Random fact of the day:
Neither the penny nor the nickel is allowed to be exported out of the
United States. The penalty for such an
action is a fine of up to $10,000 dollars and/or 5 years jail time.
Due to either extensive investment or excessive speculation
in the commodities market (depending on your point of view and preference for buying
such luxuries as food and energy), the zinc market has inflated to the point
where the metal within the penny (mostly zinc) had exceeded the value of one
cent. The same policy prevents melting
down the coins in the US either (obviously, the US government can do nothing
about people melting down coins once they are exported).
Interestingly, this policy was implemented in April 2007,
prior to the economic crash. Even more
interestingly, the implementation of this policy correlates with a sudden,
rapid collapse of the zinc market that resulted in the metal losing one third
of its value by the end of 2007 (It continued downwards into 2008 and dropped
precipitously with the economic crash, and has recovered to its end-of-2007
value today).
The unanswerable question is, of course: How much was the world’s consumption of zinc
(an important resource for rust-proofing steel, by the way) modified by people
buying lots of pennies, shipping them abroad and melting them down for an
approximately 0.3 cent/penny margin?
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