Read the article below. Analyze the argument of Jeff Gore in the issue "Is it Time to Ditch the Penny?"
In the 1920s, two pennies would buy you a newspaper from a street vendor. These days, people don’t even bother picking up pennies off the street. The sad fact that a century of initiation has eroded the value of the penny to the point that they’re no longer useful as a currency; indeed, continuing to use the penny actually slows down cash transactions. What’s more, the U.S. Mint calculates that the last eight years, it has cost more than a penny to make a penny, highlighting the silliness of continuing to produce the coin. At a time when the federal budget is under increasing stress, the government should not be wasting valuable resources to make a coin that nobody wants. If the penny isn’t useful as a currency, then why are we still minting it? One reason is that some businesses such as zinc suppliers, continue to lobby to prevent its elimination. Coins have been used as currency for thousands of years- they were minted in ancient Greece and Persia- but inflation requires that we periodically reform our coinage systems. Canada, which has a monetary system very similar to that the United States, retired its penny in 2012. As one member of the Canadian Parliament’s Senate Finance Committee noted at the time, the penny "slows down the line of grocery stores and ends up under our couches." Remarkably, the penny has been the lowest-denomination coin the U.S. for more than 150 years, since the half-penny was discontinued in 1857. A simple way to retire the penny would be the round cash transactions up to down to the nearest nickel. This is the way pricing is already done on U.S. military bases overseas. It is past time for the entire country to follow this no-nonsense approach and retire the penny.
-Jeff Gore Citizens to Retire the U.S. Penny December 8, 2014
