#caity weaver

I'm always a fan of Caity Weaver's work, but this piece from the New York Times Magazine (these links are gift links from me past the NYT paywall to access the full article) about how the penny is not only a ridiculous zombie currency, but also a reflection of American dysfunction is one of the best articles I've read in a long time. It's really interesting, especially the parts about production, circulation, and the ultimate paralysis of throwing them in a coin jar for months or years before eventually taking them to a Coinstar machine.

Not only is the penny useless and more expensive to make than it is actually worth, but it's also relatively easy to eliminate. But it's not an imperative and eliminating it also wouldn't necessarily be something that the government or the citizens would actively profit from. And people don't like change -- and I don't mean "change" as in currency, but the act of doing something different or unusual from our accepted routines. So we just ignore them or discard them or hoard them needlessly, and the government keeps making billions of tons (literally) of them because they drop out of circulation. Nobody cares and nobody wants to have to do anything about it because America.

Here's a little excerpt of the piece from the New York Times Magazine, and again, just follow the links for a free gift pass behind the paywall for Caity's full article:

Americans accumulate pennies not because we desire them but because we are entitled to them. If we pay for something in cash with more than exact change, we expect to receive back the difference; if the difference ends in any number other than 0 or 5, we will receive at least one penny. We are entitled to pennies because they exist. But imagine a world where they didn't. Imagine a world where it was Canada. Many Americans will be surprised to learn that Canada eliminated its 1-cent coin more than a decade ago...Canada got rid of its penny in 2013 because it cost 1.6 cents to produce and had, like its American cousin, become essentially worthless. Here is the most important detail to understand: Canada eliminated only its physical coin, not the mathematical concept of 1 cent. Payment by credit card, debit card, mobile phone or check -- any kind of noncash transaction -- is calculated exactly as it was before the penny was abolished. If, after tax, a bill comes to, say, $20.11, a Canadian paying by credit card will be charged $20.11. A Canadian paying by cash can expect to pay $20.10. The final digit of Canadian cash transactions is rounded to the nearest nickel: 1 and 2, nearest to 0 nickels, round down to 0; 3 and 4 round up to a nickel -- 5; 6 and 7, also nearest to one nickel, round down -- 5 again; 8 and 9, nearest to 10 cents, round up. I admit that the thought I might be asked to pay, say $3.80 (cash) for something that, according to the laws of God and man, has been calculated to cost $3.79 (cash) is not only reflexively infuriating to me but a potential source of permanent confusion. The Canadian government mitigated one of those problems (no hope for the other) with an information campaign that included signs with simple charts dividing potential prices into two columns: "Round down" and "Round up." I asked Karl Littler from the Retail Council of Canada if there were still signs at cash registers explaining the rounding. "It's 10 years now, so even the most obtuse people have pretty much figured it out," he said, and laughed.

My husband couldn’t believe it when I revealed I had scored a campervan for us to drive around and live in for a week. “That sounds bad,” he said. He immediately declined, citing several compelling reasons. Perhaps, my editor proposed, I could do it alone, even though I pointed out that I am the worst driver I know and the worst parker known to anyone anywhere. (That could be “part of it,” he suggested.) I ran a search for “tips female van life solo.” The top result advised leaving men’s shoes outside the van at night and traveling with a gun or dog, or both. That didn’t sound like an aesthetic fantasy. I needed to find another human. But what human in their right mind would be willing to travel well over 1,000 miles in a vehicle under my control (hopefully), interrupting and endangering their life just to sleep marginally sheltered in the dead of winter in scenic places?

I called the most neurotic person I had ever met: my friend Michael — who, since he and I last had dinner in New York City in late 2019, had quit his job at a venture capital firm, set out on a backpacking trip across Asia, cut short his backpacking trip because of the global pandemic, started a new life as a life coach and meditation teacher and gone blond.

The sun was glad. The air was the exact temperature of God’s warm breath as he whispers a secret in your ear (72 degrees Fahrenheit). The breeze was discreet; the clouds were for decoration only; the roads looked newly born; the volunteers were eager to volunteer in some way; the grass smelled like even more grass than it was; the horses were lauded as “brave,” “affectionate” and “very tolerant of drunk people”; the policemen were armed with semiautomatic rifles; the empire, while dead, was verging toward an eerie approximation of vitality (rigor mortis, perhaps?); the earth was careening through space at a rate of 1,000 miles an hour; and Rachel Meghan Markle was getting married — MARRIED! — to the sudden and frantic delight of millions.

Clouds explained