Why the penny should be eliminated. Completely.

YouTube link. 

This "Death To Pennies" video is well-crafted, though the arguments it presents are nothing new.  The same viewpoint was presented in depth in text form in a New Yorker piece ("Penny Dreadful") that I bookmarked way back in 2008.

Luhrman, who had previously owned a company that refined gold and silver, devised a method of rapidly separating pre-1982 pennies from more recent ones, which are ninety-seven and a half per cent zinc, a less valuable commodity. His new company, Jackson Metals, bought truckloads of pennies from the Federal Reserve, turned the copper ones into ingots...

There are problems, though. One is that many people are quite attached to one-cent coins. Another is that some people fear that merchants in a penny-free economy, when making change on cash purchases, might be more inclined to round up than to round down, thus penalizing consumers. A third is that eliminating pennies would increase our reliance on nickels, which now cost almost ten cents to manufacture and so generate even more negative seigniorage, per coin, than pennies do...

One of the biggest challenges of coin design is portraying realistic-looking three-dimensional facial features on a metal surface that is nearly flat. This difficulty explains why the faces on coins are almost always shown in profile: doing so keeps noses recognizable. The 2006 nickel, which features a likeness of Jefferson and was sculpted by Menna’s former colleague Donna Weaver, is the first circulating U.S. coin to have a forward-facing portrait; it is considered by coin aficionados to be an engraving tour de force....

The bill’s opponents in real life also included Lincoln-loving people from Illinois, along with people who hold “penny drives” for charity, people who would prefer that everything remain the way it is now, and, of course, Americans for Common Cents...

In 1940, an average one-pound loaf of bread sold for eight cents... a penny in those days bought enough bread to make a good-sized sandwich. These days, a penny doesn’t buy much more than a bit of crust... 

The video is a bit misleading, btw, when it implies that half-penny coins were and are worthless.  Those of you who have any please feel free to send them to me.