simply danced around my argument instead of actually attacking it head-on. Refutation 4: Charities Refutation A contradictory statement made by Pro is "The penny is the most donated coin,yet it can be quickly overshadowed by the nickel. " This is like saying "People like beef, but they'll like chicken better sooner or later. " Therefore, It is a contradictory statement that cannot be proved. To expand on my charity point, pennies are better than nickels for donations since pennies are worth less, and, because of that, people donate more, which eventually becomes more money for the charities. If people donated nickels, they would be more stingy with how many they gave. Refutation 5: Canada "We use" and "As a Canadian" are two prime examples of phrases used by Pro that prove his/her misunderstanding of the topic. If I may reiterate, the topic is "The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service," not "The Canadian Penny Should be Taken out of Service. " Pro fails to use any American examples and is under the delusion that the Canadian economy is exactly the same as the United States economy, proving another point for Con. Refutation 6: Burden I gave Pro a 3-pronged burden of proof and, so far, no prong has been fulfilled. Let's break them down individually. 1) The harm of the penny is sufficient enough to justify its removal from the market. Pro slightly dances around this by saying that it costs a lot to make a penny, but never follows through, and I have already taken this down earlier. 2) Taking the penny out of service will minimalistically harm the economy. Pro has not mentioned anything whatsoever about this prong. 3) Their plan is good enough to transition into this change smoothly with minimal harm and maximum benefit. Pro never even brings up a clear-cut plan. Sure, they mention things like "the penny plan" and "the plan," but what is this plan? The world may never know, or at least not myself and the voters since Pro has not mentioned this. Here is a statement made by Pro: "I do not agree with your terms as they where not originally outlined. As the instigator it is normally assumed that you have the burden of proving your point. It is up to the voters to decide who wins, not you. I will address your concerns to be a good sport. " If he/she does not agree with my terms (they actually were originally outlined since the first round was for acceptance), then why didn't Pro attempt at refuting them? As an Instigator, it is assumed that I have the burden of proving my point. I already have proved my point, yet Pro has not proved his/hers since he/she has failed to meet his/her burden. I completely agree that it is up to the voters to decide, this burden is a mere aid for the voters, saying that if Pro does not have these three things, they can't win because their case is not sufficient to prove their assertions. Conclusion: Because of Pro's ignoring of evidence, misunderstanding of the topic, outdated evidence, and inability to fulfill his/her burden, it is clear that Con is currently the front runner in this debate.

Should the U.S. keep the penny Getting rid of the penny would actually be beneficial because prostitutes would lower their prices by a nickel to get exact change.

Pennies should stop being produced in the U.S. I think that pennies should stop being produced by the U. S. mint and taken out of circulation, similar to what Canada did. The penny costs more to make then it's worth, it's rarely actually used. It's a detriment to our economy.

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished It's seems I have been routed by highly experienced debater your point was just as your cause to get rid of the copper Abe I rest my case and step down tooshay/touche my friend but if you want me to debate I will finish my statements but only at your respectable request

The United States should cease production of the penny Pro had set path of instruction for how he felt the debate should go. Con did everything within an ability to follow that instruction. Pro made all legitimate claims for reason to stop minting the penny. I agree, I too felt the penny should go at one time. Why attack a legitimate claim that is actually part of the job the penny is used for, something I did not know at the time. Just as the cost of production is a gauge on a much larger machine. Yes it cost more to make then the materials it is made of. There can be a hundred good reasons to hurt someone justification never makes it right just necessary . 1.Pro is incapable of understanding what the actual pennies value is. It is unclear if I can explain it to every-on let alone just one person. I will try any-way. The penny is the same as the small line on a clock that equals seconds. These lines cost more than they are worth to put on the clock, we actually don"t need them. Why have they? Simple they are part of that measurement device. Do you have to use them? No! Of course not. Do other people need them? 1.(A) The people who use the penny the most do not always touch the penny. So it is understandable how some-one does not know that a penny is actually a negative number outside cost in an economy gauge (measurement). It is not just one number it is two numbers, first number is .01 the second number is .0001. 100 points of measurement make up one dollar multiply that 100 by, 0001 and the answer is .01 one-penny. This argument and number three are connected. 2. The money is being sent inappropriately, not will be. One of the highest cost of the penny is not the production of the penny it is enforcing the law that should have protected the penny. The penny has been used as an inexpensive way to mine metals directly out of an economy. This is where a 2.41 cost ratio of roughly 3 to 1 is minimal as the cost to enforce the law is substantially higher. This cost can be seen as $3.00 dollars or greater to every .01 penny in production. ( 300+ / 1 ) It is this cost which has been squandered on other things. 3.The penny has lost its buying power. It was lost, it had buying power at one time. There had been many things a penny could by with its value. Where did it go? Pro should be telling is why we do not want that buying power back. Not telling us why he or others do not want to do the work to get that power back. It is not better than the National clock it is tide to debt. Amendment to Conclusion of: Federal property does not accept the penny. "There were no repercussions that were not solved by simply rounding to the nearest 5 cents." Rebuttal: So you do not see that the United States Armed Forces is one of Congresses biggest money pits as an issue? In a simple common defense to the general welfare, the United States might be in much better shape Dollars and Cents had some people been Forced to count penny instead of spend dollars. By the way admitting publicly that the United Stat

The U.S. should stop the production of pennies. I understand your views and where you are coming from but I have to disagree. If we were to simply just stop the production of pennies just think of the changes that would have to be made to our country economically speaking. Taxation would have to be adjusted to a numerical value system based off of our remaining coins which are all multiples of fives, causing potential increases in how much and how we are taxed. Theoretically speaking, what would the cost for a cheap item with a tax of one cent be changed too? Would we just have no tax on it or would we just round up to five? It's a large amount of work to be done when there is another solution. Instead of simply "stopping the production of pennies," I feel that we should change the materials of a penny or the size. Having different cheaper materials put into the penny would lower the costs of the penny and with the cessation of the current penny model we would see a very small increase in the value of the current penny. The copper penny as we know it now will become an older form of currency increasing it's value amongst collectors. Just like much other older forms of currency, after production is stopped and less of the currency is around, the more valuable it becomes. The other solution I stated before is making the penny smaller. By doing this we won't be putting as much material into it, and less material equals less cost.

The USFG should eliminate the penny When the Baby Boomers were young, a penny still had some value. Economist Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research group, reminisces in a 2013 anti-penny screed about paying a nickel for an ice cream cone as a boy. Even during my childhood in the 1980s, there was a candy store not far from our house that sold "penny candy" in jars " one penny for a mini Tootsie Roll, or two for a Mary Jane. Today, there"s literally nothing you can buy with a single penny " and you can"t do much else with it either. Vending machines don"t accept them, and neither do most parking meters. Even automatic toll booths won"t take them " except in Illinois, the home state of President Abraham Lincoln, whose face adorns the coin. And if a single penny is useless, a whole bunch of pennies isn"t much better. If you try paying for something in a store with a fistful of pennies, you can expect dirty looks from both the clerk and the other customers " if the store doesn"t just flat-out refuse to take them. Pennies are so hard to spend that many people don"t even bother " they just store them all in jars, or even throw them away. Economist Greg Mankiw of Harvard University argues that pennies are simply no longer useful as a means of exchange: "When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful." There are precedents for getting rid of coins that are too small to use. Back in 1857, the U.S. Mint stopped producing halfpenny coins " which, according to the historical information calculator at MeasuringWorth.com, had a purchasing power of $0.14 in 2015 dollars. So at the time it was eliminated, the "useless" halfpenny could buy as much as 14 pennies can today. If consumers in 1857 could get along without halfpennies, then modern consumers can almost certainly manage without a coin that"s worth less than one-tenth as much.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service I do not agree with your terms as they where not originally outlined. As the instigator it is normally assumed that you have the burden of proving your point. It is up to the voters to decide who wins, not you. I will address your concerns to be a good sport:" The harm of the penny is sufficient enough to justify its removal from the market."" Taking the penny out of service will minimalist harm the economy.""Their plan is good enough to transition into this change smoothly with minimal harm and maximum benefit."As of 2011, it costs 2.41¢ US (or $0.0241 US Dollars (USD)) to make a penny, making the coin's face value less than its actual value. http://www.wisegeek.org...This fact alone is sufficient enough to justify removing the penny from the market, or more correctly simply stop creating them as this is the more efficient plan. The reason that this is bad, other then the obvious, is that it increases the national debt in a pretty useless way. Removing the penny is only good for debt. Without the penny the government estimates it will save 7.6 TRILLION dollars in just ten years. http://www.enzi.senate.gov...Argument 1: Economical HarmI don't think you quite understand the "penny plan". As a Canadian (with a diploma in business) I have witnessed this plan first hand. The consumers worried that their $19.99 product will increased to $20.00 need not worry as it will stay at $19.99. The penny only effects Cash transactions, not electronic. all debit, gift card, credit card, cheque, etc. will be handled as if there is a penny.As for rounding of pennies the cost of using cash normally does not change. We use a complete rounding system, not a rounding up system as you implied. This means that $1.01 and $1.02 would be rounded down to $1, while $1.03 and $1.04 would be rounded up to $1.05. If you play close enough attention to your pennies you can actually save money by only using cash when it is time to round down, but not much. http://www.cbc.ca...Argument 2: CharitiesThe penny is the most donated coin, yet it can be quickly over shadowed by the nickel (5-1). There is no evidence that suggests people who donate will simply stop donating because there is no penny. In fact donations may rise because people "have" to give more then just a couple pennies. Furthermore Charities in Canada held drives to collect the "worthless" pennies once they where discontinued. http://theotherpress.ca...

