While Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has openly mused about the end of the one-cent coin, documents reveal that officials from his department have been in discussions with the Royal Canadian Mint to prepare for the day when the penny finally drops.
The penny, particularly the copper ones, like gold is often spun as a barbaric relic of monetary system that forced discipline to maintain confidence. Unfortunately, the lure of easy money and the resulting devaluation that comes afterwards has turned pennies into expensive pocket change.
As the article states,
Pity the penny. When first produced at the Ottawa Mint in 1908 (earlier production was done in England), you could buy a paper for two cents and a loaf of bread for five cents. But since then, it has lost 95 per cent of its purchasing power, Pierre Duguay, the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, told a Senate committee in May.
It's certainly not the pennies fault. Coinage in which intrinsic or value derived its composition (copper, silver, gold, nickel, etc) exceeds that of its face value to extinction. It's called Gresham's law.
Source: thestar.com
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