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Here’s a profound, but mind-boggling, example of Uncle Sam’s financial management skills.

It was reported in May of 2008 by Laurie Kellman of Associated Press that it now costs the U.S. Mint 1.26 cents to make a penny (down from 1.67 cents at the end of 2007) and 7.7 cents to make a nickel (down from just under 10 cents at the end of 2007).

In terms of standard and accepted government rhetoric, this represents an example of "keeping costs down." In terms of reality, it represents plain stupidity.

Pennies are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper while nickels are 75% copper and 25% nickel; and the U.S. Mint cites metal prices as the culprit in the deal. Apparently Congress is in the process of asking the Treasury to "prescribe" a more economical composition of the penny and nickel. No doubt that this is motivated by the questionable practice of minting coins with melt-values that (although melting coins is illegal) are equal to, or higher than, face-values. Some say that the melt-value of a nickel is now almost double its face-value.

However, Edmund Moy, the director of the Mint, recently declared: "With each new penny and nickel we issue, we increase the national debt by almost as much as the coin is worth."

As you know, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the right to coin money and regulate its value.

That being the case, you would think that even Congress could find a way to make money at a profit!

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual