Just take a look at these fine, upstanding female citizens.  You’ll likely first notice that they’re each wearing G-strings – typical stripper attire.  They are, in fact, strippers.  Exotic dancers, if you prefer.  The second thing that you’ll notice is that each girl’s G-string is stuffed full of the good old fashioned $1 bills.  You know, the paper stuff.  Greenbacks.  They are very easy to stuff in a G-string, and many can fit without any trouble.

Dollar coins don’t fit in G-strings!

Imagine, for a moment, trying to give your friendly, hard working stripper a dollar coin.  You can’t very well stuff it under the strap of her underwear – it would just fall out!  Tip jars are just tacky, and you can’t very well throw them at her.  That’s a sure way to get kicked out, and probably get kicked by the stripper in question.  Not a good scenario for anyone involved.

Stripper Lobbyists

My conclusion is that there are very powerful stripper lobbyists in Washington.  Through their superior negotiating tactics, they are able to convince the government that printing $1 bills still makes sense, for at least some of our citizens.  Until inflation forces the average gentleman’s club visitor to start using $5′s instead of $1′s, the dollar bill is here to stay.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about Llama Money? This is a new site, and I could really use your help in getting my work out to new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would appreciate it. Dollar Bills: Why we still have them is a post from: Llama Money

Pennies cost more than $.01 to make

The government earns a profit on the difference between the cost to manufacture a piece of money, and it’s face value – something called seigniorage. A $1 bill costs roughly 3.8 cents ( $.038 ) to make, and is worth $1. That means the US government profits $.962 – over 96 cents, each time they print a dollar bill. Not a bad business to be in. The penny is a different story though. Current pennies are made of a copper & zinc alloy, and both metals cost more than they used to. Today, a penny costs nearly 2 cents to create. About $.018 to be exact. Every time the US Mint creates a penny, the Government loses .8 of a cent – that adds up in a big hurry! Over $7 billion pennies were minted last year, so that works out to a cool $59 million loss – just in pennies!

A page from the history books

Old timers remember this funny looking penny to the left – the 1943 steel cent. Way back then, during World War II, copper was in great demand for the war – particularly for ammo. At the time, pennies were about 95% copper. As such, the Mint created a zinc-plated steel penny, to conserve copper for the war. This penny was only issued in 1943, due to one major flaw. The zinc coating wasn’t very good, and didn’t cover the edges. Bare steel rusts very quickly, especially when in contact with sweat. Many of the steel cents you find today are quite rusted and rough looking due to this.

Welcome back, steel

Replacing the copper / zinc alloy used today with steel is an idea on the table. A better galvanization process will be used, so the zinc will cover the entire coin ( edges included ). That will resolve the only problem with the old steel pennies, and it will get the cost of a penny back under 1 cent. It will look strange once again, but I think it’s kind of neat. Maybe we all need to look at some US steel company stocks. All the steel from those pennies will have to come from somewhere.

Hi there - could you help spread the word about Llama Money? This is a new site, and I could really use your help in getting my work out to new readers. If you would send someone a link, email, or even mention it to your friends, I would appreciate it. Return of the Steel Penny is a post from: Llama Money