A penny saved

Before the digital ink had dried on the opinion pieces about Harper’s budget announcement that the penny would no longer be minted as of this fall, the Wikipedia page for Penny (Canadian Coin) had already been updated and a twitter account @CDN_Penny had been created.

The penny will still maintain its value indefinitely but you can bet within a year or so, most retailers will be rounding prices and won’t want to take them.

There are millions of pennies kicking around, of course, and if people simply return them to the financial institution of their choice, we can keep them circulating for many years. So, yes, you can still offer a penny for my thoughts and I am going to keep a couple in my pocket just in case I need to pay the ferryman.

Honestly though? I could care less; it has long cost us more to make than the currency represents so why bother?

Oh right… smokescreen….

I want to congratulate Harper’s spin doctors for using this story as media-bait. You see, no one can really resist the easy writing when it comes to phrases like “penny-pinching” or “a penny saved is a penny earned” — the stories really write themselves — and it’ll take a day or two of the news cycle before many people clue into some of the other big (and small) line items in this budget:

• 19,000 jobs will be cut from the federal public service over the next three years
• programs & services eliminated include: Katimavik,  National Round Table on Environment and Economy, and the Public Appointments Commission (heck, I can’t find their website, maybe they pulled up stakes early…)
• CBC budget cut by $115M (10%) over three years
• Deep cuts to defense and diplomatic spending
• changes to OAS including raising the age of eligibility to claim to 67 (anyone currently age 54 or older will not be affected) and allowing deferral up to 5 years.

The overall budget cuts amount to $5.2 billion. Not minting the penny saves us only about $11M annually; it’s chump change and the phasing out will ultimately benefit banks.

Now who likes banks… let me think….

UPDATE: apparently, the penny will be removed from circulation — the fact that it will “retain its value indefinitely” (the phrase I read three hours ago…. but cannot find online now) does not mean we can still use them indefinitely.