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Federal Government Article Summary
In May 2012 the Royal Canadian Mint stopped minting one-cent coins (pennies). The Canadian penny has been in circulation since Canada established its own currency in 1858. Canada is following the path of what several other countries such as Britain, France, Australia, Sweden and Spain did. They all got rid of their smallest unit of currency (even some countries such as Australia, Denmark and Sweden getting rid of several of their smallest coins). The reason for elimination for pennies is because it is a waste of money and time. The Canadian penny cost 1.6 cents to make for every penny. This obviously shows that making a penny means that you have to spend more money to make something of lesser value. By eliminating pennies Canada would save about $11 million dollars a year. Pennies also waste time for consumers, retailers and small businesses as making change to the nearest cent wastes time. Since pennies have very
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Although it will affect my little sister as she is in an elementary school, it won’t be much as she is in going to be in Grade 8 this fall (therefore the new curriculum only affects her for 1 year). Even after saying all of this, I still have an opinion on this “controversial” change that the Ontario government is trying make to the curriculum. I believe that we should teach things such as gender identity and sexual orientation a younger age as it is becoming a more accepted and prominent thing in our society. Young children should learn these things earlier as it will make it far easier to accept and respect these things. However I believe that things such as puberty, sex and STIs should be taught a bit later around Grade 6-8. This is because kid in Grade for are a bit more immature and won’t take things as serious as a Grade 7 student. I was taught these things around the same time and I had no problems with
The penny costs 1.4 cents to manufacture each time at the mint. This is causing the mint to lose money for the treasury. Last year, the mint earned $730 million dollars in profit. Many mint officials claim the estimation will be about $45 million due to the cost of metals made in pennies. Our country is continuing to have a very strong economy with the stock markets going up. The penny might affect these benefits from the rapid production of these coins. Copper and zinc are the main elements that compose the penny. With the rising costs of these elements, the economy may back up a bit. Because of this, the U.S. mint should reduce their penny production.
Throughout the past decade, costs of everything have skyrocketed. According to Source C, America used to have “five and dime stores;” now its a dollar store. In addition, no one can buy anything with just a penny anymore. The source also made a fair observation that these worthless zinc disks are, “behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball. Quarters and dimes circulated; pennies disappear because they are literally more trouble than they are worth.” According to a New York Times article, “it takes nearly a dime today to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” The penny is still stuck in the 1950s while America just keeps moving on. As stated by Mark Lewis in his concept of establishing a bill, “the bill would not ban pennies, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down.” (Source A) This motive will help keep the America exceed and
In America’s modern day economy, the penny is very useless and irrelevant in our society today. As source C states, “The time has come to abolish the outdated, almost worthless, bothersome, and wasteful penny.” There is not one item that can be purchased with a penny anymore (Source C). As source C states, “it takes nearly a dime to buy what a penny bought back in 1950.” Stores such as the Dollar Store prove how the cheapest items you can purchase are with only a dollar, not a cent. Pennies are shoved out of the economic picture by credit cards and because of the modern-day technology, there are even self-service machines that help convert coins into paper money (Source B). Furthermore, pennies are easily tossed into piggy banks or appear behind chair cushions. It is not used the same way as it was before.
Do we really need pennies? The story of the penny starts in 1792; it came with several different coins including the dime, nickel, quarter, and half penny. The pennies were first made out of 100% copper, but the price of the copper went up, because of inflation, the power of the penny went down. The cause of the mint is to reduce the amount of copper in pennies first from 100% to 95% but then to 5% copper and 95% zinc. Despite the debate in 2006, the value of metal on older pennies rose over one year.
According to source #4, it states, “The one cent has influenced our language, giving us a number of idioms, such as ‘a penny for your thoughts’ (a way to ask what someone is thinking) and ‘not one red cent’ (meaning no money at all).” This is significant because it shows that the penny has affected the English language, giving the language more idioms to use. It is often said that pennies should not be manufactured anymore due to their excessive cost of manufacturing and distribution. Yes, numerous people do acknowledge that fact, but the government can also propose that pennies are to use inexpensive metal, like steel, which makes the entire coin industry save money and has the cost of coins to be cheaper to make.
In fact there are many people that oppose abolishing the penny. In source E it states “that 62 percent of people oppose abolishing the penny that has a income less then $25,000 a year.” If the penny was to be abolish then the nickel would be the lowest coin in amount of money. If the nickel was the lowest amount of money there was then that means the purchase prices of items sold would increase. The prices would increase on items sold because the penny would not be in circulation to allow the customer to pay with the correct amount of change. Instead of being able to pay $3.47 for a kids meal at MacDonalds the customer would have to pay $3.50 for the kids meal. With the increasing prices of merchandise sold in stores there could be a budget upset for many families that have to follow a tight budget. Many families have to follow a tight budget to be able to provide for there families. With a tight budget there is no room for the prices of merchandise to increase due to losing the penny. Every penny counts when it comes to having a tight budget and providing for your
We should keep the penny because it has history, in fact it was “the first currency authorized by the United States” (Lewis). The penny no longer has the value that it used to have, but it is still necessary to make purchases as accurate as possible. The penny may seem like a waste of time to many Americans because it takes so long for cashiers to make change, forcing people to wait in line, but it is actually worth the time spent. The penny helps with keeping prices a cent lower, and therefore stimulating the economy. The penny is important to many people who need the money and for whom pennies still have value.