The Penny Arguments 1. I don't fully understand my opponents argument here. It cost 1.8 pennies to make one Penny so you actually loose the repeat use because, before there was 1.8 pennies and now There is one penny. My opponent argues that now you can reuse the penny making it worth it. Well not exactly, every time you make a new penny the value of the old ones less. Just because the penny last longer don't mean it's still not a waste, every time the government literally spends money to make less money the citizens are taxed to make up for it. I don't agree that the reuse adds value either because even if paper money needs to made more often it still cost less by proportion. 2. My opponent agrees that the penny has no buying power. 3. Ahhh... To the good part. To get the price just right the cash has to be divisible by smaller units so you don't over pay. But it cant be divided forever because at some point the value it represents becomes to small to buy anything with or to bother with. Yes there is nothing to make that up with but eventually it just doesn't matter anymore. Whats the point of exact change if you cant buy anything with the change? You would need 25 pennies to buy a ball of gum if the machines actually excepted them. Rebuttal 1. It will takes some work with fixing up prices, but the simplest method would be by rounding the prices (with tax) to nearest five cents or maybe fixing the sales tax percentage. 2. I don't think there will be a shortage of money towards the Salvation Army or any charity for that matter. If on average for every five donators, three donators don't give any money but two give them nickels instead, the Salvation Army just made twice as much. Another point is that one penny again really doesn't make a difference, if two thousand people brought one penny that would be twenty dollars and honestly wouldn't help homeless people at all. 3. Nickels are rarely used and are bad for the economy so I probably would, but I haven't done enough research to confirm this and it's best to take one thing out at a time. If you ask about sources I'm planning on putting them on the last round, I anticipate your next argument and wish you good luck :)

That Pennies Should Be Abolished The purpose of currency is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services by providing a good with an agreed upon value that can be traded for a multitude of other goods. As Pro in this debate I will argue that pennies are failing to fulfil this purpose. The context of this debate is present day United States. For this debate "penny" refers to the one-cent-coin. The model I am proposing is that the US mint simply stops producing any more pennies. All pennies currently in circulation are to remain as legal tender. However, after their expenditure shops are to send their pennies back to the US mint where they will be melted down. This means that the supply of pennies will gradually decrease. Price transactions are to be rounded to the nearest five cents. RulesThe opening round is for acceptance only. I will give the Pro case in the second round. Standard debating rules apply, they are as follows: 1. All arguments must be made in the debate. Evidence may be cited or linked from the debate, but only in support of arguments made in the debate. Arguments made in Comments are to be ignored.2. Source links or references must be included within the 8000 characters per round limit of the debate. No links or sources are permitted in comments.3. Any term not specifically defined before use is to be taken with the ordinary dictionary definition of the term that best fits the context of the debate. 4. No new arguments shall be made in Round 5. Pro may rebut previous arguments using new evidence solely for that purpose, but no new arguments are allowed. Con may not present any new evidence in R5.5. DDO site rules always apply. Neither side may add or modify rules for the debate once the challenge is accepted.

Stop the Minting of the American Penny I would like to say in passing that when I said defined penny, the part about it being the "coin currently used" was meant to suggest that it was the coin made in the way that we make it now, with the huge amount of zinc with a copper coating. I'm sorry this wasn't very clear, and as such I will not address the definition in that context again and will refrain from using that part of it in the debate. Section 1: Content of the USD PennyThe argument about the zinc industry as a whole is not a fair argument, particularly when considering my opponent's suggestion for reforming the penny. If one was to agree with my argument, that would mean no further production of the penny. However, if someone was to side with my opponent, it would mean reforming the penny's composition to reduce the cost. .. which would mean using significantly less zinc. This essentially renders my opponent's argument null and void. "These providers of zinc and copper would lose contracts worth tens of millions of dollars every year if such pennies ceased new production. " "It is true that such rising zinc prices have increased the price of the penny, but there is no reason why the composition of the penny cannot be revisited as a way to cut down on costs on production, without having to cut the coin all together. "I would also like to see a source that shows that cutting the penny would cost this much for copper and zinc producers. If this is true, perhaps it would make it easier for producers to focus on more useful zinc and copper products than the penny, such as galvanization for the former and wiring for the latter, as well as various other practical uses [1][2]. If this cannot happen, then this is simply an unfortunate side effect of a capitalist society moving forward in time. This sounds harsh, but let me ask: why don't we see people building cars in assembly lines as much as we see robots doing it? Why are deliveries from milkmen so rare nowadays? And why did Kodak tear down numerous buildings and fire thousands of people when they didn't get enough sales in the paper and film industry (and wrongfully believed there was still a big business in it)? It's because we no longer see a use for these things or have a use for them. The penny will similarly have to go. Section 2: Use (Or Lack Thereof)Of course, this is not just an issue of what we make the penny out of, but it is also an issue of the penny's low buying power. The penny costs more to make than it's worth, which, as one of my commenters has pointed out, is not a valid argument in and of itself, considering currency is frequently used and is thus ultimately worth more than its face value. That being said, we've been using the penny so infrequently that it's costing the US around $900 million each year [3]. They're very unworthy of our time. In fact, in the time it takes for people to take out pennies or even pick them up, the average American earns more than one cent [3][4]. These same issues of low buying power do not apply to the $1-$100 bills, and as such it would be wise to keep them and find a new way to make them. The fact that the penny costs so much to make would just be an added bonus for getting rid of it, but it's not the main one. We got rid of the half penny back when it had buying power that would take eleven cents today [4] because it wasn't realistic to keep it with such a low buying power. It only seems logical, then, for the penny to follow suit. Sources:[1]: . http://geology.com...[2]: . http://geology.com...[3]: . http://www.wfu.edu...[4]: . http://www.huffingtonpost.com...

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished Oh, so you say getting rid of currency won't go so well? I was going to use this as one of my concluding arguments but I'll use it now. The U.S. has already gotten rid of old currency. A long time ago, there was a coin called the half-cent, worth half a penny. The U.S. got rid of it because it was worth too little. The crazy part is that the half-cent was worth more then than the dime is now. In fact, other countries like Australia, Sweden, New Zealand, and Canada have already gotten rid of their one-cent pieces. They automatically round up to the nearest five cents (except for New Zealand, which rounds up to the nearest ten cents). These countries have not reported any problems with the money change. Not only that, but the U.S. Military has already gotten rid of the penny in some offshore bases, and they are doing just fine. Con says it is disrespectful to "deface" the face of a president. deface (verb): to ruin the surface of (something) especially with writing or pictures That was taken from Webster's online dictionary. Clearly, getting rid of the penny will not "deface" Abraham Lincoln. Besides, he and his monument are still on the 5-dollar bill. Con says that when money goes completely digital, he wants to see a penny and remember how far we've come. If that ever does happen, the U.S. will undoubtedly save the coins we are using now for us to look at in, say, the Smithsonian. Also, getting rid of a coin is not the same as getting rid of the American flag. That's all for now.

