The American "penny bad, dollar bill good" mentality

I wonder how many people who would abolish the penny because it "costs more than one cent to make" would also defend the dollar bill.

There's only one use for pennies: take them to a counting machine when there are enough of them, and pay 9.8% for the privelege of useful money.

The idea that a coin has negative value if the cost of its production is higher than its denominational value is not logical. A coin is potentially useful in millions of transactions. A simple assumption about the cost of its production compared to its face value is faulty.

Nobody needs the penny, and this is its problem. Its uselessness is not caused by the ratio of the cost of its production to the value of its denomination.

Somehow I imagine that the subset of armchair fiscal conservatives who want to get rid of the penny because it "costs too much" overlaps pretty strongly with the subset of people who would reflexively defend the continued production of the one-dollar bill.

Note: the copper-clad zinc penny of 1983 and later is also a good ad hoc washer. Press the appropriate drillbit into the center portico of the Lincoln Memorial, and voilá.

The dollar bill — no matter how costly — is a cumbersome denomination. Small transactions conducted using any of the larger notes leads to a mound of paper, and it's a mess.

The U.S. Mint has produced several versions of a one-dollar coin in recent years.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the use of a $1 coin in place of the paper note would save loads of money.

But the public won't have it.