If you check your pockets, how many of you have pennies in them? Not many people I assume, that is because most people don't carry around pennies anymore. Denver Nicks from Time.com says
There is a side to this debate where the penny could win and stay in circulation. To start, the penny has been around for years and years and it has seemed to work for this whole time. This is true, the penny has been around and can be used still in everyday life. The turn side of this, though valid, is with systems changing is is becoming more and more rare for the penny to have a true dire need. One other strong reason to keep the penny alive would be charity. Charity relies on those people who do not necessarily care enough to keep the pennies t drop them off in the donation box. That though, has a simple solution. If the penny were no longer around nickels and dimes would begin to be the change customers and users are no longer wanting. Charity then in result
For instance, in the article “Abolish the Penny (Source 3)”, it clearly states, “Where do they go? Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or –as The Time’s John Tierney noted five years ago –behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers next to your old tin-foil ball.” Adding on, many people view the penny as a useless currency, and they even leave it in hidden places around their own home. The reason why pennies are sometimes located in piggy banks or at the back of sock drawers is that citizens see no purpose in obtaining them. In other words, it seems as if the penny has lost its fame and glory ever since other forms of currency have been established, such as quarters, dimes, and dollar bills. As explained by William Safire, quarters and dimes seem to circulate more often than pennies, and pennies “disappear” due to their worthless value and troubles. Specifically, the reign of quarters and dimes has overtaken the significance of pennies, and as time passes by, the term “penny” might not even be mentioned anywhere around the United States. In addition, more people nowadays tend to use quarters and dimes for due change, leaving the penny to become less essential for our needs. As stated in Source 3, the British and French have already abandoned their low-value coins approximately 30 years ago. This demonstrates the probable
The penny was the first form of currency in the United States, it was first minted in 1787. Since the first minting in 1787 “Over 300 billion one-cent coins, with 11 different designs, have been minted since 1787”(pennies.org). The first pennies were made of one hundred percent copper and the metal composition is going to drastically change over the years, by 1856 the composition of the penny changed to eighty-eight percent copper and twelve percent nickel. In 1864 the composition of the penny changed again to ninety-five percent copper and five percent Zinc and stayed that way up until 1982 when the composition of the penny change to what the penny is made today ninety-seven and five tenths and two and five tenths copper plated zinc. There
military forces, have already stopped using pennies on their military bases according to the Prairie News Register, and that hasn’t affected them negatively at all. And, according to research from the same source, Prairie News Register, the removal of the penny may cause commercial prices to drop. Companies will want to avoid the dollar threshold and lower the prices in order to maintain customers. The evidence against maintaining the pennies production is bountiful and largely outweighs the “the penny is sentimental” argument that most penny supporters exercise. Getting rid of the penny would be a very beneficial decision for America in the long
In recent years the cost of pennies have risen to about 1.7 cents to produce one penny. The cost of producing one penny is nearly the worth of two pennies. In 2014 the United States lost nearly 130 million dollars by producing eight billion pennies which is an exorbitant amount of money.The last time Congress voted on whether or not to get rid of the penny the consensus was to keep it since the price to keep it was not very much over the worth of the coin. The non-sensible price of producing the penny is just one of the reasons the United states should abolish the penny. One of the main reason that the penny is so high in price is due to the main metal component of the penny which is zinc that has risen greatly in
Pennies worth in the peoples eyes, even if they might not realize it, has been diminished greatly. Although many people are not willing to admit it, “The majority of pennies don't circulate,'' said Philip N. Diehl, director of the mint. ''They make a one-way trip from us to penny jars, sock drawers, piggy banks and the spaces between couch cushions. Two-thirds of the pennies produced in the last 30 years have dropped out of circulation” (John Tierney). Due to the growing economy and market the with of the penny has become more and more impractical in our daily life. People talk about the “Good old days”, and how grand life was in their younger years. However things are doubtlessly changing, “You can't use it in a phone," Kolbe said. "You can't use it in a parking meter. You can't use it in a gumball machine” (ABC News). People might say they are needed based on the past involvement in the economy, but the truth is they have lost their value and worth for the American future. Looking at the growing economy it takes looking at a situation logically and continuing the penny is clearly not a logical investment despite sentimental
Over time, the actions of mankind have been the victim of two vague labels, right and wrong. The criteria for these labels are not clearly defined, but they still seem to be the standard by which the actions of man are judged. There are some people that abide by a deontological view when it comes to judging the nature of actions; the deontological view holds that it is a person's intention that makes an action right or wrong. On the other hand there is the teleological view which holds that it is the result of an action is what makes that act right or wrong. In this essay I will be dealing with utilitarianism, a philosophical principle that holds a teleological view when it comes the nature of actions. To solely discuss utilitarianism is much too broad of topic and must be broken down, so I will discuss specifically quantitative utilitarianism as presented by Jeremy Bentham. In this essay I will present the argument of Bentham supporting his respective form of utilitarianism and I will give my critique of this argument along the way.