The use of pennies in the US pricing system should be eliminated. Thank you for the quick response. Sadly, my opponent misunderstood me. I do not contradict myself. Yes, I do believe the penny holds a sentimental value. However it should be eliminated because it does not have a benefit towards its purpose of facilitating exchange. My opponent forgot to mention the part where I stated, "If it is of no benefit. .. not facilitating exchange. " {1} To my opponent, I did incorporate the parts where you stated "If it is of no benefit. .. not facilitating exchange. "{1} To Voters as well as my opponent, the biggest flaw made by my opponent within this statement is the use of the word "facilitate". Facilitate means to "Make (an action or process) easy or easier. "{2} With this said, we can clearly see that the penny under my opponents term and use of the word facilitate, achieves its purpose as it allows for us to access every cent of a dollar, which then makes the exchange of goods easier to occur and thus should remain. "eliminating the penny is not equivalent to abolishing the American Flag because whereas the American Flag's purpose is to serve as a "symbolic of nationhood and identity,"[1] the true purpose of the penny or any money in general is to "function as a medium of exchange when it is used to intermediate the exchange of goods and services. . .. .My opponent's comparison between the eliminating of the penny with abolishing the American Flag is a non-sequitar comparison and should not be considered. "{1} How is this comparison invalid? Yes, I admit the fact that the American Flag achieves its purpose in terms of patriotic symbol of nationhood and identity, but like stated earlier, the penny also achieves its purpose of facilitating the exchange process as well as achieving its sentimental purpose. In conclusion, eliminating the penny, is equivalent to eliminating the American Flag. "Again, this is a non-sequitar comparison and therefore should not be considered. The purpose of a penny is not the same as the purpose of the Statue of Liberty. My opponent is saying that anything that does not contribute to the good of the economy whilst I am saying that monetary mediums such as pennies should be eliminated is they do not contribute to the good. "{1} My opponent misunderstand's the reason for making this comparison. In his second rebuttal, my opponent stated that "Our economy is suffering with, as I stated above, at least $15 billion from time wasted with these pennies. "{1} This comparison was made to attack my opponents argument that since the penny is disproportional to our economic goals, then it should be eliminated. This comparison is simple trying to convey to both my opponent and the public, that just like the statue of liberty that does not comply to our economic goal, we should not eliminate the penny, as it achieves its purpose in both facilitating the economy and sentimental value and commemoration of the past president. "My opponent does not realize that keeping the penny would make "giving up the [penny] harder because the [penny] can now be seen as the only way to complete a purchase. " However, as my opponent mentioned the success of the Penny Drive, obviously that claim is false and the nickel would be just as easily given up. " This statement completely contradicts my opponents stand within this debate. My opponent through out this debate constantly stated that the penny is worthless and thus would be easier to neglect and many places do not accept the penny, now he is saying that people will hesitate to donate a penny. In terms of penny drive and its Success using the nickel, my opponent although asked in my previous argument to show his evidence fails to do so. So his claim that the nickel would be as easily giving up should be seen as simple opinion without evidence. "Sadly, my opponent misunderstood my calculations. My opponent has no justification as to why 8400 people donating a penny could be as likely as 84 people donating a nickel but I do for my calculations. Take situation A where donors only donate pennies and situation B where donors only donate nickels. As previously stated by my opponent himself, 15.5% of American people are of the lower class and would have trouble donating a single nickel (which I personally find difficult to believe unless those individuals had absolutely no idea of the severity of poverty around the world. Most of America's homeless are better off thank some average people of third world countries. ) and so mathematically speaking, 100% - 15.5% = 84.5% would be able to donate a nickel. For the sake of easy math, let's say that situation A has 1000 donors all capable of donating a penny. However, since situation B donors are donating nickels, we must take into consideration the lower class who are reluctant to give that nickel. Therefore, situation A would have 1000 people whereas situation B would only have 845 people. Situation A would make 1000 x $0.01 = $10. Yet, Situation B would make 845 x $0.05 = $42.25. So mathematically, asking for a nickel would not only be more profitable but also it would help the mission of the charities which my opponent was concerned about. " My opponent has no justification to say that these much people will be willing to donate there nickel so in the same term, how is he to say that over 18,000 people will be able to donate a penny compared to the 100 people who donate the nickel. The point is that since I provided evidence showing that pennies are more likely donated than nickels, my scenario clearly overturns my opponent's scenario. ">($655508.54 asking for pennies) x (84.5% of people rather than the complete 100%) x (5 as that is the amount of times a nickel is worth over a penny) = $2,769,523.58 The price here comes out to be more because above, I approximated 84.5% to 84 in favor of my opponent because there is no such thing as .5 of a person. However, this time I took into consideration 1000 people providing a more accurate result. " This makes absolutely no sense. I asked for evidence not personal calculation. As for the 84.5% middle and upper class, who is to say that they wouldn't give the charities pennies because they asked for pennies. The 15.5 lower class evidence was not to show how many people donates, but to show the percent of people who would be greatly affected by the elimination of the penny. "My opponent misunderstood my claim that "$7.02 as $6.98" would be just as likely. It is saying that the probability of an item costing $7.02 would be the same as an item costing $6.98 and therefore would both round to $7.00 cancelling each other out. .. The fact that a business normally makes 3,000 sales makes the statistical probability of rounded prices cancelling each other greater and more ideal. " Following my opponents new calculation, this completely goes against his idea that a coin is in existence to facilitate the economy. If the penny already makes it easier to complete an exchange, then why eliminate it? Also my opponents scenario is highly unlikely as producers are more likely to round up rather than down. so the $7.02 item would be rounded to $7.05 and since the $6.98 item is round up to $7.00, then the overall consumer is now loosing $1,200 following the 3000 costumer scenario. This means that the elimination of the coin will defeat my opponents main purpose of eliminating the penny, as exchange is now harder for the consumer. Voters: I win because I showed how the penny facilitates the process of exchange. I win because I showed that the penny has other value other than its face value. I win in argument as I defended as well as attacked my opponents arhuments My opponent drops some of my arguments such the argument that eliminating the penny hurts the poor, and the argument that eliminating the penny means an increase production of the nickel which cost more to produce than the penny. SOURCES IN COMMENT. (ran out of character space) Thank you!

In the US, pennies should be abolished. I. The Penny costs more than the mint makes it forMy opponent has wasted this round. Look very closely at everything he wrote. He restated his original contention, and I did not argue it, because it's true. The fact of the matter is, even though the US will save a couple million, it will lose 10's of billions.I will give my opponent one more round to not drop my points. The con's far outweigh the pro's in this debate, which are miniscule. I will address the point regardless. The Canadian strategy was to increase and keep inflation above the USD. As soon as they removed the penny, the inflation of the CD fell extremely far. It went from being .06$ more than the USD, to being .09$ below it.Canada is a perfect example of a nation who was hit hard by removing the penny.Do not waste my time in a debate, by droping all three of my contentions

Get rid of the penny!! "So, say your Mcnuggets cost $1.22. You pay with $1.25 and the price is rounded down to $1.20 (the nearest nickel) and you get a nickel back." This may seem good, but you are not getting the exact change you deserve; in fact, you are getting more than you should be. $1.25 - $1.22 is $0.03, and should not be rounded up to $0.05. This causes the store, and ultimately the government (since it collects taxes), to lose money, nullifying your saving money argument. It also has an important flaw: sales tax would still need to be added to the price. Let us still consider the McNuggets as $1.22. In Maryland, the sales tax is $0.06. Even if you rounded to the nearest nickel, the total would be $1.26, and still not be able to provide exact change without a penny. Even if the tax was added first and then the price was rounded, this defeats the purpose of a state-imposed sales tax, effectively making the nationwide sales tax $0.05. Not only does this interfere with a state's sales tax policy, but it also can decrease the government revenue even further. Due to these complications, the government would not gain enough, if any, of a benefit from abolishing the penny, and would interfere with a state's right to impose a sales tax. My argument also stills stands that the penny is necessary for change transactions, because of these complications.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service As this is the last round I will keep this as short and to the point as I can.RoundingMy opponent continually states that I am reaching wile clinging to an outdated argument that is not even factual. For the $600 million that my opponent said will be lost will also be gained by both citizens and merchants (Please see my previous statement on complete rounding). Yes I did admit that some would come out on top and some would come out on bottom, but by only a few cents each, nothing that would amount to 600 million in deficit even if people tried to save money this way. (see cbc link)Another issue we have bumped heads on is the use of outdated information. Any high school will tell you a report made by someone can be outdated if it is opinion based and if it is older then 10 years. My source from "1992" is not from 1992 as my opponent stated, It is from 2012 based off charity trends that existed since before 1992 till 2013. Their Source is an opinion based report published in 1990.Minting CostMy opponent brought up that the cost of a nickel is also higher then the cost of a penny. He/she assumes that if I say "we should be getting rid of pennies" I must make a case to get rid of nickels too. The simple fact is that nickels do not round the same as pennies, and we would have to do something about quarters too. It simply is not feasible to get rid of the nickel (yet). This does not undermine the savings that loosing the penny would would create. America would still be gaining back the cost of creating pennies wile not losing any more then planned on nickels. My opponent did not tackle the subject of a penny will never equal its cost to make, but simply said it decreased from 2011-2013. "This money, this petty change, actually costs something to make" The cost to make pennies each year is much, much more then petty change:"This year, the Mint has spent more than $114 million to make pennies, compared with $83.7 million for nickels, $72.3 million for dimes and $133 million for quarters."It is an expensive coin! Overshadowing nickels and dimes all for what? To end up on the street. http://www.wsj.com...My opponents Forbes site does not say "higher manufacturing value is actually a good thing" it said it "used" to be a good thing. Today the government has standards and laws that prohibit the creation of money for no reason. We also have a harder time counterfeiting currency now then they used to during the original years of the country.Charities"fails to back that statement as well as simply asserting that his/her quote is not contradictory without an explanation". I did explain this one. Once again I said that a nickel will quickly over shadow a penny (5-1). Nickels are worth five times more, therefore the will overshadow a penny five times to one. My opponent then preceded to call me names (hypocrite) by saying my 2012 source was from 1992 and again forces the assumption that people will stop donating if there are no pennies.Canadian: we are in agreement.Waste of TimeCollecting: I am sure the mother and daughter, father and son who collect pennies will be much happier when their collection goes up in value due to the abolished of the penny in stores. Donations: The cancer patient has a good chance of survival due to other non penny donations. Your comparison is not correct, saying pennies are a waste of time is like saying a dog only has so many years, go play with him instead of rolling virtually useless coins. My opponent did not refute the actual dollar amount that every American will lose per year due to time wasted on pennies.Not Accepted for all Purchases. My opponent agrees with me but tries to make my point less valuable then a penny by saying it is a waste of time. I would like to explain with the example:wile you have to fumble in a change purse around 50 pennies (not accepted at a vending machine), you could have had two quarters in change (or ten nickels) and you could have gotten that bag of chips you wanted but now you are hungry and in a rush with pennies weighing you down. Vending machines are only getting better and more convenient, who knows when you will get your next snack craving.Bad for the Environment: "Pennies are innocent." 18,000 metric tons of zinc are used per year to create pennies. Supply and demand dictates how much zinc they will dig up and therefore how much pollutants they will put out. Reducing the demand will reduce this environmental catastrophe that pennies are indeed guilty of helping to create.http://www.forbes.com...Thank you for reading. Thank you for debating. Please consider me for the win!

