this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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Not gonna lie, I agree with this. Pennies are useless.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

If we want to have artificially-generated demand for zinc -- if we really need to ensure domestic production capacity -- there's no requirement for it to be the penny. I'm sure that we can find something else to make out of zinc.

The penny itself wasn't always zinc. I don't remember the changeover year.

checks WP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)

The current copper-plated zinc cent issued since 1982 weighs 2.5 grams, while the previous 95% copper cent still found in circulation weighed 3.11 g (see further below).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc

Zinc is most commonly used as an anti-corrosion agent,[123] and galvanization (coating of iron or steel) is the most familiar form. In 2009 in the United States, 55% or 893,000 tons of the zinc metal was used for galvanization.[122]

Zinc is more reactive than iron or steel and thus will attract almost all local oxidation until it completely corrodes away.

We can just subsidize zinc production, or purchase something that requires those anti-corrosion properties.

I also am not at all sure that this was in fact the rationale. I can't find a reference online to this being the rationale. I do see reference to zinc being useful because it's particularly inexpensive. And the numbers given on this article seem to support the idea that pennies don't really work out to generating a very substantial demand for zinc.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/03/its-not-big-zinc-behind-the-campaign-to-keep-the-penny/

It's Not Big Zinc Behind The Campaign To Keep The Penny

To run through the numbers, a penny coin weighs 2.5 grammes. Let's call that all zinc (it's not, but close enough). There's 5 billion made a year, meaning that we've got 12,500,000,000 grammes, or divide by a million to get 12,500 tonnes. Now, if that were 12,500 tonnes of gold being made into coins every year, with global virgin production being around 3,000 tonnes, then sure, that would be a contract worth, umm, influencing the political process, to secure and keep running. The same would be true of many metals in fact. But it's just not true of the zinc industry. Using the USGS, the correct source for these sorts of numbers, we find that US production of zinc is around 250,000 tonnes a year, global production 13.5 million. Even if we assume (as we might, sounds like the sort of thing that might be true) that US coins must be made of US produced metal this is still a very marginal part of the total market.

Further, zinc runs about $2,200 a tonne at present, meaning that we're talking about maybe $25 million a year as the zinc cost of our pennies. And we're told who and how much is paid to keep lobbying for the penny:

But his written statement did not mention that Weller is actually a lobbyist and head of strategic communications for Dentons, a law firm representing the interests of zinc producer Jarden Zinc Products, a major provider of coin blanks that are made into currency.
...
Jarden Zinc Products spent $1.5 million from 2006 through the first quarter of 2014 lobbying on such things as “issues related to the one-cent coin” and represented by Weller when he worked at B&D Consulting and, more recently, Dentons.

No, the important point here is not the zinc industry, nor "Big Zinc". The important part is this "a major provider of coin blanks". If your business is making coin blanks then obviously you're very interested in the continued existence of coin demoninations that are made from coin blanks. That they're made from zinc is an irrelevance compared to that.

Believe me, you don't spend the best part of $200,000 a year in lobbying expenses in order to sell $25 million's worth of zinc. This metal is a commodity, you can sell that amount in one ten minute phone call to any London Metals Exchange ring member. Heck, give me a couple of days to get organised and I could sell it for you at the market price. I'd also charge rather less than $200,000 to do it.

EDIT: WP seems to also support the author's argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarden_Zinc_Products

The company has resisted past efforts to eliminate the penny in the United [1] through an astroturf lobby organization called Americans for Common Cents.

The company's largest source of revenue comes from the production of coin blanks, having produced over 300 billion blanks at their Tennessee facility.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

tonnes

grammes

Did an Old English speaker write this?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I'm fairly sure that I've read some articles by this guy on Forbes before, because I remember that he had some article on something, many years back, that I really liked and I distinctly remember thinking that his thumbnail looked kind of frumpy. I believe that he's British. Looks like he hasn't been at Forbes in almost a decade, though.

kagis

Yeah, was apparently born in Torquay, England.

https://www.timworstall.com/2008/07/about-tim-worstall/

I was born in Torquay in 1963, grew up mostly in Bath (with a couple of years in Naples, Italy as a result of my father\’s Naval career) and was educated at Downside Abbey.

