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I thought that was satirical...but it seems to be real.

Wow.

Always someone to 1-up the stupidity thats in circulation.

The US has pennies only because of lobbying from the zinc industry. The U.S. Mint pays $0.011 for a penny blank.

The US has pennies only because of lobbying from the zinc industry. The U.S. Mint pays $0.011 for a penny blank.

Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) are concerned merchants would raise prices without the penny. And they're probably right. Raymond Lombra, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Penn State University, told a Congressional committee in 1990 that rounding cash sales up or down to the nearest nickel would cost consumers over $600 million annually.

So that's what, less than $2 for every man, woman and child in the nation each year? I'll gladly pay $2 a year to never have to waste time with pennies. My time is worth that much to me.

Micropayments are a solution to a non-existent problem. The advocates of micropayments say, "That won't stop us! Let's create a problem for it to solve!"

No, no, no. It makes a lot more sense to bundle products than to try to sell them for such mincemeat. As a vendor I would never want to sell someone something for even $0.05, let alone $0.005... it would cost more to even *think* about followup on bogus/stolen credit card numbers than to give the stuff away free to begin with.

Sorry, Norma, some things are simply not profitable and some things are not worth breaking into tiny pieces. Give them away then sell them the good stuff for some real pocket pony.

Micropayments is one of those subjects that is a good litmus test of whether somebody is a business-savvy geek or just a hopeless geek.

If anything we should be supporting legislation to Ban the Penny, not divide it even further!

One of the reasons the penny is still around, even though many people would like to see them go, is the zinc lobby.

Pennies are hard to get rid of, both personally and nationally. Every so often the idea of eliminating pennies comes up and all these people come out of the woodwork to defend the penny. You would think they were taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance, they get so worked up. There is even a lobbying group devoted to keeping the penny- Americans for Common Cents. Not surprisingly, it is backed by zinc companies.

They aren't easy to get rid of. Vending machines won't take them. In fact there's hardly any coin-operated device that accepts pennies. Spending them is awkward. You can discreetly leave piles of them on a restaurant table as a tip, but that's probably not a good idea if you ever plan on eating there again. A penny in reality is worth a little less than its face value, because of the inconvenience they present in large numbers.

I found a good way to get rid of them. Use them to buy gasoline! You have to count them beforehand. If you have 163 pennies, just pump $11.63 or $16.63 of gas into the car, then go in, put a ten and maybe a five down, and then take all those little pennies out of your pocket and slam them down onto the counter. What's the guy going to say? They're legal tender. And they're just asking for it when they advertise prices that end in 9/10 of a cent. Usually the dude just eyeballs the pile, takes your word for it, and scoops them into the register.