Gettin rid of pennie's Reasons why pennies should be eliminated. Other Countries Have Successfully Done without TheirsMany other countries have eliminated several small denominations from their currency with no major impact on commerce. New Zealand, for instance, dropped their one and two-cent coins over 20 years ago. They have, since then, eliminated their nickel as well.We"ll Conserve Natural ResourcesWe"re more aware today than ever that the minerals we mine aren"t going to last forever. Ceasing production of pennies will lower our consumption of copper and zinc, as well as the fuel and energy required to mine and process it.It Will Increase in ValueHistorically, dropping any minted coin out of circulation immediately increases its value as a collectible. So, in 2020, all those pennies laying around the house will be worth more, and will continue to gain value as time passes. Many collectors are already starting to collect lots of pennies, taking more out of circulation.Nobody Misses the HalfpennyThese days, very few individuals realize that the US once had a half-cent coin. That"s because it was taken out of circulation in 1857. Given that phasing out this denomination had virtually no impact on commerce, there"s no reason to think that dropping the penny will have any serious side effects.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. Once again, same order 1st cont: he seems to have failed to remember that the entire world used to run off the crops they themselves grew, not by other people. And when/if we start importing food, IT WILL COST MONEY, and lots of it, therefore outweighting any small amout we might be overpaying to make the iconic penny. 2nd Cont: Now onto the whole roundung situation. How many products do you see that are like 19.05 or 13.24..little, if any. Most produts are such prices like 19.95, or 14.99. in face maore then half of all products are that way, not exactly half, therefore NOT neutral. 3rd Cont: I did not drop it, i proved we would just switch our dependence from china to other countries, or possibly even stay on china. and if we get rid of all the pennies, then we are going to need to replace them with nickels and dimes. and whatabout when they get too expensive to make, do we get rid of coins until its all bills, then work our way thruogh all the bills until we are all using hundreds to buy a gallon of milk? 4th Cont: The germ issue applies even more to bills then to pennies, once again, bill are made of linen a very easy cloth to contaminate with batcteria. 5th Cont: If it cost BILLIONs of dollar to make pennies, then that must mean the same if not even more with nickels, dimes, quarters, ect. So, in conclusion, i beg you, don;t get rid of the penny, it would be just as unpatriotic as ripping up the Lincon monument, or toppling th eStatue of Liberty.

The US Penny Should be Taken out of Service In this last round, I'd like to take the opportunity to clarify some major issues and prove why you should vote for me. Firstly, I will refute, weigh the significance of controversial arguments, address the burden, and, finally, conclude. Refutations to Refutations: Refutation 1: Rounding My opponent has brought up in their refutation to my argument about economic harm that she did not feel the need to formally reply to my argument because I "did not cite where" my "facts are where from" (This grammatically should be "were from") . That is a sorry excuse for what is truly a lack of a refutation for my argument. He/she moves on to saying that my source is from 1990, and then because of that completely rejects my argument. There are better ways to refute this than just pointing out an outdated source (which has no relevance whatsoever and doesn't disprove anything). He/she then moves on to give examples of a merchant saving and losing 2 pennies. However, the example that my opponent provides is what I like to call a utopian example. It's perfect, and it just seems to work out. However, not everything will perfectly balance out like this. Here's a counterexample: A merchant owns a store. The price, after tax, comes down to $11.88 and it gets rounded to $11.90 since it is a cash purchase; the merchant gains 2 pennies. However, the next person buys an item that totals to $11.91, and it gets rounded to $11.90; the merchant loses one penny. When simple math is done, it can be shown that, in this example, 1 penny is obviously lost. Not every transactions will perfectly counteract each other as my opponent suggestions, therefore, multiply this imperfect transaction by hundreds of thousands occurrences a day, and you will lose, more or less, $600 million a year, as Raymand Lombra puts it. Refutation 2: Minting Cost In this refutation, my opponent responds my point by stating that my point is invalid because the minting price is worth more than the face value, even though it is lower than what he/she originally said. I have 2 responses for this. 1) I strongly disagree as this does not disprove my point whatsoever since the manufacturing value has declined since 2011. It has been on the decline, and since it is 1.7 cents, it is only a loss of .7 cents per each penny. Why should we get rid of the penny if we lose 3 cents on each nickel as they cost 8 cents to mint (http://blogs.wsj.com...)? My opponent's logic is to get abolish its creation and circulation because it costs more to manufacture than its actual value, so why not get rid of the nickel as well since it is more of a loss than the penny? 2) "Thus what we have with the penny and the nickel is the last, residual restraint that the government actually faces when it manufactures money. This money, this petty change, actually costs something to make. Which would be precisely why we should insist that the United States keep making it. It can remind the country of how properly to conduct monetary policy. When market signals say you are pushing too hard, stop it. The real economy will respond by getting back to what it does best, which is roaring." -http://www.forbes.com... If you don't want to read the article, it basically says that pennies are good for the economy, especially since they are made out of a semi-precious metal, because it will not get overproduced, thereby meaning that having a higher manufacturing value is actually a good thing, turning and capturing my opponent's point. Refutation 3: Charities Pro brings up that I am the actual one dancing on this one, however fails to back that statement as well as simply asserting that his/her quote is not contradictory without an explanation. He/she also misunderstood my logic. As I said, since pennies are worth less, people will donate more of them, totalling to a greater amount of money for charities. Sure, this is an assumption, but it's a logical one unlike the assumption made by Pro, who becomes a hypocrite by stating that I have no proof, hounding me for a source from 1990, and then using a source from 1992. Therefore, my charities point should get through. Refutation 4: Canadian Pro definitely does have the right to use international experience anywhere he/she pleases, however, as proved and agreed with by him/her, Canada and America definitely do have completely different economies (http://www.thestar.com...). The same goes for Australia. Therefore, Pro has conceded to this point. Refutations to Arguments: Refutation 1: Waste of Time Pennies are not a waste of time. No matter who, they always have a meaning, whether it is an emotional connection between father and son, mother and daughter, the ability to save someone's life from cancer when being donated to charity, or being lucky when picked up from the street. Also, see my refutation 2 above for a further refutation that applies to this as well. Saying that pennies are a waste of time is like saying that an abused dog is not worth saving. Refutation 2: Not Accepted for all Purchases My opponent's second argument is that pennies are not accepted for all purposes. I completely agree, in fact this is common sense. But this argument was just a waste of time in that it is not tied in and plays no role in the scheme of things. Refutation 3: Bad for the Environment Saying that pennies are bad for the environment is a bold, overreaching statement. Sure, pennies are bad for the environment when dropped, but the number of pennies laying around on someone's lawn is so insignificant that this portion of the argument does not help prove anything. I, as well, agree that zinc mines harm the environment, but don't take the penny out of service to fix this. They're still going to make zinc for other purposes, it is not the penny that is causing the harm, it is the zinc mines. Pennies are innocent. Weighing: Economical Harm vs. Waste of Time (Con 1 vs. Pro 1): In this situation, my argument is clearly stronger do to the fallacious logic and overarching bold statements presented by Pro. The impact of losing ~$600 million/year and the other chaos that will potentially break loose is more significant than a few cents being wasted here and there. To put this in simpler terms, $600,000,000 > $3.65. Charities vs. Environment (Con 2 vs. Pro 3): With Pro's argument focusing on such an insignificant scope/area and my argument logically demonstrating harm to charities, it's no wonder my point is stronger in this instance as well. The Burden: Pro had three prongs to prove, yet he/she said that it does not have to be proved as I am the instigator. I strongly disagree as Pro is the side trying to change the status quo, and with that, you need to prove how your plan is going to be effective, which has not been done. These are the three unproved prongs: 1) I have clearly refuted this, disproving what my opponent attempted to say, therefore leaving this prong unproved. 2) Somewhat proved, but not all the way. 3) Once again, there has been no clear explanation as to how Pro's plan will "transition into this change smoothly with minimal harm and maximum benefit." As the burden is left unproved, Pro does not have a case sufficient to win this debate, therefore resulting in a clear reason to vote for me, Con. The decision is up to the voters now. Conclusion: I'd like to thank my opponent for this great debate from which I have learned a lot and all future voters for exercising judgment as to who won. As a 13 year-old, it is hard to debate an economic topic against someone with a business diploma. I wish luck to my opponent as the debate comes to a close. As I like to say, e verbis victoria.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. (Kleptin Tourney) Okay, man, it has been a while since I've done this. I thank Kleptin for organizing this tournament, and alto2osu for this debate challenge. Without further ado, let us begin (As a brief roadmap, I will go down my opponent's case before my own). Interpretation- This is a reasonable interpretation, and the one I intended when I originally made the debate. Thus, I agree and there is no clash here. 1a. I cannot deny the cost of zinc in the world. However, alto2osu makes it seem like the discontinuation of pennies is the only action to take, with the net benefit of public confidence in the economy through reform. However, we can see that the elimination of the one-cent piece would actually LOWER consumer confidence, as the German Finance Ministry stated for the introduction of the one-cent euro piece [1, page 8]: "If a euro one-cent coin were not introduced, public opinion might regard this as a sign of weakness in the euro and confidence in the stability of the common European currency might suffer as a result" Also, this is not the only option to solve this problem. At the point where the cause of this cost is from the metal it is made from, primarily zinc, we can see that it is much more beneficial to accept the following counter-plan: "The United States should change the metal that pennies are made out of". Not only does this solve my opponents first point, but it has the net benefit of avoiding the harms of the negative case that is to come. 1b. Again, while the case my seem to be against the penny, the actual cost of a cash transaction comparatively is not the wasteful picture my opponent paints. When stores calculated the cost of each transaction (in time, armored courier costs, etc.), they found that cash transactions, including those with pennies, were the cheapest by FAR, whether it be per item, or in total transactions [1, page 6] Also, I searched for this report by the NACS that you claimed, but I could not find it. I'm not saying you are lying, but could you please give the source? 2 First, cross-apply the counter-plan. If the penny is not made out of zinc, we don't have this "problem". Secondly, we must see that even if this sale happens, we do not become more "indebted" to China. This is simply one company selling itself off. Ok, we don't have the world's biggest deposits of zinc. Therefore it makes sense we are not the biggest producers; this is not apocalyptic , just common sense. "We are already far too indebted to other nations, especially China, to be able to operate freely within the world economy." Can you prove this? Where is the bright-line between us being able to operate freely and not operate freely? On human rights, we already have NO influence on China in the issue of human rights, nor do private businesses as shown with the recent tiff between China and Google. In fact, China shot back at the US calling the US hypocrites for criticizing China.[2] Neg case (other than impact turns): 1 Direct Impact. If one were to get rid of the penny, obviously one would have to round prices to the nearest nickel. While seemingly insignificant, this causes a huge price to be paid. Due to the disproportionate amount of items ending with 9 and certain other numbers [1 page 3], a $600 million "round tax" as Lambra calls it, would be paid by each consumer yearly simply because of this rounding. If we are going to talk economic impacts, this forced extra spending that does not actually produce benefit is simply going to leave consumers with less disposable income, meaning less spending which means a slower recovery if not another recession. 2 Long-term-Inflation. Long term impacts do not look any better. The rounding that would occur would negatively affect governmental spending. Using data from the congressional budget office, Lambra calculates that government spending would be up by 2 billion JUST by this rounding. Note that this was is 2001, when the economy was actually good and our spending was not that high. With the higher spending we have today, the artificial rise would just be that much greater. 3 Stores- Finally, we can look to the affect on stores. After taking into account the fact that cash transaction is the cheapest transaction to make, we can see that this rounding would run stores out of buisness. At a 1998 convention, the NACS stated that the average profit per transaction is about 6-7 cents [1 page6] Thus, a two-three cent rounding would take about 30% of a store's profit basically kicking someone while they are down. Also we can look to the threat deterrence of pennies. Without pennies, exact change is more likely to be had. At that point, the register does not have to be opened to procure change and the employee can just pocket the money. With pennies, this is MUCH less likely to happen. For all these reasons, I urge a vote in negation. 1: http://college.holycross.edu... 2: http://www.reuters.com...

