Cleanup on Hwy 11 please!

[carverman]

A Brinks truck with "millions" of looneys and dubloons crashed on Hwy 11 and spilled coins in every direction. I'm sure that this
would not be considered a windfall, as the cops were on the scene to keep rubberneckers from investigating.
Apparently they used magnetic tools to pick up the scattered loonies as there were too many of them.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03...s-and-toonies/


The gov't mint is reducing the nickel content in the loonies/toonies as the cost of producing the coins with nickel content exceeds their
worth these days. The new coins will have base metal in them..or recycled metal from China from the recycled cars. This move is the
Mints part on being "green" yet preserving the integrity of the coins. The coatings will not have any brass or any worthwhile metal,
but some kind of "flashed coating" to give it that "golden" colour.

I guess times are changing and along with the plastic $100 bills, and now the $20s coming up, saving money and laying off gov't
(mint)workers is the way of balancing the federal budget.

[ddkay]

Wow that's awful, I hope the drivers are ok. I wish we did away with coins, they aren't even really necessary anymore...

[carverman]

I wish we did away with coins, they aren't even really necessary anymore...

Then all the Dollar stores would go out of business..or be forced to raise their prices to $5 per item.

There has been some talk about eliminating the penny as they are completely worthless, but the
gov'ts are hesitating on that one because of the taxes they couldn't collect on making items rounded
off to the next nickel..which is practically worthless as well.

Besides, carrying all that weight in your purse or change purse, it's a physcological marketing ploy as
well...marking an item at $1.99, 2.99 etc makes it easier to sell than at $2.00, $3.00 even if there is
13cents tax on top of the price. In Ontario you would have to pay $2.12, $3.38 etc..so those pennies
and nickels are still required because if they rounded it off to $2.00, then the gov't would collect another
penny and you still would need to find 3 cents in your pocket.....or they could raise the sales taxes to
15%, gouge us even more and be done with it, then get rid of the penny.

$2.00 = $2.15. Why not raise the GST to 6% for Harper, and 9% for Preimer Dad...who could
really use those extra pennies to help pay off the deficit (8billion?) before 2017...or 2021?, or 2025?.

Here's a novel solution.

Get rid of any notion of buying useless jets that we can't afford.
Stop getting involved in foreign wars that we can't wind and ends up costing us Billions.
Scrap the money pit submarines.
Raise the eligible pension age to 70 for anybody still counting on OAS
Raise the eligible pension age to 70 for anybody wanting to collect CPP.
Use the OAS and CPP surplus to pay off the deficit.

Problem solved.

[financialnoob]

One of the other trailers involved in the chain reaction crash was carrying candy, which was also thrown all over the highway. Candy and coins all over. What a wonderful world that would be.

[Spudd]

Carver, they just announced the elimination of the penny in the latest budget. Finally.

[carverman]

Carver, they just announced the elimination of the penny in the latest budget. Finally.

Yes, just heard about that on CBC news. Finance minister Flaherty, when asked what people should do with the millions of pennies in jars in most households.... mentioned that perhaps giving them to charity.
Good idea..but at $3.79 per pound for copper scrap metal, the pennies are worth more in scrap metal than what they can buy indivdually.

A pound is 454 grams. What does a penny weigh? 2.27 grams? So a hundred pennies would be about 227grams or about 1/2 lb which is $1.89.
So a "dollars worth" of pennies is worth $1.89 on the scrap metal market.

[carverman]

One of the other trailers involved in the chain reaction crash was carrying candy, which was also thrown all over the highway. Candy and coins all over. What a wonderful world that would be.

Maybe this would be a theme for a movie...CandyMan meets Johnny Cash? They invite all the poor kids in the country to enjoy a frolic in the wreckage.
Kids eating candy and throwing loonies up in the air..exclaiming "I'm rich! I'm rich!"

Working on the script..type! ..type!..type!

[Beaver101]

Easy man with the writer's block ...but still looking forward to CandyMan meets Johnny Cash ... LOL! : (these smilies are terribly tiny).

[andrewf]

A couple problems:

1- Pennies are only copper-plated these days, with a zinc (IIRC) core.
2- It is illegal to melt down coins.


Good riddance to the penny. I have been advocating this for a while now. Next up should be the nickel, but ditching the nickel would require eliminating the quarter and replacing it with a 50 cent piece. Alternately we could ditch the dime and keep the nickel.

Also, assuming 2% inflation per year, and that the toonie was introduced in 1997, the $5 bill should be replaced with a $5 coin in 2043 (the year $5 will be worth what $2 was in 1997).

[Toronto.gal]

(these smilies are terribly tiny).

Please place your complaint under the 'site upgrade' thread! [size is not the problem, it's the expression, or lack thereof].