Future of the Penny

Pennies are in the news lately, as in this AP article by Jeff Donn:

For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make this year because of higher metal prices. "The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities,'' says Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at the American Numismatic Society.

Actually, this turns the real situation on its head: the "cost" of making a penny is not really going up. The value of the dollar, and consequently the penny, has been declining for many years. Inflation is not rising prices, it is a decline in the value of money.

People tend not to think of the value of money, but rather the cost of things. The government perfers that mode of thinking, since it obscures the government's role in destroying the dollar. That way it's much easier to blame "greedy" companies and workers for raising prices and wages.

Without actually looking it up, we're willing to bet that the real, inflation-adjusted cost of producing pennies has even been declining for decades. The costs just haven't declined as fast as the dollar has declined.

Why Parody Is Hard

Good parody requires exaggeration to the point of absurdity, but some people's thinking is so absurd it defies parody. When we heard of Ken Lay's sudden death from a heart attack, we thought of writing a fake news story. We'd have "questioned the timing" and claimed it's all a conspiracy by Karl Rove. Perhaps he was even killed by Rove to coverup connections to Chimpy McBushitler.

Trouble is, some people really believe that. MSNBC contributes: Readers smell conspiracy in Lay's death. The aptly named "Lunkhead" at the DailyKos kicks things off by asking, "Who Killed Ken Lay?" in this post:

My guess, is that it's his own dietary habits, but when you consider the case of Cliff Baxter, the number of people who have died in odd ways before being able to talk about ties between Enron and the Bush crime family, it makes you wonder.

You want to do framing, do real framing. Start with the question "Who Killed Ken Lay?", and frame the debate that way.

Enough with the Lakoff's asinine stuff, where you call good jurist "Freedom Judges" (would you want like "Freedom Fries with that?)

The question is not fair, but the Avignon president deserves some Vince Foster time.

So remember, the statement on today's news is a question: "Who killed Ken Lay?"

Of course, Lunkhead isn't really saying it true. He's "just asking questions." Right...