Say Goodbye to the Penny

And so now we say goodbye to the penny.  Penny candy, penny for your thoughts, penny loafers, penny gumballs, a pretty penny, a penny saved…  

All going, going, gone.  But don’t let anyone tell you it is because of the high price of copper.  Like the price of groceries today, like the “affordability crisis” that politicians are talking about so much, high prices are a symptom, not a cause.  The cause of those high prices, including the high price of copper for pennies, is because Washington has been destroying the purchasing power of the dollar.  And that is simply not going to change.  Never forget that the elected and non-elected officials that are talking about the affordability crisis are the very officials who created the crisis!

That’s why we advise not to put your trust – or your savings – in dollars.  Try real money like gold.  After all, Washington can’t print gold.

Here’s the penny story.  Although there are said to be 300 billion pennies still in circulation, just days ago, after 232 years, the US stopped minting pennies entirely.

The truth is that the dollar has lost so much purchasing power that one dollar is inadequate to provide 100 pennies.  The dollar has lost so much purchasing power that by some accounts it takes more than 3 ½ dollars to provide 100 pennies.  

You may find pennies to be a nuisance.  Perhaps you won’t stoop to pick up a penny as most anyone would do in bygone days.  But that is because today’s pennies are imposters.  They are mostly zinc, not copper.

That is part of an age old flim-flam now perpetrated by Washington.  Why has the US Mint gone to the trouble for more than 40 years to coat the zinc penny with a coat of copper?  For the same reason it coats the base-metal dimes and quarters with a copper-nickel alloy.  It wants to create the illusion that the penny is still copper, just as it creates the illusion that the dime and quarters are still silver.  But of course they aren’t silver.  President Johnson said at the time silver was removed from the monetary system that “silver has become too valuable to use as money.”  

That is the same pantload we got a few years later when Nixon took away the dollar’s gold backing.  He said, “Your dollar will be worth just as much as it is today.”

Right.

Now we are told copper has become too valuable to use as money.   Just like silver and gold before it.  

The moral of our story is that the debasement of the dollar has been going on for a long time.  It is about to accelerate.  You would be wise to avoid dollar savings.  Put your wealth in real money, gold and silver.  

They can’t print gold and silver.