John Oliver Explains Why It’s Time to Discontinue the Penny

The United States produced more than 8 billion pennies last year, but it has been producing these almost worthless coins at a loss – the coins made last year are valued at over $80 million, but at a cost of more than $130 million.

Apparently, Americans today find less value in the penny than they do with the effort to possess it.

Why is that? John Oliver broke it down on Last Week Tonight on Sunday, and it turns out that none of the reasons are all that compelling. “Twenty Americans every year are killed by cows, but no one is saying we should expel all cows from the country!”

Since no one would care about the penny disappearing – except for the Lincoln Presidential Library – Oliver says it’s time to say good-bye.

“The U.S. Treasury is spending millions to create garbage”, Oliver said. In fact, the only way I can imagine dumping the penny would be if we switched completely over to a digital cryptocurrency like BitCoin… and I really can’t see that happening anytime soon. “And that’s not their job, that’s M. Night Shyamalan’s job”. Oh, and they also conveniently own the company that makes the zinc discs that are eventually turned into pennies.

However, that rule did not apply to one man who received a parking fine as a UNC student worth $110.

Furthermore, Oliver notes that the USA mint has found that there are no possible alternative metal compositions for the penny that would make it cheaper to produce.