The penny should be stopped from circulation !! !! Vote con! !! !! Vote con! !! !! Vote con! !! !! Vote con! !! !! Vote con! !! !! Vote con! !! ! !

The penny should be immediately discontinued. For reader/voter convenience I will go in the same order my opponent does Cont. 1- In order for this response to have a chance to hold water, my opponent first must prove that the United States indeed has the resources necessary to grow enough food for the whole nation. Until my opponent gives proof of this, the food portion of the response must be ignored. If we do not have the facilities to do so, then importing food is certainly not a waste of money as it helps ensure the continuation of the nation. As far as the monuments go, the point of having them is to commemorate the various historical heroes of our country. My point is that we are paying extra money to keep the penny when there is no reason to keep it other than your suggestion of the benefit nostalgic value which I have shown not only to be outweighed by the harm of economic down-fall but that it in-fact does not exist. And as I showed in my first contention, the penny is NOT a small waste of money. Cont. 2- My opponent forgets that the other half of products would go down in his hypothetical situation. However, this is not a viable situation unless stores never changed pricing strategies, sales tax would be eliminated, and people never bought more than one item, all of which randomize rounding. In fact, a recent study(http://www.wfu.edu...) confirms that the effect of rounding would be neutral. Cont. 3- Here my opponent drops that we would lessen our dependence and that that would be beneficial, thus those points stand. He goes off into an illogical point that we would become more dependent on countries making the ingredients for other coins. I ask how is it possible that lowering the need of zinc heightens the need for other metals. Cont. 4- I am sorry, there has been some misunderstanding. When I said the penny has no value, I meant nostalgic value. The stat with 58% saving and the germ reference were simply to point out that people think so little of the penny that they not only put them away rather than keep to spend them but germs actually become a bigger part of the decision of whether or not to pick up a penny off the ground than the value of the penny, actual or nostalgic. (Besides that money "poured back" into the economy would just raise inflation.) Last paragraph- Please note I never said that the penny would be THE reason for an economic recession, just a contributor. My opponent concludes by saying that the amount of debt grows "THOUSANDS of DOLLARS, not by pennies." Considering that I have proven that the penny costs us BILLIONS of dollars and this has remained uncontested, this only strengthens my argument. Now, I must wait for my opponent's closing statements.

In the US, pennies should be abolished. http://www.usmint.gov... Cost of Producing the Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, and Golden Dollar Coins. $1 Coin Quarter Dime Nickel Penny 18.03 cents 11.14 cents 5.65 cents 11.18 cents 2.41 cents (United States Mint, 2011 Annual Report, pg. 11) 1. PENNIES COST MORE TO MAKE THAN THEY ARE WORTH This will send the US economy down the drain in the future, with inflation. Pennies are worth less than nothing, because of the cost to make one. 2. IT WOULD NOT INCREASE COSTS BY AN EXTENSIVE AMOUNT The cost of anything would be rounded to the nearest 5/10 cents. EXAMPLE: $1.01 would be rounded to $1.

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished Actually pennies aren't unless as you think and if you get rid of it the poor pay the most - the poor will be affected the most, because they are most likely to make more frequent, smaller purchases, thus suffering the rounding up more often. And Nickels cost even more to make, If we eliminate the penny, we will need more nickels. Nickels cost 7.7 cents to make, making each nickel costs 1.44 cents more than making each penny. Since the penny costs 0.26 more than face value to make, the Mint can make 5 pennies and still lose less money than making 1 nickel. And, of course, if we eliminate the penny, we'll need a lot more nickels, which will offset the savings of stopping penny manufacture.

The United States should cease production of the penny Before I begin refuting my opponent's claims, I would like to point out that he did not attack any of my arguments, merely defended his own. This means the arguments I made still apply, which means that my opponent tacitly agrees to the statements: 1:The penny costs more than 1 cent to make 2:Pennies do not function as a coin. 3:Pennies have essentially zero buying power. 4: Federal Property does not accept the penny 5: The penny is a bipartisan issue. (On my opponent's case): Their #5 argument is not proven correct. These issues by their own merit ceasing production of the penny, en though I will now move on to attack my opponent's case. This first part isn't an argument, and has no place 1:This argument makes no sense. My opponent claims that the penny is .0001% of a dollar, even though it is exactly 1% of a dollar. This argument also makes no claims as to why .0001% of a dollar is a good system for a coin. 2:My opponent claims that the money would be spent inappropriately elsewhere. First off, he supplies no reason why the money would go towards the wrong spending, so it is safe to assume that the money would be spent in equal percentiles of current tax distribution. Second off, the idea that money spent to produce spending would go to illegitimate spending is exactly wrong, because producing pennies is the exact illegitimate spending that my opponent warns against. This means that my opponent agrees spending money on the wrong things is bad, yet refuses to see he is arguing for one of those systems. 3:Yet again, my opponent claims pennies are better economic indicators than the Debt Clock without providing a source of evidence, merely asserting that this is true. Also, the Debt Clock was not a part of his original argument, which means that this is a new argument and not a defense for his older argument, showing that pennies are not good economic indicators. 4:My opponent claims that the nickel will be next, which is not his original argument here. On the contrary, his original argument was about increased cost in bulk purchases, which is false. Also, my opponent claims that nickels are .05 cents, even though they are 5 cents. My opponent finally claims that eventually the nickel will suffer the same fate, and at that point, it would be justified to remove it for the same reasons proven here today. This last statement is not an argument, and also has no evidence to back his claim. At last, I would like to show why the Pro won the debate 1)The Pro defended and attacked all issues presented, while the Con did not 2) The Pro consistently used evidence to prove their side of the debate, whereas the con did not 3) The Pro has shown a consistent understanding of what each coin is worth in relation to the dollar, whereas the Con and repeatedly shown that they do not know the percentiles and costs of each coin.

