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Death to Pennies

CGP Grey · 10.7M views · 2011-11-30 · 4:31

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Overview

CGP Grey's short animated argument for abolishing the US penny, covering its cost and history.

On Hacker News

Pointed to as the canonical concise case against pennies whenever coin abolition comes up.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2012–2023

Topics

Microeconomics & behavioral economicsMacroeconomics & financial crises
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penniescurrencyeconomicscgp grey

What people said

tacocataco · 2020-07 · Strong recommendation

All I want is for all paper cash to be plastic so I can wash the covid off of it. I support getting rid of the penny, but I feel that plastic cash would make more of a difference. CGP Grey has a wonderful video on the penny, he is my favorite YouTuber. [VIDEO]

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rogerbinns · 2012-03 · Recommendation

CGP Grey has an excellent youtube video on the whole issue for the US. The US currently makes 4 billion 1 cent coins annually. And they have already been abolished at US military overseas bases. [VIDEO] (Come to think of it, doesn't the US military use a lot more metric system than the general population. If so, this would be a good reason to increase the military since it would appear to be the only way progress happens!)

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TehShrike · 2023-05 · Reference

This already happens with cents. Your tax frequently comes out to a fraction of a cent, and it gets rounded to the nearest cent. The US used to have a half-penny coin. It stopped being minted in 1857. The purchasing power of the half-penny at the time was about as much as a quarter has today. It wouldn't be crazy to get rid of all coins worth less than 25¢ and round all purchases to the nearest quarter. Obligatory CGP Grey: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by CGP Grey, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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