EDIT: Also, a "ton" and a "tonne" aren't the same thing -- that's not just dialect. A "ton" here in the US means a short ton, 2000 US lbs. A "tonne" is a metric ton, 1000 kg. I don't know what Brits normally mean if they write "ton", whether it's a short ton or a long ton or metric ton. In the US, we'd normally write "metric ton" instead of "tonne".

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Kagi is a for-profit website that charges people money to use their search engine.

Stop advertising for them.

Advertising does not belong on Lemmy and I will point this out every time I see you do it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Calling that an advertisement for Kagi seems a bit hyper reactive to me. I think they're just including it as a source along with the info for transparency's sake. I appreciate it for the context it provides.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If they didn't explicitly do it every single times, and often italicize it, I might agree.

And then they wrote some ad copy for why Kagi is better than DuckDuckGo to me afterward because they decided (for some reason) that this was about which search engine was better, as if I gave a shit. Which, again, advertising.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well yeah, italicizing it denotes that it's the title of the source.

The "ad copy" was just them explaining why they personally like using Kagi, after you called them out for it.

With all that said, I think you'll just end up Streisand effecting it in the end if you call it out over and over. 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do people italicize the word Google when they "google" something? I sure as hell don't and I have never seen anyone who does.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lol now we're going to debate and call people out over their post syntax and use of italics? Is this what belongs on Lemmy? I guess it's funny content in a way...

To begrudgingly answer your question, no I do not usually notice people italicizing titles in casual news aggregator comments. I do however notice it done in professional journalism. Neither of the cases trigger me either way.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Professional journalism? You mean the thing that's usually paid for with advertising?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ok man. I get it. Anything that costs money is bad. Let's never speak the name of any for profit company or business as it may give them free advertising. Thank you for keeping us all safe.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Why do you think this is about safety and not just wanting there to be one space on the internet where people aren't shilling for corporations?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It was a joke, mate.

I briefly looked through user tal's comment history, and found that they also italicized Google as a source of info in another comment. Does this mean they're also shilling for Google? Imagine how pissed Kagi would be if they found out...

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe people shouldn't promote either corporation this way? Or is that beyond the real of possibility and we should just accept that corporations will use people like this with quiet dignity?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Back to my original comment, I just don't see how it was intended as a promotion. It was supportive to the comment to add context to the information contained thereof. It was literally one word in a long comment. No hyperlink. On top of that, most people don't even know what Kagi is and there was no discernable effort to introduce or promote it.

What about that makes you so sure that they're being used by a corporation? Should they have just listed the source as "internet search engine"?

If they "shill" for a not for profit search engine will you call that out as well?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What about that makes you so sure that they’re being used by a corporation?

Because... they are? Free advertising is free advertising even if that isn't the intent. Just like everyone who 'googles' something is being used by Google as free advertising.

If they “shill” for a not for profit search engine will you call that out as well?

Of course not. Did you entirely miss my point about this being about capitalism or are you ignoring it in order to argue?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So by your logic, if I post information I found on Wikipedia and list it as a source, cool. But if I find information on Yahoo and list that as the source, then I'm shilling for capitalism and must be called out?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

So yes, you are deliberately ignoring that despite me literally saying:

Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.

Sorry, the alternate Flying Squid who you pretend exists isn't here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm not ignoring it. It just seems disingenuous. To me, it comes off as, "hide the source if it comes from an entity that makes money, because someone may be accidentally advertised to. Reduce context in order to avoid supporting a profitable entity. Professianal journalism is bad because the journalists get paid via subscriptions or ads. Fuck them for wanting a career in journalism."

I hate ads as much as the next guy but realistically, how are they going to support themselves. Should I not post The Guardian articles (hope I'm not shilling here) since they make money to pay their journalists?

