Where is John Wilkes Booth When We Need Him?
Speaking of Lincoln, what we need now is a John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln needs to die.
Obama says he would seriously consider killing him. And he’s the one that is in favor of change.
Kill the Lincoln penny. Kill the penny. Period.
I think Old Honest Abe would want it that way. He was a frugal guy, he didn’t like copperheads, (Democrats who opposed his policies.) Prawley didn’t like the snakes either.
He’s already on the fiver, has a wonderful monument in the District of Columbia, a nice likeness is carved into the side of a mountain.
I don’t think he’d mind if the U.S. pulled a Booth and killed the Lincoln penny. It’s scheduled for a “rear” lift to commemorate his birthday. I guess they are probably already being minted.
Only in America would a government pay 25% more to mint a coin than it’s face value. Congress is addressing the issue, debating a law that would substitute steel for the zinc and copper.
What do you do with your pennies? Save (hoard) them? So you got 1,000 pennies in a jar someplace. That’s 2 1/2 gallons of gas. OTOH, it’s 10 McDonald’s hamburgers. But we really don’t need the penny anymore.
You know who loves pennies? Zinc and copper miners, and the coin counter makers.
It’s time to J.W. Booth Lincoln.
And the nickel too. (costs 7 1/2 cents to make.) July 4, 2009 (he died on July 4) would be a great time to kill Jefferson.
Obama has it wrong, we need is less “change.”
This is odd, because I was thinking of Lincoln and Obama just tonight. I’m reading Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln biography, and some some wag proposed to Lincoln something like “Oh. If you consider the Negro equal to the white man, perhaps you’d like a Negro as your successor.” Abe didn’t have much to say about that, but I think he would have approved of Barack.
John Wilkes Booth jokes are still in poor taste over 140 years after the fact (look at the pot calling the kettle black; and no, that wasn’t an Obama joke) but I agree the penny should go. If only so I can stop endlessly explaining to my younger kids that despite their bulging handfuls of pennies, they don’t actually have enough money to buy so much as a gumball.
Gretchen’s last blog post..Subway: Bite ME.
@Gretchen: Squeeze me? JW Booth jokes in poor taste? Really? Okay. No more J.W. Booth jokes.
*THEY* are starting to talk about removing the penny in Canada also.
Not a good idea when you realize that gasoline prices would be raised in 5 cent increments per litre rather than 1 cent increments like we have now.
And we all know that gasoline prices are not going to go down.
So I am opposed to removing the penny from circulation.
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@BearNaked: gas here is priced $3.999 – the extra tenth showing (a farce) and I can’t remember when I noticed gas going up or down a penny, it moves 10 cents at a time now.
Your point is common and economists have studied it and decided that it would not be inflationary.
Clever headline. But I thought you were going to say we needed him to… But anyway, I do agree the penny is not working out right now.
I posted about this a while ago, and a lot of it is valid….all pre 1982 US 1-cent pennies are worth more in metal content than face value. I just have a problem letting go of our little copper-plated zinc guys. And now the nickel too? It breaks my heart when I see pennies just sitting on the ground like they aren’t even regarded as money anymore. Hell, they’re money to me. Not long ago I took a huge jar to the cash machine and walked out with well over $100 after cashing in all my pennies. I’ve started another one….poor orphans.
Joy’s last blog post..Art That Makes You Go….Hmmmmm!
@Joy: my good cyber-friend, you had 10,000 pennies?
Maybe you had some quarters, dimes, and nickels mixed in? Freakonmics wrote about a little test, threw out 10 pennies in a highly trafficked parking lot. None were picked up. Two hours later, he returned and found seven.
Oh, don’t mind me, I just have Abe Lincoln up my ass. I’ve plodded my way through the entire fucking Civil War (I think 750 pages so far) and am just waiting for Booth to pull the plug because I am so sick of all the Union infighting. The interesting bit about studying the Revolution and the Civil War is that we were NOT united in any manner — just like today, everyone was running about saying what an asshole everyone else was.
Gretchen’s last blog post..Subway: Bite ME.
I know…I know Mark. Let me rephrase that. MY SON took it in for me. You don’t think I could have lifted it do you? No quarters, maybe half a dozen nickels and a few dimes….it was ALL pennies. I must have been saving those little guys for five or six years…at least. It took us forever running them through that machine.
Joy’s last blog post..Art That Makes You Go….Hmmmmm!
@Gretchen: interesting – and if people think newspapers today are biased, what about back then?
@Joy: aHA! That’s still amazing that you had 10000 pennies. 🙂
you know if someone didn’t read this title post exactly right and especially after the Hill “June” comment, one would think that the other is definitely treading on some heavy water…
Just all I’m saying
@Things: Yep, if you take words out of context, or misread things, they can be misunderstood.
From Wikipedia-
“According to the US Mint, the costs of producing and shipping one-cent (penny) and 5-cent (nickel) coins during fiscal year 2007 were $0.0167 per cent and $0.0953 per nickel.”
@FMDC: thanks for the info. That is unreal!