A Penny for Your Thoughtlessness

We just want exact change. Ripping a hole in our pockets is a service provided by your helpful president. Balanced cash drawers are the impossibility imposed by Donald Trump’s petty penny removal. Pinching the coin associated with that term is the opposite of frugal.

You can’t get exactly how much money you’re owed here in Soviet Russia. The precise return of rubles is a matter of principle, which is why Trump doesn’t understand the problem. It’d be one thing if practical results followed. But the irksome reality matches mucky concepts.

Rounding to the nearest cent isn’t even an option anymore. Sellers must go to the nearest nickel in the reboot to acknowledge inflation that’s totally at bay. The cost to businesses skipping to the nearest amount will be exponentially more. Cherish the halcyon days of Office Space joking about rounding to one-hundredth that in turn honored the one memorable notion presented in Superman III. This new franchise has tired ideas.

Real savings take the form of battling entitlements. The fearless leader and best businessman is too craven to confront the generational ripoff of Social Security, too egomaniacal to get government out of the retirement business, and too insecure to think workers should be allowed to invest their own money as opposed to letting politicians spend it before the workday is done. Cutting millions when trillions are needed is such a Trump move that it could be covered in tacky black glass.

Waging war on numismatics is a loss even with an easy win. The obsessive drive to eliminate the most trifling costs resembles waste, fraud, and abuse posturing. Trump acts as if nobody had thought to make things more efficient before. The alleged antidote to traditional politicians is as hackneyed as his contemptuous CEO character.

As a reminder, those millions helped. Producing square paper and round metal that can be used to pay off debts is one of government’s actually justified expenditures. The government has a quite limited number of legitimate functions which includes providing currency. Spending money so we can have some is an expenditure even road-privatizing libertarians could concede is one of the few federal actions that’s justified.

Dividing a dollar into a hundred parts offends math’s enemies. Spot them by how they refuse to admit which direction the debt clock spins. By the way, does anyone have four quadrillion pennies? Check the dish near the register.

Trying to figure out if they should round up or down is an additional gift from a president whose tax on purchases has already made commerce burdensome. Tariffs have made prices so high that change is irrelevant. The notion is possibly not a winning political or economic strategy over time. We’re simply not allowed the easy solution involving having the precise amount.

Abolishing cents makes no sense. Saving a few billion of the little guys completely misses the point in the classic style of this repeat presidency. There’s no reason to endure agony if it doesn’t result in learning from it.

Figuring what the market wants isn’t the ostensible titan’s specialty. The business genius who slapped his name on mail-order steaks, pedestrian bottled water, vodka you wouldn’t serve a hobo in hospice, a board game not one human has ever played, and a million other shoddy piles of dreck that he tried to con you into believing were worth premium pricing because he blessed the labels with his saintly family name is all about creating value. That’s why he respects almost all the parts of a dollar.

Uninterested consumers are free to leave pennies on the counter or sidewalk. Fanciful individuals who enjoy making wishes can collect them for fountain placement. And those interested in precision can ensure they pay the exact amount. Chaos without thinking ahead makes life exciting. America has become an Ollie’s trip where we don’t know what baffling goods we’ll find. The outcome is unplanned like everything else a self-proclaimed visionary imposes.

The smallest change makes a big deal. We’re not just talking about what used to rattle in pockets. Having precise payment is a small satisfaction that’s been revoked by a clumsy oaf who’s regrettably authorized to oversee the mint.

Physical media collectors want the option. The simple act of churning out every denomination makes life easy for those buying with bills and coins. The only thing it would’ve took to keep it going was doing nothing. Naturally, Trump couldn’t control himself.

The bad and good thing about acting like a tyrant is the next person can take it back. Trump delights in issuing commands like Caesar, who’s the namesake of an Atlantic City casino that’s still open. But an executive interested in maintaining the republic’s boundaries can act similarly, only in reverse. We can hope the next president reverses a shortsighted effort to make the smallest amount extinct.

To recognize the person who tried to dump all of the most modest way to complete a purchase, put Trump on the coin. He’ll think he’s being honored. Refusing to make them gold-colored won’t be enough of a clue. That would involve removing Abe Lincoln from the most common way he appears in the public consciousness. But Trump’s already tried to do that.

A limited run of Trump pennies would offer one final attempt at humbling him. His most rabid haters could take comfort in spending the MAGA penny by knowing it runs counter to his intent and image. Someone should explain to Trump what penny wise and pound foolish means. I wouldn’t envy the tasked person. It’s not the share that’s small.