A penny saved means someone’s not thinking

An interesting fact I learned in Australia: US pennies would probably not exist were it not for copper lobbyists. In the land down under, the smallest denomination coin is 5 cents. They eliminated 1-cent coins and all prices are to be rounded to the nearest 5.

I wondered out loud at one point why the US doesn’t do the same thing. One of my travel mates quickly responded that the US still makes pennies because lobbyists for the copper industry have fought all such legislation. Now there’s an interesting twist on “money equals power.”

Australia also has 1- and 2-dollar coins. I wonder if there is some lobbyist for an industry supported by the US Mint keeping smaller bills instead of popularizing coins so they won’t go out of business too.

I understand the desire for an industry to do whatever they can to stay afloat, but, with a few exceptions, it seems like a bad sign when an industry has to resort to legislation and/or lawsuits in order to keep business from dying. Deal with it, folks. No industry is guaranteed to be eternal.

Fun side note: in Thailand, where 30 baht is roughly equivalent to 1 US dollar, there are 1-baht and even 1/2-baht coins, but they’re hard to find. The only people that give them out are Big C chain stores (the Thai equivalent to Walmart [blech]). And, conveniently, pretty much nobody will take a 1- or 1/2-baht coin but Big C, rendering them almost entirely useless.