Editor's note
Rob Walch is Vice President of Podcaster Relations for LIBSYN (Liberated Syndication), which provides technical services for this podcast, Who Gets What? Rob offers observations about podcasts and podcasting that most of us have not considered. Hear him on Who Gets What? at mortonjohn.libsyn.com.
Sometimes, we advance by going back and erasing what we did in the past. I’ll do that many times as I compose this column. What I write (actually what I type)…that’s it. I just went back and changed write to type.

Let’s start over. We often advance by going back and eliminating the past. It’s not because the past was wrong, but because we changed our minds. Marijuana was evil and the Indiana General Assembly joined the federal and other state governments in banning its sale.

Now, many states have discovered gold in weed. Via the holy transubstantiation of smoke or gummies to state revenues, our legislature may bless the production, distribution, sale, possession and use of marijuana. Evil is vanquished and prosperity (always a product of wisdom) advanced.

(The failure of proposed legislation does not preclude future consideration. Remember, we still haven’t faced the inevitable shortfall of our means from our desires.)

But I digress from the larger picture. The penny is going to disappear. It’s not a tragedy, but thousands (millions?) of words will be written in sadness and disapproval.

I don’t care. It is one of the consequences of inflation which is what we call the devaluation of money. The value of the penny is less than the cost of producing it. Today the penny, tomorrow the nickel. Can the dime be far behind?

Our great-grandchildren are unlikely to use the expression, “A penny for your thoughts.” as most readers don’t recall the “Show us your Larks” or “Lucky Strike goes to war” slogans.

The quarter might survive into the next century, but there is no reason to believe it will. Prices then might be expressed as $45.3 meaning $45 dollars and 3 quarters. But that might be rounded up to $46 and $45.1 would be rounded down to $45.

Which leaves us with the temptation of $45.2, an opening for the bold commercial “We always round down!”

We already experience this at the gas pump with prices are always one-tenth below the next cent. As if we pay any attention to that familiar posting $2.959

To “modernize” governments with strong political desires for change are proposing more than getting rid of pennies or other small change in their currencies. The data we have established to monitor progress or decline is under attack.

Again it is not new. Look at our country’s constitution where one set of persons were counted as equal to three-fifths of another set. An official in this country recently proposed removing federal spending from Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

I think he seeks to have government spending considered investment and not consumption. But investment is counted in GDP. Yet the idea is not a right-wing fantasy. There are left-wing advocates for treating education spending as investment rather than consumption. Isn’t it wonderful we can always improve on the past?
Morton J. Marcus is an economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers, and his views can be followed his podcast.

© 2025 Morton J. Marcus

-30-