Stop the Minting of the American Penny Thanks to con for relinquishing the last round, and for joining me in this debate.If we look at con's fifth source, which s/he used to stress his/her belief that the US will lose money, we see in exactness why Rodney Bosco, the author of the article, believes this to be the case. Mr. Bosco states that getting rid of the penny, a coin produced with money lost as a result, would "...increase demand for the nickel, which is also currently produced at a loss" (p.2). While this is true, simply keeping the penny and changing the contents of it would not be an adequate measure. Perhaps changing the nickel's contents, a coin that has ten times the buying power of the penny, would be (or we could get rid of it too, but that's for another debate, I suppose). Even using the multi-ply plating technology would not be enough. To stress this point, Bosco said that such technology has "...been successfully used by the RCM to manage circulating coinage for Canada..."(p.3) - a country that even with this method got rid of their penny three years ago as of this May. I must stress that the penny's content is something that can be changed, but is not worth changing when considering how low its buying power is.As for the argument "you don’t see people abolishing the car…. Or milk," I don't see this as a perfect comparison. Cars provide fast and effective transportation, and milk has nutritional value. Pennies, on the other hand, don't provide the services that they should. Even the argument pertaining to those who use cash to pay for things doesn't have much basis, and I'll explain why: the part about rounding up goes against what I've already said about the myth of the "rounding tax" back in Round 2. Most places that have gotten rid of the penny round both up and down, and it's worth mentioning that no significant effect has been shown to the economy and there has been no significant or noticeable rise in prices nor, for that matter, has there been any decrease in charitable donations [1]. It is also worth mentioning that people who are poorer and would use money more are statistically more likely to donate money to charity.Finally, I would like to say that the amount of money earned back from reforming the penny does not reach how much we have lost, as attested by my argument in Round 2.I thank con again for joining me in this debate. Vote for pro.Sources:[1]:

The Penny 1. My opponent argues that pennies stay in currency a long time, making it worth the 1.8 Pennies it costs. We'll just because it stays in currency longer does not make it more valuable. I honestly don't see how that would make anything more valuable. My argument last round (sorry for the confusion) was that even if we had to make five dollar bills 25 times more often it would still be more cost effective then the penny. Simply because It cost practically nothing to make paper but copper costs a decent amount of money, and to top it all off the five dollar bill is worth about 500 times more valuable then the penny. 2. The penny has no buying power but is used in currency quite a bit. But for what reason? Somebody might say to make exact change but eventually the money used to make this change is simply not worth it. My opponent has made no argument against this statement. 3. Our money system is cent based but for what reason? As I said there is almost no value at all to this coin, so why do we pay exact change? The reason is non-existent, the penny is such a small increment that it can't be efficiently used in a transaction requiring more then ten cents, which can't really be used to buy anything at all. The penny can have value if you take a redicolus time collecting them but so can any coin or any other increment of money. You cold still spend the pennies, there just simply wouldn't be any new ones coming in. Though company's will still round to the nearest 5" eventually. My opponent argues that the penny might gain value but that that claim is 100% false. Inflation will occur until the government stops borrowing and lending money which pretty much means its never going to stop. And if it were it would happen in at least 20+ years, even if inflation stopped now the penny is still not worth it. 1. Many people including my opponent think that rounding to the nearest 5" would hurt the econemy but its like a game of chance, since the money can be rounded up or down, the overall price over a year would be roughly the same, but again even it was rounded up every single time (which it won't) we would loose an extra 50$ tops in an entire year. 2. I think it's simply the fact that people are very greedy. I think you have conceded this argument but I'm not sure.... So just to recap theses charities won't loose money because people would have to give nickel which would actually probably boost charity income. 3. Well umm... Yeah not really an argument. Summary: Pennies are bad for the econemy because the government literally spends money to make less money and then people are taxed to make up for it. Pennies can't be used to buy anything and are practically useless. The only thing pennies are good for is making exact change but after a while the value the money represents becomes to small to buy anything or bother with. When peope take out pennies to make exact change it just wastes the people's time that are in the line, in is a just a plain out inconvenice we have to pay for with tax dollars. Sources: 1.coins.about.com/od/uscoins/i/penny_debate.htm 2.www.studymode.com/essays/Why-The-Penny-Should-Be-Elimanated-808466.html 3.richerbytheday.com/2008/03/should-the-penny-be-eliminated?.com I have had a lot of fun and thank my opponent for the interesting debate. May the best man win

The US should abolish the penny I believe we should keep the penny around.

Should the penny be kept in US currency Many economic breakdowns have resulted in the collapse of countries. My opponent clearly said we could get over it however may I argue that the Soviet Union, one of the two superpowers in the world at that time, experienced an economic collapse. This crisis was one of the key factors to the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Russia. Next comes lack of military. Any "ripple in the world of money" can cause a serious impact on the military. As I speak the US is in war with ISIL, and having an economic crisis will not benefit us as all. The penny also should not be taken from the US currency because, as you said, we might have to resort to credit cards, but remember this. Many shops don't accept credit cards, the shops will experience a downfall in what they can do, and many places will go out of business, causing more and more to do the same.

The U.S. should stop the production of pennies. I feel as though you are just repeating your argument over and over instead of debating both of our views and opinions. Greatly reducing the amount manufactured has quite different outcomes as retiring a form of currency. With the reduction they will still be in use and all of our old pennies (literally billions of dollars worth) and not make them obsolete like they would be if the penny was retired. In rebuttal to your conclusion: a. They still do have a use however (keep costs at more of an exact number) b. Which is why we re-create the penny out of new materials. New materials = new value if done correctly c. Not necessarily, they are used in almost every single purchase we make. d. Like I've already stated, make them out of cheaper more abundant materials e. Another thing you never gave me a response to my response about... Find a less toxic material that can be used in the creation of a new penny f. Whatever money they are taking from us for pennies they could easily put into something else like the salary for those in government. I guarantee that if they cease production of pennies that they will not take less money from us, they will just find a new place to waste it. Yep.

Pennies should be abolished Pro has the BOP.If we used nickels, Americans would pay a "rounding tax" of about $2 billion to $4 billion per year [1]. But Pro wants to abolish nickels, so that tax would surely be much higher. This neutralizes any benefit that comes with the cost of making pennies. Poor people who make small purchases are hurt, as are charities that use penny drivesNext, pennies are sentimental. About two-thirds of Americans want to keep the penny [1]. 1. http://tinyurl.com...

Should the penny be kept in US currency If we take away the penny (and the nickel), we will be back at 1947. This was shortly after the Great Depression ended, and if we don't have smaller coins (the lack of small coins prevented us from getting out of this terrible event), a whole new Great Depression could appear. That's not just a ripple, that is throwing us seventy years behind the rest of the world, and it will be difficult to get out of that. We may have to devote to rounding. $2 bills are to $20 bills, as $1 bills are to $10 bills, same with $5 to $50, and $10 to $100. The two dollar bill helps our economy as much as a twenty dollar bill, which is why we are coming towards it. The two dollar bill will boost, and all taking away the penny can do is throw us behind the rest of the world. This will cause our taxes to be lowered, which means less money on international relationships, which means, debt that can't be paid off, lack of military. These things will make the US vulnerable to the outside forces. Good luck!

In the US, pennies should be abolished. 1. Forex Trade/Stock Exchange will not crash. The cost is not only rounded down/up, but a combination of both, depending on how close the cost is to the nearest 5-cent increment, which could actually cause a boom in forex/stock. 2. Nickels can also control inflation with lest cost to the government/mint. Pennies cost 2.4 cents to make, and are worth 1 cent.

The U.S. should stop the production of pennies. I totally agree with your idea of changing the material because of the pollution that is caused by pennies. Pennies are made of copper, which come from zinc ores, which also contain toxic metals like lead. Although this is a good idea, I still stand by my view of cutting the production of pennies. Although it may have an affect on taxes, it saves the government a lot of money. Without producing pennies, the U.S. government will gain back about 91 million dollars because about 13 billion pennies are produced each year. Also, pennies are produced using the taxpayers money, so either way you are losing money.

Stop the Minting of the American Penny I believe that the American penny, for many reasons, serves no real purpose in our modern world, and we should cease minting it as soon as possible.First round is for acceptance only.Definitions:American Penny: the one cent coin currently used for the USD (United States Dollar, $).Mint: to make a coin.

We should get rid of the penny Poll Shows Americans Concerned About Costly Price Rounding System If Penny Is Eliminated Washington, DC - A poll released today by Americans for Common Cents shows overwhelming support for the penny by the American public. The vast majority of those surveyed favored keeping the penny in circulation, a sentiment heightened when people were made aware of the penny's charitable importance, and most expressed significant concerns about higher consumer prices if the penny is eliminated. "These results confirm the strong and unwavering support the penny continues to receive from America." said Weller. "Americans understand that eliminating the penny would lead to a rounding process and cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in higher prices. Current and future generations of Americans deserve to live in a country where a penny saved truly is a penny earned." The poll results showed that: * Three out of four adults (73%) favor keeping the penny in circulation; * A mere 12.6% agree the penny should be removed from circulation when people are told that millions of dollars in pennies are contributed to charities each year; * 76% were concerned that if the government implements a rounding system for cash purchases, businesses might raise prices; * 69% of Americans oppose eliminating the penny and establishing a price rounding system. An analysis by Raymond Lombra, PhD, Professor of Economics at Penn State University confirms these concerns. He found that eliminating the penny would lead to a rounding of prices in America that he estimates would cost consumers more than $600 million every year. Polling results over the last eight years demonstrate the widespread support the penny enjoys with the public. Opinion Research polls in 1995 and 1996 found 73% and 76% of Americans, respectively, support the penny. A 1992 CNN/Time survey and a 1990 Gallup poll produced similar favorable results. "Keeping the penny in circulation will avoid an inflationary rounding process and is what the American people want," said Weller. "It's just common cents." Americans for Common Cents is a broad-based coalition of business and charitable organizations dedicated to keeping the penny. The coalition was formed in 1990 in response to Congressional threats to eliminate the one-cent coin. Opinion Research Corporation International of Princeton, New Jersey, surveyed a national sample of 1,009 adults, comprised of 507 men and 502 women by phone. The margin of sampling error is +3%. <http://www.pennies.org...;

The Penny I will be arguing that the production of the penny should continue. I look forward to a fun and informative debate. Good luck!

Should the penny be kept in US currency Let me make this clear. I said an economic breakdown HERE, meaning the U.S. The US is much more capable of recovering from a breakdown than the Soviet Union. Back on topic, my closing argument is that the penny is outdated. The time has come for it to be removed, naturally or by force. New forms of currency, like the $2 bill are becoming more and more widespread. A penny is just something that you throw on the ground, forget about. The making of the penny should be stopped, although to prevent an economic breakdown it should remain as a legitimate form of payment, usin the penny's already in circulation of the U.S.

