This week Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden released a 3 minute video packed with lies, announcing his decision to run for reelection next year.  He’s touting the great achievements of his Administration.  That’s why he had to lie.  The fact of the matter is that, like Trump or not, absolutely everything was better before Biden took over at the White House.  The Trump era saw higher wages, lower taxes, a secure border, energy independence, a stronger military, a revitalized NATO alliance, greatly improved trade agreements, no inflation, and a world in which China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea were under control.  Under Biden, all those things have changed for the worse.  But, without a doubt, the worst aspect of the Biden years is the crippling inflation that has been brought about by his reckless printing of trillions of dollars, resulting in a debt approaching $32 trillion.  Real wages are down 11%.  Credit card debt is up 27%.  And the price of everything is much higher than in 2020.  Gasoline prices doubled.  Heating oil up 87%, natural gas up 57%, and electricity up 23%.  Food prices are out of control.  Eggs up 229%, flour 33%, butter 21%, and coffee 23%.  This week the small cream cheese that used to be $2.99 was $5.99.  Meanwhile, in his insatiable drive toward equity (whatever the Hell that’s supposed to mean), Sleepy Joe has announced that he’s fighting the obscene increase in housing costs by imposing monetary penalties on home buyers with good credit, so he can subsidize buyers with poor credit; people who really can’t afford mortgages with inflated interest rates.  When this inevitably results in a 2008-like housing crash, and the poor credit risk buyers are foreclosed on, we’ll no doubt be told it’s due to systemic racism, instead of the real reason, governmental stupidity.  Inflation is so bad under Biden that he’s even managed to inflate the price of the money itself.  A nickel may buy less than it did before, but it costs more than 5 cents.  That’s right, the U.S. Mint announced that it now costs 10.4 cents to produce one nickel.  When the Mint produces coins, the amount that the face value exceeds the cost of production represents a profit to the government that’s called seniorage.  Producing nickels is costing the government money, as they lose 5.4 cents per copy.  They minted about 1.5 billion nickels last year, so they lost $81 million making nickels.  The price of pennies is even worse.  It now costs 2.72 cents to produce one penny, and they minted 6.4 billion of them in 2022.  That means we lost $110 million minting pennies.  I know they say you have to spend money to make money, but that’s ridiculous.  The increased coin prices are due to increased prices of the metals that make up the coins.  Biden inflation strikes again.  There is talk of reducing the amount of nickel in the nickel to keep costs down.  This really is nothing new for the Mint.  Until 1866, the 5 cent piece was called the half-dime, and was silver.  A run on gold and silver caused by the Civil War made those metals scarce, so the nickel nickel was born.  World War Two changed the nickel’s composition.  Nickel was needed for war industries, so the “nickel” was composed of copper, silver, and manganese.  A nickel with a new composition will continue to be produced.  Not so the penny.  The Mint expects that 2023 will be the last year the penny coin will be produced.  It costs too much to make, and there’s not much you can buy with one cent.  Plus, the penny already has been through a number of composition changes in its history, and you just can’t make a one cent coin out of any metal that costs less than one cent.  So the penny is going away, and it will be missed by collectors.  Until 1856, one cent coins were called large cents, big, ugly coins about the size of a half dollar.  In 1856, the small cent was born, and we haven’t seen many design changes in nearly 170 years.  The first small cent depicted a flying eagle.  The Indian Head cent reigned from 1859 to 1909.  Since 1909, Abraham Lincoln has graced the obverse of the penny.  Fun fact – While all other presidents on our coins face to the left, Honest Abe faces right.  That may be because he’s the only Republican on a coin.  The composition of the Lincoln cent has changed as events dictated.  From 1909 to 1943 the penny was bronze, a mix of copper, zinc and a small amount of tin.  Copper was in great demand during World War II, so the 1943 penny was cast in stainless steel.  From 1944 to 1946, the Mint produced what were called “shell case” pennies.  This might have been the first recycling project.  Spent shell casings from ammunition used in the War was made from copper, zinc, and tin – the same  bronze alloy as the pre-War pennies.  Empty casings were collected, melted down, and turned into new pennies.  The bronze cent was made until 1962, when the tin was removed.  Then in 1982, the penny went from 95% copper to 95% zinc, and the rest copper plating.  Cost has been a problem for a long time.  There was talk of making an aluminum penny, or even a plastic penny, but every time it came up, representatives of the vending machine industry shot it down.  Now that vending machines take mostly dollar bills that shouldn’t be a problem, but it looks like the penny is going the way of the Dodo bird.  The Mint says they’re not needed, as there are trillions of pennies sitting in drawers and in jars that could go back into circulation.  The Mint still makes money on dimes, quarters and half dollars, so presumably they’re safe.  Maybe the answer is more Biden inflation.  It still costs only 17 cents to make a hundred dollar bill.