Thepennydrops一美分硬币终将退出市场..doc

The penny drops一美分硬币终将退出市场The case against small bits of metal?小额硬币退市事件Mar 2nd 2013 | WASHINGTON, DC |From the print editionMOST people would not pay two cents for something worth one. But America’s government spent $116m last year doing just that. The money-losing purchase was money itself: the penny, which has cost more than a cent to produce since 2006, due mainly to the price of zinc, the coin’s primary ingredient.价值一美分的东西，多数人不会花两美分购买。去年，美国政府却耗费1.16亿美元反其道而行之。偏偏这冤枉钱又花在了钱本身：一美分硬币。06年起，由于主要原材料锌价格的上涨，一美分硬币的成本便已超过其面值。Steel is not much better, as Canada has learned. The government there recently ditched its steel-based penny. American politicians, while loth to take lessons from their northern neighbours, may have noticed. In an online forum on February 14th Barack Obama intimated that the penny was no longer change he believes in.Fifty years ago a handful of pennies would buy a hamburger at McDonald’s, but inflation means the coin won’t even get you one French fry today. Relegated to jars and lost behind cushions, the penny is failing to perform its primary function: to facilitate commerce. Vending machines and parking meters don’t accept it.?Penny scourges?note that fiddling with them adds some two seconds to each transaction, costing the economy many millions of dollars a year.50年前，几美分便可买到一个麦当劳汉堡，但由于通胀，如今却连买一根炸薯条都不够。一美分硬币要么被丢进存钱罐，要么滚到垫子后面消失不见，如今的它已无法发挥其主要功能?：简化交易。就连自动售货机和停车计时器都不接受它。一美分硬币的批评者认为它还会使每份交易多花费2秒钟左右的时间，从而导致每年数百万美元的经济损失。Penny lovers and zinc-industry lobbyists counter that the coin’s demise would cost consumers, as merchants would round prices up to the nearest nickel. Some economists disagree, suggesting that shop keepers might in fact round down in order to avoid moving from a price of, say, $9.99 to $10. Americans anyway seem willing to accept a fee for penny removal, as evidenced by the self-imposed cost of leaving them idle and the success of coin-counting machines, which take a cut when turning them into bills.一美分硬币爱好者与锌产业游说者认为，一美分硬币一旦消失，顾客便会