Questions: Society & Politics

FYI:
It costs more than 3 cents to produce 1 penny.

2/3rds of pennies drop out of circulation into coin jars requiring the constant replacement of these coins that have "disappeared" leading to a spiral where more and more need to be mined every year.

A conservative estimate holds that there are 240 billion pennies lying around the United States.

One out of every two circulating coins minted in the United States has a face value of 1 cent.

$100 worth of pennies weighs about 55 pounds.)

A Federal Reserve survey found that Americans paid with cash just 18 percent of the time.

Because a portion of America’s children will, inevitably, swallow coins, by law all coins are required to be detectable by X-ray.

Coinstar machines have processed over one trillion coins of various denominations, worth about $67 billion dollars.

Coinstar is practically the sole medium by which pennies migrate around the USA.

Pennies occupy disproportionate space; at 50% of a jar, they contribute only about 6% of its value.

Theodore Roosevelt began replacing coins he considered "ugly, artistically of atrocious hideousness,” with designs he liked more. He put Lincoln on the penny because he felt like it & consulted no one about his decision.

The Secretary of the US Treasury could stop producing pennies today; no legislation is needed.

Canada eliminated its 1-cent coin in 2013 but ONLY its physical coin, not the mathematical concept of 1 cent. Payment by any kind of noncash transaction is STILL calculated exactly as it was before the penny was abolished.

The final digit of Canadian cash transactions is rounded to the nearest nickel: 1 and 2, nearest to 0 nickels, round down to 0; 3 and 4 round up to a nickel — 5; 6 and 7, also nearest to one nickel, round down — 5 again; 8 and 9, nearest to 10 cents, round up.

Courtland VA conservative GOP Rabih Abuismail and Livingston GOP representative Kirk Twigg "I think we should throw those books in a fire," Abuismail said. Meanwhile, Twigg said he wanted to "see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff."

Missouri GOP candidate for Secretary of State has gone viral after she was shown burning LGBTQ-friendly books with a flamethrower. "These books come from a Missouri public library," Valentina Gomez said in a video posted to social media site X, formerly Twitter, "When I am in office, they will burn."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lines

https://www.britannica.com/technology/high-speed-rail

The closest thing the US has is a line that runs from Boston to Washington DC, but it takes 4 hours and has some flaws. Plans to make other high speed rail lines in the country have been continuously delayed. Meanwhile countries like Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, India, Thailand and Saudi Arabia have already either developed some, or are in the process of developing them.

Is this a little embarrassing for Canada and especially the U. S. which is the self proclaimed "greatest nation on earth."