MISSOURI CITY MERCHANTS CALLING FOR SPARE PENNIES

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP)  Break open those piggy banks and check under the couch cushions: In Cape Girardeau, merchants are running out of pennies.

The problem has gotten so bad that Schnuck Markets have put up signs asking people to pay in exact change so clerks don't have to fish around for pennies.

And the local Mercantile Bank is paying a 10 percent premium to people who bring in pennies in exchange for other coins or currency.

Mercantile Bank President Lowell Peterson said officials with the Federal Reserve in St. Louis told him his bank wouldn't receive any more pennies until June 1 when a new shipment is expected from the U.S. Mint.

Link

-- A penny (for@your.thoughts), May 17, 1999

Answers

Whoa!

If it's pennies they want, my 9-year-old is going go get a valuable lesson in capitalism. Standing order around here: pocket-change pennies belonged to him! Perhaps that was an error on my part...

-- Spindoc' (spindoc_99_2000@yahoo.com), May 18, 1999.

have saved all my pennie for 40 yrs and they are mine all mine

-- dddduhhh (psYcho@goT.ptsd), May 18, 1999.

Now it begins.....

Kick out the jammies, this puppy's going DOWN!

-- moi (moi_encore@notnow.com), May 18, 1999.

Maybe the US govt. is planning to make the smallest coin 5 cents. The USA cent is probably the lowest-value coin in circulation in the developed world (if I'm wrong, it's certainly one of them, and it doubtless costs a lot more than a penny to make one of the oft- despised things!)

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), May 18, 1999.

Same thing going on in St. Louis too.

Let's see. The US Govt. stopped making monetary gold coins WHEN?!? Decades before I was even born. (it's been honest for a long time, shucks you think Mark twain just might of had it right?)

A few more decades of dishonesty and the US Govt. had to stop making monetary coins out of silver, that happened when I was a teenager.

A few more decades of dishonesty and the US Govt couldn't even afford to make pennies out of copper, that happened just a decade and a half ago.

Now think about that. Talk about debasement! (boy can THAT be taken several different ways!) If not being able to make gold coins (when allegedly on the gold standard, HA!) is bad news, and not being able to make silver coins is really bad news, then what does it say when the govt. hasn't been able to even make pennies from real copper for about a decade and a half???

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), May 18, 1999.

I read in yesterdays paper about the penny shortage. I'm in Mid Mo, but I rounded up four quart jars of pennies and took them in a month ago, just to get them out of my way.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), May 18, 1999.

The bank has to wait until June 1st for more pennies?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 18, 1999.

Every merchant I visit has a penny dish next to the cash register with a sign saying "take a penny/leave a penny." No one wants the damn things. Some clerks at fast-food places will just round the change to the nearest nickel, even in the customer's favor. I find pennies on the street all the time. What's with Missouri...?

-- they belong (in@a.jar), May 18, 1999.

Ken,

I doubt one in a thousand knows that the U.S. penny is actually a thin copper plating over a zinc core and has been since 1984.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), May 18, 1999.

About 20 years ago I recall a shortage on pennys. They blamed the shortage on the fact that to many people were throwing them in there jars and such and not circulating them in the system. If I recall correctly the banks even paid a small premium for pennys.

-- flierdude (mkessler0101@sprynet.com), May 18, 1999.

Nathan - You are right of course. I would add that of the 1 in 1,000 that knows, about less than 1 in 10 of those understand the significance. I will admit to one very large area of monetary ignorance. I always knew that extended credit and cashless banking was large in relation to paper or coin cash, but until studying Y2K I had no idea is was that large. I also had no idea that the derivatives market was as large as it now is, until various items and statistics were published after the LTCM debacle.

So where are we on your 180 degree from both sides circle at the moment? Perhaps we could replace that circle with a donut, a donut of liberty that is standing on its edge and is slowly being eaten away by ants starting at the bottem and slowly working their way up both sides?

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), May 18, 1999.

Ken,

You are perceptive indeed. America has the illusion of a two party system -- one pseudo-party on the Left and one pseudo-party on the Right. Both are simultaneously pulling us toward the other side of the circle, ever so slowly, two steps forward and one step back.

In general, both "parties" give lip service to and then trash the Constitution. In general, both "parties" are at the beck and call of global corporatism. In general, both "parties" favor routine expansion of government involvement in all spheres of American life. The "party" bickering is mere show. The higher the elected office, the less difference actually exists between the candidates and de facto policy of the two "parties".

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), May 19, 1999.

Was in Montpelier this week. bought a newspaper from the machine. It said- "use any combination of coins. Don't use pennies." So what are pennies??

-- anita (hillsidefarm@drbs.com), May 19, 1999.