Yes, I think we do have to accept that mentioning a company's name can have the effect of keeping them in the public consciousness, but so long as they exist and provide services that we interact with, we are going to need to refer to them somehow.

I agree that actual shilling is bad, and is something I do not want to see here, but I just don't understand or agree on your criteria for shilling apparently. At best, it could have possibly been shilling. But then by that same logic, it would apply to such an enormously broad range of conversation. Now we're just walking talking shilling machines.

And then you want to call it out every single time? With no reasonable proof that they were intentionally shilling? I just think that's going too far.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You:

If they “shill” for a not for profit search engine will you call that out as well?

Me:

Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.

You:

It just seems disingenuous.

You literally asked me if I would do that. I explained very clearly to you that I would not, and you did not accept my answer.

You are not talking to me in good faith.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lol likewise.

I am talking to you in the best of faith I can have with someone that seems like they're harassing people that in my opinion are just here providing good content. It seems ridiculous. I wanted to make my opinion known. I have no agenda I'm trying to push. I don't work for kagi or google, or any other company that would benefit from something like this.

If this is going to devolve into a deposition on whether I'm talking to you in good faith or not, then I think we're done. I'll be on the lookout for any possible shilling.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, you're talking at me. Because if you were talking to me, you would accept more than only the yes answer to a yes or no question. But you only accept yes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ok cool. Apparently nobody likes being called out, do they. Welp, I accept your answer, and since you act in such good faith, I won't be surprised to see a disclaimer from you on any post or comment that contains the name of a for profit company here on Lemmy because it's likely shilling. They will feel your wrath!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

What nobody likes is being called a liar because they answer no to your yes or no question.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You're free to comment every time if you want. I have no intention to change what I am doing, because I happen to like them, and my use of the term predates my use of that engine -- I wrote googles prior to this.

If you want to ban me because you cannot tolerate my writing style, do so, and I'll go use communities other than those you that you moderate. Trying to harass me into changing what I write is not going to have an effect.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, I understand you think, "hail corporate!" is a good thing, as is giving a corporation that would happily fuck you over in a second like every other corporation free advertising, and "I gave a different for-profit corporation free advertising before now" is a weird excuse to continue to do it.

Too bad there aren't any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.

But yes, I will point it out your "hail corporate!" shit every time because advertising does not belong on Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Too bad there aren’t any non-profit search engines you could promote instead of the one that charges people money in order to make a profit.

If I remember from prior discussions, you prefer Duck Duck Go. If you want to mention that you use Duck Duck Go, I have no problem with that. I think that that's great.

giving a corporation that would happily fuck you over in a second like every other corporation

I think that Kagi has considerably less-incentive to do so than Duck Duck Go does, because they have a viable revenue model that doesn't involve datamining me the way Google does or showing ads to me the way Duck Duck Go does. Yes, you can use an ad-blocker on Duck Duck Go, but then you're offloading the costs onto other users who don't do that, and in the long run, Duck Duck Go has an incentive to block users using ad blockers.

You may disagree with my assessment. But I've made that decision, I'm happy with it, I like the fact that Kagi added a Threadiverse search feature, and I am not going to change search engines to your favorite search engine, nor do I intend to stop telling people that I use Kagi.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You do not remember from prior discussions because I have no "preferred" search engine. Also, DuckDuckGo is just Bing and either you did not do your due diligence to learn that or you think I'm ignorant.

And I really do not care about your "hail, corporate!" excuses.

When you advertise a product on Lemmy, you are spamming and I will keep pointing it out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Sigh. Judging from the votes, at this point it's just "I see Flying Squid, I ~~upvote~~ ~~downvote~~ ~~read what they have to say~~ ~~fail to read what they have to say~~ ??? ~~profit!~~ ???

I remember from prior discussions

Actually, is there a copycat account "FlyingSquid" with no space, or did you have to make a new account? I'll keep an eye out, if it's the former.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

I did not make a new account and I will do that, thank you.