Thursday, February 01, 2007

Govt Loses $40m Minting Pennies and Nickels

"How dumb do you have to be to mint money at a loss? In the latest only-in-Washington episode, we find that the government may have lost as much as $40 million coining pennies and nickels last year.

The metal in them — the zinc, copper and nickel — has soared in value in the last few years (see graph above - zinc prices have risen 4.5X in the last few years), making the coins more valuable as raw materials than they are as currency. The government reaction has been to ban the melting of the coins to get the metal."

Read more here in today's NY Times.

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