I would have no issue with stopping the production of nickels as well. There's really no reason why prices could not be rounded to the nearest 10 cents. I have long been a proponent of eliminating the $1 and $2 bill, replacing them with coins, as Canada has done. $1 bills have a short lifetime compared to a coin, so it would save taxpayer's money.
Kurt
The reason I said get rid of most smaller coins (and TBH I'd be fine with getting rid of everything below a dollar) is 2 fold.
1) From what I could gleam, anything under a quarter currently costs more to make than it's worth or is right on the edge.
2) Given inflation, and how slow the government moves, getting a little ahead of that with the quarter would make a lot of "cents". I bet we're within 20 years of the quarter costing more to make than it's face value.
3) Considering "what it's worth" - there's been nothing but articles of people all not circulating coins - all coins - for years. Carrying cash is a pain, carrying coins is more of a pain. They don't fit in most wallets for one thing. They're slow to pull out to spend in line. They don't work with many vending machines. They're a pain to sort and people pay 9% or something to get them converted to gift cards or bills for actual use. They no longer solve a problem, they cause problems IMHO. I usually end up with a few coins and they either go in a jar (like some huge percentage of people) or I'm literally like - I'd throw these out, but I think that's illegal. So they build up in places and I never have anything to do with them.
4) All of #3 is why I don't actually think making $1 and $2 coins is a good idea. It doesn't fit in modern society.
I personally think all bills - maybe make them out of something that lasts longer if we have the tech to do so at a reasonable cost. Now, maybe if there were $5, $10, $20 coins and all society changed to take them and somehow they make a wallet that works reasonably for holding coins and for some reason the fees for using cards gets insane I could see that being useful.
Though, fees for using cards does perhaps inspire me to go to these places and give them all my pennies when I buy something - and I'll argue with them if they complain saying "you said this was better and cheaper than swiping my card, so you get the pennies". Well... likely not, but it's a nice fantasy.
