America’s Coinage System: Plenty of cents but no common sense. It’s not the most important issue of our times, but it’s instructive to take a look at the current U.S. coinage system. Unlike the trillions of dollars the radical left establishment extracted from American taxpayers in recent years to be used by government agencies, foundations and NGOs around the world for ridiculous “woke” projects — not to mention heavily line their own pockets — the coins minted today reflect incredible government stupidity and inertia more than greed and criminality.

A good starting point is the pathetic history of the dollar coin in recent decades. To pander to toxic feminists, the Susan B. Anthony $1 coin was introduced in 1979. Ugly in design, the same color as the quarter and barely bigger in size thus making it difficult for many people to distinguish the two, a huge number were minted that first year, only to sit in bank vaults.

Why? Because the U.S. Mint stupidly kept printing the one dollar bill, thus Americans had no incentive to change their traditional habits and use the new, ugly dollar coins. The only way the Susie would have circulated was if the dollar bill had at the same time been eliminated from circulation. Every other country which has replaced a paper currency with an equivalent coin has done this, except for good old Uncle Sam.

So over 888 million Anthony dollars were made, most of them in 1979, but also in 1980 and ’81, and then the stupidity was brought back one final time in 1999. None of them circulated.

Instead of learning anything, the geniuses at the Mint doubled down on their Anthony failure and introduced the Sacagawea dollar coin in 2000. It was given a goldish tone to more easily distinguish it from the Anthony dollar coins. And because the dollar bill again was not eliminated from production and circulation, the Sacagawea dollars, to the surprise of no one but the idiots at the Mint, didn’t circulate. But that didn’t prevent over 1.28 billion of them from being made over a period of many years.

And as the failed Sacagawea dollars continued to be minted, in 2007 U.S. Presidential dollar coins also began to be produced. America now had two failed dollar coins at the same time being minted in huge numbers, as over 2.6 billion presidential dollars were produced even though they of course also didn’t circulate.

And now we have the American Innovation dollar coins, starting in 2018 and scheduled to run through 2032, but at least these are made in limited numbers, mainly for collectors as it only took the U.S. Mint 40 years to learn that dollar coins will not circulate side by side with the one dollar bill.Subscribed

President Trump has recommended that the one cent coin finally be eliminated, another change that should have been made some 40 years ago when the cent had become worthless and was by then being used only for exact change purposes. Believe it or not, over 450 billion Lincoln cents have been made, the vast majority since 1959 when the wheat ears reverse was changed to a depiction of the Lincoln Memorial on the back.

Year after year, some 4 billion cents are made at both the Philadelphia and Denver mints. And year after year these coins don’t circulate at all. In most cases a cent will be used once or twice and then spends many years in a jar or shoebox, or is just thrown away as it has no buying power.

In 2010, the reverse of the Lincoln cent was changed again, to a shield design. And now, even after 15 years of this new reverse, virtually every one still looks brand new, with most or all of their original mint luster still intact, because pennies don’t circulate. By contrast, cents made early in the Lincoln series, which started in 1909, are usually heavily worn, with many design details obliterated. Back then the average coin had actual buying power and was constantly in and out of pockets, wallets, purses, change drawers and banks.

8 billion of these valueless, non-circulating slugs continue to be produced each year at a current cost of 3.7 cents each

The one cent coin costs close to four cents to produce. It’s typical Mint stupidity and wastefulness that these coins still continue to be made by the many billions every year.

The mintage figures for the nickel, dime, and quarter are likewise huge, and like the penny, they don’t circulate either anymore yet billions are cranked out year after year when countless billions have already been made and are sitting around unused.

The only coins made in the last 60 years that circulated much were the early clad Washington quarters, which beginning in late 1965 replaced the 90% silver composition of previous quarters (the same composition change from silver to copper-nickel occurred with the dime at the same time while the half-dollar went from silver to partially silver for several years before also being made of cupronickel). Quarters were widely used for video games, casino slot machines, pay phones, vending machines and laundromats, and the occasional fairly worn quarter from the ‘60s and ‘70s can be encountered. But the vast majority of all coins in circulation today have seen very little use.

The half-dollar circulated regularly alongside pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, until the Benjamin Franklin design was changed in 1964 to honor the recently assassinated John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy halves were hoarded from the outset despite being minted in far larger numbers than the Franklin halves had ever been. Despite no longer circulating, the incompetents at the Mint continued to make very large numbers of the Kennedy halves until 2002. Since then they’ve been made mainly for collectors and investors, but it took the Mint only 38 years after half dollars stopped circulating for adjustments to finally be made in the numbers produced.

So now that President Trump and DOGE are looking at the U.S. coinage system, what changes should be made?

The paper one dollar bill should finally be retired. There are billions of dollar coins sitting around unused, so no new ones need to be made. Same with the other coin denominations; hundreds of billions of them already exist and coins can circulate for a long time, many decades until the average one is lost or is damaged to the point that it’s retired from circulation. DOGE should consider cutting the workforce at the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco mints by upwards of 90% or more until there’s once again a need for new coins, which could be many years from now.

The cent coin should be eliminated altogether, though existing ones can still be used as they slowly disappear from the scene. Cash purchases should be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel or dime. With no dollar bill finally, the half-dollar may or may not begin to circulate again. There’s no reason it shouldn’t, and again there are huge numbers sitting around that will never have numismatic value.

At some point, and why not now, there should also be a five dollar and ten dollar coin, replacing the five and ten dollar bills. The current coinage and currency system reflects how prices were a long time ago. There’s been a ton of inflation over the past 50 years, far more than the “official” government statistics, which are as fudged as other government stats.

It’s time for America’s coinage system, incredibly outdated and wasteful, to move into the 21^st century. However, one of the important battles of today is to keep coins and cash extant as a significant part of the economy as the forces of globalism and technocracy try to move toward bank-controlled digital currency, which would do away with what little privacy we have left and leave us at the mercy of forces dictating how we live and spend. Persistent, understated inflation is also an enemy, as eventually prices may rise so high as to make any coins of lesser value than twenty-five cents or even a dollar unnecessary.

https://donwassall.substack.com/p/postcards-from-the-empire-3c4