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished You make a good point but why should it be abolished Abe must stay here are some reason's first it would be disrespectful to deface a Hero of this proud country its like getting rid of the flag.... The penny might be the lowest form of currency you can have but its still currency getting rid of currency might not go so well what if you need exact change but that's not the point defacing a President is down right disrespect and a great one at that a true American hero but when it comes to the digital age where there are just credit cards and debit cards and bit coins I don't mean today I mean in 50 years where there is only digital things I still want to dig into my pocket and find a nice shinny Abe and remember how far we have come.

The Penny Rebuttal: 1. I am not sure why my point is not valid. Every time a penny is used, is further stimulates the economy, making it more and more useful and valuable, if not literally worth more. I am not sure I understand con's point. The dollar is worth a lot more than the penny, but it is also worth a lot more than the quarter. Would you eliminate everything worth less than the dollar, because the dollar is more valuable? This is not an argument. 2. The argument I clearly articulated here was that the penny is still used in purchases and exchanges, which my opponent claimed it did not. 3. As you said yourself, the penny is not valuable, so I would not say inflation is at all reliant on further creation of pennies. I looked it up and could not find out whether the Government actually creates more pennies than there are, or just makes up for the ones fallen out of currency. The latter is the way it should be, but does not make an argument for completely halting production. My point about the penny some day being worth more I assume is still valid, as there was no mention of it in my opponent's argument. Other Rebuttal :D: 1. I think we can agree that businesses would round up, not down. A business would definitely not want to lose money off the new system. Also, I think 50$ is low balling it a bit. Simply on groceries, a whole year's worth of rounding up would cost you more. Even so, 50$ is no small sum, especially in today's economy. 2. I did not intend to concede this point, if that's the impression I gave you. If people were wiling to part with nickles and dimes, and since they are worth far more than the penny, you would see a much larger percentage paid with nickels and dimes. But you don't, implying people are willing to donate pennies, but not nickels and dimes. To be fair, that might change if the penny was no longer produced, and this isn't much of an argument anyway. 3. Yeah, kinda pointless. In my defense, I brought it up to show there was no distinction is argument between eliminating pennies and eliminating other types of currency. Conclusion: As the penny is a current part of our currency, I feel it is fair to put the burden of proof on con. My opponent made no strong case for why the penny should be stopped altogether, with the one clear downside being the taxpayer money used to produce the pennies. However, you'll find the money per capita it takes to produce pennies is less than the extra money it would cost the average Joe per year with everything rounded to the nickel. Thank you for a great debate, and indeed, let the best man win!

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished me either

Stopping production of the penny in the United States would be a good decision. I think that the production shouldn't be stopped because for one, in a way, it kinda makes things easier. And taking away the penny would make things more expensive change wise also. and EVERY store EVERYWHERE would have to change the price tag on everything so that the lowest change number was 5 cents

The use of pennies in the US pricing system should be eliminated. "It means that abolishing the penny is virtually equivalent to abolishing the American flag. "I did not think my opponent was attempting to make this inference. Of course, eliminating the penny would not be the same a abolishing the American Flag. Let me explain further. "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. " "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. " Sadly, my opponent misunderstood me. I do not contradict myself. Yes, I do believe the penny holds a sentimental value. However it should be eliminated because it does not have a benefit towards its purpose of facilitating exchange. My opponent forgot to mention the part where I stated, "If it is of no benefit. .. not facilitating exchange. " Now, as I said I would explain further above, eliminating the penny is not equivalent to abolishing the American Flag because whereas the American Flag's purpose is to serve as a "symbolic of nationhood and identity,"[1] the true purpose of the penny or any money in general is to "function as a medium of exchange when it is used to intermediate the exchange of goods and services. This function facilitates and eliminates the inefficiencies of a barter system, where goods and services are directly exchange for other goods and services. With the use of money, now you can just conveniently pay for the things you want to buy. "[2] My opponent's comparison between the eliminating of the penny with abolishing the American Flag is a non-sequitar comparison and should not be considered. All in all, the sentimental value of a coin does not matter because that has nothing to do with the true value of a coin. So therefore no, my statement was not contradictory. "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. "Again, this is a non-sequitar comparison and therefore should not be considered. The purpose of a penny is not the same as the purpose of the Statue of Liberty. My opponent is saying that anything that does not contribute to the good of the economy whilst I am saying that monetary mediums such as pennies should be eliminated is they do not contribute to the good. "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 their(sic) penny than to give up their(sic) 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). " >"giving up the nickel would be even harder because the nickel can now be seen as the only way to complete a purchase"My opponent does not realize that keeping the penny would make "giving up the [penny] harder because the [penny] can now be seen as the only way to complete a purchase. " However, as my opponent mentioned the success of the Penny Drive, obviously that claim is false and the nickel would be just as easily given up. "If 84 people give a nickel to the charity organization, then it is also likely that 8400 people would give the penny. "Sadly, my opponent misunderstood my calculations. My opponent has no justification as to why 8400 people donating a penny could be as likely as 84 people donating a nickel but I do for my calculations. Take situation A where donors only donate pennies and situation B where donors only donate nickels. As previously stated by my opponent himself, 15.5% of American people are of the lower class and would have trouble donating a single nickel (which I personally find difficult to believe unless those individuals had absolutely no idea of the severity of poverty around the world. Most of America's homeless are better off thank some average people of third world countries. ) and so mathematically speaking, 100% - 15.5% = 84.5% would be able to donate a nickel. For the sake of easy math, let's say that situation A has 1000 donors all capable of donating a penny. However, since situation B donors are donating nickels, we must take into consideration the lower class who are reluctant to give that nickel. Therefore, situation A would have 1000 people whereas situation B would only have 845 people. Situation A would make 1000 x $0.01 = $10. Yet, Situation B would make 845 x $0.05 = $42.25. So mathematically, asking for a nickel would not only be more profitable but also it would help the mission of the charities which my opponent was concerned about. Evidence for the JC PENNY claim: >($655508.54 asking for pennies) x (84.5% of people rather than the complete 100%) x (5 as that is the amount of times a nickel is worth over a penny) = $2,769,523.58 The price here comes out to be more because above, I approximated 84.5% to 84 in favor of my opponent because there is no such thing as .5 of a person. However, this time I took into consideration 1000 people providing a more accurate result. My opponent misunderstood my claim that "$7.02 as $6.98" would be just as likely. It is saying that the probability of an item costing $7.02 would be the same as an item costing $6.98 and therefore would both round to $7.00 cancelling each other out. Nowhere did I mention a percentage of 6.98% or if my opponent made a mistake typing the dollar sign, if he read more carefully, he would see that I never stated that an item would round down to $6.98. The fact that a business normally makes 3,000 sales makes the statistical probability of rounded prices cancelling each other greater and more ideal. My opponent misunderstood my question to him. The only way you could pay for something worth $0.04 or $0.07 (two of four prices that would round up or down to $0.05) would be with 4 pennies or 1 nickel and 2 pennies whereas $0.05 would only take one nickel. There would be more hassle. Similarly, that can be said about any value whether it be $0.84 or $0.87 compared to $0.85. My claim is that, paying for any price would only require at most, 1 nickel (because of the existence of dimes and quarters) whereas a with pennies, the most would be 4. Also, as I mentioned above, taking the time to add up the correct change with these coins would be worth it because of their larger face value. So I ask again, why would production of the nickel be necessary? Ultimately, I believe the penny should be eliminated because it does not serve its purpose as a monetary medium. If you had a Engineer who was bad at engineering but a great artist, wouldn't you move him to the art department? Similarly, if a penny is a poor monetary system, it should go where it belongs: in a museum. I thank my opponent for willing to debate with me in my first debate. I thank every one of you who took time to read through our debate. And have a very merry Christmas. Sources:[1] . http://www.tpk.govt.nz... [2] . http://moneyrelease.com...

Discontinuation of the Penny and Nickel I ask that you keep this debate partially serious. I don’t mind having some fun but we should be a bit more serious. I also must apologize for forfeiting round two. I had meant to post my argument but time hadn’t allowed. However, I digress… As for the penny and nickel: be it resolved that both the penny and the nickel be eliminated from the production of coins by the US Mint. To begin, let’s make sure we understand some background information. The penny has been fluctuating in price for the past several years. Pennies are made of both copper and zinc, and these metals have both become rather pricey in the past several years. Currently, the price to produce one penny is roughly 1.7¢ [1]. This alone should cause you to vote in the affirmation of this resolution. The penny is literally worth less than we pay for. Also, over 13,000,000,000 pennies each year [2]. Let’s do some math now. To find the total amount of dollars spent on producing pennies we will take the cost of producing a penny and multiply it by the amount of pennies produced in a year. When we do this, we discern a monetary total of $221,000,000. Now if we subtract the spending value of all these pennies from our production cost, we lose a total of $91,000,000. This wouldn’t be a problem if less money was spent producing the penny than it is worth. Lastly, the US Mint is a government run organization. All of the funding it receives to produce these coins comes directly from taxpayer pockets. We cannot allow any more tax dollars to be needlessly wasted like this, especially if it is such a large number as $91,000,000. The second half of the proposed resolution is to discontinue the nickel. Allow me to explain why we need to do this. As you should remember, there is a massive inequality between the production cost and face value of the penny. Guess what! The nickel is the exact same way. The production cost for a single nickel is 11.2¢ [3]. This is an even greater inequality that the penny, seeing as it is more than twice as expensive to produce than it is a face value. There are roughly 4,300,000,000 nickels produced in a year [3]. Doing the same math as before, we find that we are losing a total of $266,600,000. Combining this with the deficit created by the penny inequality, we find that we are losing $357,600,000 annually. We cannot allow this. Any product that wastes any amount of tax dollars should be cut out of production. It’s very simple. It should seem obvious that there is only one logical choice in this debate; to discontinue the penny and the nickel from the US Mint’s production of coins. We would save millions of dollars by deciding on this resolution. Considering all these things, I must urge a vote to Pro. Works Cited 1) "Cost to Make the Penny: Chart/Graph. " Copper Pennies. N. p. , n. d. Web. 04 May 2016. <. http://coincollectingenterprises.com...;. 2) Zielinski, Michael. "Cost to Make Penny and Nickel Declines But Still Double Face Value. " Coin Update. N. p. , 12 Dec. 2012. Web. 04 May 2016. <. http://news.coinupdate.com...;. 3) Isidor, Chris. "Obama Wants Cheaper Pennies and Nickels. " CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 03 May 2016. <. http://money.cnn.com...;.

