Return you say? Since when was a penny made from steel? Well, for any of you too young to remember (thankfully that includes me) the US minted steel pennies during the second World War. The rising cost of metals has meant the US mint is losing $100 million a year making 7.4 billion pennies and 1.2 billion nickels at considerably more than their face value. At current metal prices, it costs 1.26 cents to make a penny (97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper) and 7.7 cents to produce a nickel (75% copper and 25% nickel). That is better than late last year though when a penny was costing 1.67 cents and a nickel nearly a dime. It’s debatable if this money is lost as it remains in circulation but the House panel that overseas the Mint would like a debate on the merits of bringing back a predominantly steel penny and nickel according to an article in the Associated Press. It raises a bigger question why not just junk the penny altogether – when did you last buy anything for a penny? The country could save on precious metal resources not to mention costs, if it just dropped a coin that many would argue is out of date. According to Henry Paulson getting rid of the penny made sense but wasn’t politically doable – now is that just the kind of logic you expect from a politician?

–Stuart Burns