American currency is dumb

So the penny comes directly from our ties to the British, which used to have a coin of the same name. Their coin actually got its name from a Germanic coin called the 'pfennig', which roughly translates to meaning just 'money'.

The nickel was named for the metal it's made with, even though the nickel is actually 3/4s copper.

The dime comes from the Old French word 'disme', which literally translates to 'one-tenth'.

The quarter follows the same principle as the dime, except it's now in a different language. A quarter means exactly what it represents: 1/4 of a dollar.

The half dollar continues the trend of reminding us how fractions work, and it also continues the trend of American money having no f*cking consistency whatsoever. Why is a quarter just called a quarter, but a half dollar has to specify that it is half of a dollar?

When someone asks for a quarter, it's implicitly assumed that they mean the coin. They're not asking for lodging, they're not asking 1/4 of your sandwich, they're not asking for someone to be pulled apart by horses. They just want the coin. If you asked someone for a half, they'd be like: half of what?

Bonus facts: It currently costs about 2.1 cents to make a 1-cent penny and about 8.5 cents to make a 5-cent nickel. At least the rest of our coins are profitable

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SW-User

I’ve seen some of your postings here and quite frankly you’re really fucking stupid but for the sake of this question what America needs to do for the best interest of its people is do away with the fiat currency and needs to go back to the silver and gold standard. This country tends to focus on very useless things instead of what’s really important and what can really benefit people.

OogieBoogie · F

@SW-User and wot?
You consider your posts superior ?
😂🤣😂

Oh lort, you made me laugh.

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@SW-User I have no idea who you are, but at least it's nice to know I've made so much of an impression on you.

What did it sound like when my post went right over your head?

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

All sounds good to me. We still have pennies in the UK (and the commodity cost is less than the face value). Our currency was originally based on the value of silver (sterling), but royal governments used to 'clip' coins (cut out small pieces) to fund their wars, so they eventually became no more than the tokens they are today.

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@SunshineGirl The more you know. I read up on it briefly and thought it went extinct due to decimalization. It sounded like it would've been frustrating to live through.

The history of currency is interesting because so much of it is tied to wars. It's a similar story here in the states when the Civil War broke out. Seems like needing to pay soldiers has done more to modernize and centralize currency than anything else

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

@TinyViolins It happened at around the same time the UK was preparing for membership of the European Economic Community (now the European Union). Both measures were pushed through by a progressive conservative government amidst a fair amount of support and optimism. But yes, some people never really accepted metrification and unfortunately the issue became conflated with opposition to European unity. They replaced all the coins, including some very attractive ones that people had affection for. The penny used to be a large coin, now it's about a third of the size (and I haven't seen one for years as I've mainly gone cashless since Covid).

OogieBoogie · F

😂Dont get me started on this lunacy. Their measurements are an even bigger madhouse of chaos....[media=https://youtu.be/GDUt-Kbxqsg]

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OogieBoogie · F

@SW-User good grief !

You're gonna become a vampire at this rate😂

DeluxedEdition · 26-30, F

@TinyViolins you’ve never heard of KHDBDCM? That’s how you convert measurements. You just take whatever and move it either to the left or right

B represents base units and add a decimal or comma

For example
1 KM to millimeters would be 1,000,000 mm

1,000,000 because you start at k which represents kilometers and move over to the right six times to reach the m. And when you go backwards you’ll be working with decimals or fractions

It’s the easiest ish ever

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@DeluxedEdition I'm talking about converting American units to smart people units. Converting miles to kms is totally different from converting pounds into kgs, which is totally different from converting gallons into liters.

Going from one metric unit of measurement to the other is a piece of cake, which makes it frustrating that the US can't get on board with it

DeluxedEdition · 26-30, F

We didn’t like what you were doing so we put a spin on it 😉

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@DeluxedEdition Too many spins for my liking. It's weird how inconsistency just ends up being built into the foundation of things.

Like George Washington is on the dollar, which is the lowest bill, but also on the quarter, which is 2nd highest coin (or 3rd if you want to count the dollar coin that isn't even made anymore). And Lincoln is on the lowly penny, but then beats out Washington by being on the $5 bill. You can't even rank them properly. There's no system of order in getting to decide who ends up on what currency.

I just think it's weird that you need 4 George Washingtons to get 1 George Washington, but you need 500 Lincolns to equal 1 Lincoln. And Jefferson is on the nickel and $2 bill, so even then you'd need 40 Jeffersons to buy 1 Jefferson. It's madness

Maturebate · 70-79, M

That's inflation for you! BTW does anyone use cents and nickels anymore?

DDonde · 31-35, M

Let's do away with pennies and make more half-dollars. I haven't seen a half dollar in decades.

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@DDonde They drastically reduced production for about 2 decades because there were so few in circulation. They just started mass producing them again in 2021, but apparently there's still a buttload warehoused in the Federal Reserve's vaults

MartinTheFirst · 26-30, M

Meh, that's not stupid at all. It's quite logical. We used to have öre which means 100th of one crown. We got rid of those and now we have 1kr, 2kr, 5kr and 10kr, due to inflation of course.

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