A Moment of Reckoning for the Penny
The United States Treasury has finally declared the end of penny production, signaling a long-overdue reckoning with fiscal logic. For decades, the government has persisted in minting one-cent coins even though each costs roughly four cents to produce. This paradox—spending four times the coin's face value just to circulate it—has epitomized bureaucratic inefficiency.
In a world driven by financial prudence and technological convenience, the penny has become an antiquated symbol of waste.
The Bigger Problem: Government Inefficiency at Scale
This isn’t just about a penny. It’s a glaring example of how the government operates at a fundamental loss across numerous initiatives. For every $4 the government "invests," it effectively sees a $1 return. Oftentimes ZERO after spending BILLIONS.
3 Examples Of Chronic Inefficiency:
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $42 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to expand high-speed internet, particularly in rural areas. They got nothing done when Elon Musk w Starlink could have turned it on over nite for a tiny fraction of the cost.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure, split into $5 billion for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and $2.5 billion for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) program. Again pretty much nothing was achieved but they said something would be done by late 2020’s - again Elon could turn this on in a second at a fraction of the cost.
The California High-Speed Rail project, initially approved by voters in 2008 with a $9.9 billion bond, was estimated to cost $33 billion to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020. Costs have since ballooned to over $106 billion for the full project, with $15.7 billion already invested by 2025. Additionally, the project received $3.1 billion in federal grants from the Biden administration in 2023 and relies on about $1 billion annually from California’s cap-and-trade program. ZERO RAIL has been built.
That’s not just unsustainable—it’s an indictment of structural dysfunction. It reflects a system where rational cost-benefit analysis often takes a backseat to tradition, politics, or inertia. The penny is just a copper-plated canary in the coal mine.
Faith Undermined by Fiscal Folly
The persistence in producing the penny—despite its economic absurdity—should give every citizen pause. If leadership cannot halt something so self-evidently wasteful, what does that say about their capacity to steward trillions? It is MADNESS! This isn’t just mismanagement; it’s a betrayal of public trust. Governments must be held to the same standards of efficiency and accountability as the private sector—or risk eroding faith in their legitimacy altogether.
My crude graphic tries to highlight the problem!
How to Fix?
Make everything transparent on the blockchain. Make sure your citizens see the GRIFT in real time! This is part of the effort conducted by Doge to try and make this problem better rather than lining the pockets of insiders in the government.
Have a nice day.