The U.S. Penny Should Be Abolished This debate will follow this pattern: Round 1: Opening Statements Only (No Arguments) Round 2: Opening Arguments Only (No Rebuttals) Round 3: Rebuttals Round 4: Closing Arguments (No Rebuttals) Round 5: Rebuttals and Closing Statements I am for abolishing the U.S. penny. I believe it will do the U.S. good.

Get rid of the penny!! "Not to mention the fact that adopting the plan would be intrinsically profitable, making money instead of losing it, since the Lincoln nickels would be worth more than cost." Maybe I'm reading this quote wrong (please correct me if I am), but in that quote, you state, "...nickels would be worth more than cost." However, in this next quote, you state: "Currently, it costs the government 1.3 cents to make a penny and over 7 cents to make a nickel." Thus contradicting yourself and the idea of profiting from the disposal of the penny. As you say, "the monetary advantage [is] null." Therefore, what good is disposing of the penny? You still haven't showed me an alternative for transactions from change and tax, as demonstrated in my McDonalds example. The only solution I can think of is changing the price of everything to end with a change value of a multiple of 5 (i.e. $1.25, $1.50, etc.). This would not only be costly and tedious, a flat sales tax would have to be adopted by every state ($0.05, $0.10, etc.). The penny should not be abolished, because it is necessary for sales transactions, and would do more harm than good.

In the US, pennies should be abolished. I accept

Convert the penny!!! So, we agree making the penny costs the government money. Your only objection is the rounding tax argument. But, the rounding tax is a myth. Robert Whalpes, an economist at Wake Forest, studied almost a half a million transactions and found that the number of times consumers would lose change, is equal to the amount of times they would gain change. We can see this logically as well. When I buy something, there is an equal chance that it comes out to any random amount of change. So, over the course of multiple transactions, the gains and losses even out. So, without the rounding tax, there are no plausible issues with converting the penny. We don't have the $3 billion cost to consumers, but we do lose the $150 million per year cost of manufacturing our nuisance coins.

Get rid of the penny!! My opponent claims that the penny costs more to make than it's worth. However, the government would not lose money overall, since a $20 to $0.04 deficit in the case of a $20 bill would outnumber the extra $0.003 it costs to make a penny. The penny is also very important for the sake of providing change and paying sales tax. For example, say you want to buy a double cheeseburger from McDonalds' dollar menu. In some states, the sales tax is $0.06, bringing the total cost of that burger up to $1.06. You would need to pay with a $1 bill, a nickel, and a penny. Unless you pay with, for instance, a dollar and a dime, in which case the cashier would need to use pennies to pay you back in change.

The penny should be immediately discontinued. (Kleptin Tourney) Thanks to my opponent, and I apologize for my tardy response. Many balls in the air. :) ============= Pro Case: ============= Pro Contention 1A: Consumer Confidence 1. I actually never talk about any net benefit regarding consumer confidence. The only thing I mention in 1A is that it costs way too much to produce. 2. Even the German Finance Ministry can only say that confidence in the Euro "might" decline as a result of not producing a penny. Education could easily combat this, assuming the risk even exists. Furthermore, the movement to eliminate the penny in the U.S. is well-documented, as indicated in the sources cited in the Pro case. Introducing a penny piece and taking away a penny piece that has been accepted by a vast majority of a society as useless are two entirely different scenarios. Pro Contention 1A: Counterplan 1. Of course, the more sensible solution would be to eliminate such a useless coin entirely, which is the only way to actually save all that money I talk about in my 1st contention. I am the only side that can maximize effective usage of resources. 2. What the counterplan does not address at all is the cost of pennies within a transaction. If we keep pennies, we still waste $10 billion in the transaction process if we keep pennies of any material. 3. My opponent proposes a nebulous, abusive counterplan. What material does he propose we use? I can't adequately refute it if I don't know the text. For example, if he picks another metal that is similarly controlled by a foreign market, he bites every harm in my 2nd contention. Just replace "China" with the name of another country. If he picks a metal that is marketed primarily in the U.S. (good luck finding one of those that another foreign market can't beat us at in price, as this is the problem with zinc in the first place), then a whole other host of practicality concerns would surface. However, I can't address any of them because my opponent is being overly vague. Pro Contention 1B: Cash Transactions Are Actually Cheaper 1. Cheaper than what? 2. Though the cost of receiving a cash transaction is less expensive to store profit than checks, debit cards, or credit cards, it does not at all follow that the use of pennies isn't increasing this cost. Yes, your 1st source states that a single cash transaction costs a store around 7 cents per transaction. However, my analysis of 2-2.5 cents wasted is not contradicted anywhere in your source. This debate compares cash transactions with and without pennies, not cash transactions to other kinds of transactions. Pro Contention 1B: NACS "Report" 1. You should know the NACS website quite well by now, since you cited the statistic in the first place. 2. Never claimed it was a report. 3. The statistic I use is cited by my first source from RD 1. Front page. CTRL "F" Walgreen. Pro Contention 2: Cross-Apply Counterplan 1. Cross-apply my vagueness analysis on the counterplan. We could very easily have the exact same problem, but my opponent refused to name an alternative material. Pro Contention 2: Bright-line for China Dependency 1. Sure can. As of January 2009, China had bought more than $1 Trillion of U.S. total debt [1]. Considering total U.S. debt is around $12 Trillion [2], and considering that China is the world's third most powerful economy, they represent a gigantic piece of our power struggle pie. If this were Mexico or something, I wouldn't be raising as much of a fuss (at least, not in terms of sheer capital power), but China is already a top world superpower contender. Furthermore, China is the second largest foreign owner of the US Treasury. Though they are slightly behind Japan in terms of foreign investment, I'd say that China is a far greater risk to the US than Japan will ever be, especially considering that their economy is improving, while ours is, in comparison, stagnating. They've become leaders in the global economic recession. We haven't. Pro Contention 2: China & Human Rights 1. Of course we have no pull right now. We've been obligated to China for quite some time now, and what's the incentive for China to bend to US pressure when we have no foreign policy leverage? Reducing trade and debt commitments to China clearly gain benefits for the sole reason that we stop giving some amount of money to China. =============== Neg Case: =============== Neg Contention1: 1. Do some math with me. Lombra predicts a $600 million round tax per year. I am going to assume that my opponent made a grammatical error when he said "paid by each consumer," as I doubt each individual will pay $600 million a piece. I estimate that $10 billion is wasted by the consumer each year in penny transactions alone, not including the $50 million lost by the consumer in the production process. $10 billion > $600 million. I save the consumers more money. Neg Contention 2: 1. Inflation will occur with or without the penny, so until my opponent can give decent analysis on actual inflation, and not just an increase in government spending which is not explained well at all, this is a wash. 2. The author of his source admits that "the inflationary impact of rounding will probably be small." Furthermore, the $2 billion in spending my opponent refers to was a projection for 2010 in the even that the penny was eliminated at the time of publication. That number is in no way representative of consequences within the current economy. Neg Contention 3: 1. The NACS also suggested a slight raising of prices in order to off-set the 30% profit loss. Keep in mind that this is 30% of 6-7 cents. That's not much to off-set, now is it? 2. Furthermore, the elimination of the penny, which would save 2-2.5 cents per cash transaction, would make up for this 30% loss. 3. Cross-apply my response to Con's 1st contention. $10 billion > $600 million. Until he can prove that we will spend more as consumers, as business owners, and as a government eliminating pennies than keeping them, you are still gaining more net financial benefit by voting Pro. 4. Considering current societal trends, the theft argument is outdated and relatively unwarranted. First of all, card transactions are becoming exponentially more preferable for the consumer. Despite Lombra's assertions otherwise, firms are not discouraging card usage at all. Think about the last merchant you visited that refused to take debit, Visa, or Mastercard. Furthermore, merchants are not being stopped from using change all together—just the penny. The likelihood of carrying pennies vs. carrying any other change hasn't been established at this point, but if card transactions are becoming increasingly preferred, the likelihood of carrying any change is getting worse and worse, which means I probably won't even bite these harms. [1] http://www.nytimes.com... [2] http://useconomy.about.com...

The US should abolish the penny I believe that the US should abolish the penny for multiple reasons. The person who accepts this is in support of keeping the pennies.

We should get rid of the penny I will be taking pro for this argument, I think wer should abolish pennies, con takes the point of view as if we shouldn't.