IT'S TIME FOR A DECISION!

Hooray! Two authors this week agree with what I have been advocating for a decade. One author in the New York Times and one inBig Think.

The proposal is to eliminate both the cent and the nickel from circulation. Stop minting these and save $39 million a year it's costing taxpayersfor the cent alone. Match that for nickels and we're talking real money.

Round off all transactions to the nearest ten cents. Make the dime the lowest denomination for all prices, thus all the amounts at the bottom lineof every invoice, every bill, the amount on every check. The dime becomes the 21st century penny coin -the lowest value for circulation andaccounting.

The cent is irrelevant these days. You can't buy anything with a single cent. The public is dismissing them in every way. Yet the Mints churn outfour and a half billion a year. For what purpose? To end up in a dresser drawer, or cast in a fountain, to remain unspent. They are not fulfillingtheir intended purpose of a circulating medium of exchange.

Canada eliminated their cent in 2005, Australia, however, was the first to ax their cent and two-cent coins in 1990, followed by their 5-cent coinin 2009. Hasn't damaged their economy. Canadians and Australians are happy not to have to carry around such minute value coins. Savings abound and noproblems resulting in rounding off the the nearest 10-cents, no gouging buyers as the critics in America have stated would happen.

Fourteen countries have eliminated their lowest value coin. America, financial capital of the world, is procrastinating. We should have been outfront in this movement long ago.

For years I have proposed dropping the cent, nickel and quarter, retaining the dime, half dollar and dollar, then adding three new coins, the $5,$10 and $20 denominations. If this is not done soon our coins - the use of all our coins -- will become obsolete as every transaction will becomedigital.

I have a plan how this can be done without cost to the taxpayers, with an actual profit from seignorage of the new denominations. However theproblem is what to do with all those coins in circulation. That's a lot of metal, tons and tons of it.

I have a solution. It won't cost the Treasury a six-figure consulting fee, as they have spent trying to find a substitute composition costing lessthan face value of the coins.

There are three readers of The E-Sylum at the U.S. Treasury. Call me. I'll disclose my plan in full. My number is 860-482-1103.

Meanwhile read the two articles which appeared this week: http://bigthink.com/arpan-bhattacharyya/pennies-arent-not-worth-it by ArpanBhattacharyya. You'll laugh at the line under the illustration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/insider/why-doesnt-the-united-states-finally-get-rid-of-the-penny.html?_r=1 by BinyaminAppelbaum.