Good bye zinc standard

Today the House of Representatives voted to change the composition of the penny.  It seems zinc is too expensive to use to fabricate pennies.

There was a time when this country was on a gold standard.  Coins were 90% gold.  From the $1 coin to the $20 double-eagle, the bigger the coin, the more gold it contained, and the more valuable it was.

There was a time when our money was redeemable in silver.  Those banknotes in your wallet stopped saying "silver certificate" a long time ago.  Now they are federal reserve notes.

Until 1982, our pennies were made out of copper.  Then copper became too expensive, so we had to switch to zinc.  Fast-forward 26 years, and now even zinc is too expensive.  So the House passed legislation directing the U.S. Mint to start producing pennies made from steel within the next nine months. 

The Senate hasn't taken up the matter, so it isn't a done deal yet.  Rep. Space (that's his real name) of Ohio said it was an insult to the taxpayers that we are spending more to produce coins than they are worth.  His legislation would save us $1 billion over the next ten years.

I think the much larger insult to the American people is that our money isn't worth anything any more.  At least now we can save pennies and nickels that have real value, based on the copper, nickel and zinc they contain.

We made pennies out of steel once before, in 1943.  Of course we had a good reason back then.  We were trying to win World War II.  I don't mind the government running deficits and spending money excessively if the future of civilization is at stake.  What is our excuse now?

Back in 1943, for one year the pennies were gray, and they really stand out.  This time, our pennies will be copper-plated steel, so they will still look the same color.  Haven't we seen this before?

In ancient Rome, the denarius was made out of silver.  But during the reign of Nero (the one who fiddled) they debased the currency, reducing the silver content.  This continued under bad emperors and even good ones who liked to fight expensive wars (Trajan) so by the third century AD, the coin was renamed the antoninianus, and it was made of bronze.  But to maintain appearances, it was coated with a thin wash of silver.  Not that this fooled anyone.  The coating wore off very quickly, and everyone knew the coins were made of bronze.

Rome very nearly fell in the third century, and only a succession of army-emperors saved it by turning it into a virtual police state, run by bureaucrats who deprived their subjects of whatever freedom they had left for another two centuries until the whole rotten structure was finally (and deservedly) overrun.

Is that our fate?  It depends on our leadership.  They say God looks out for babies, drunks, and the United States of America.  Instead of hoping for divine intervention, it is time to make hard decisions and accept that we need to pay $8/gallon for gas like every other country in the world.  That we need more doctors and more access to health care.  Most of all, we need to live within our means, instead of living off the savings of the rest of the world.  Good luck finding a leader who will say those things to the American people.