Micah J.

Richardson Professor Ross Speech 100 December 2011 A Diminishing Value A Discussion of the Relevance of Pennies to American Society General Purpose: To persuade Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that pennies no longer reflect a value to our society and thus should be discontinued. I. Introduction Pennies are a part of American culture. We have all heard the phrase "a penny saved is a penny earned," and "see a penny leave it lay, have bad luck the rest of the day." However, increasingly, the value of pennies to our society has diminished from a useful currency to a burden to consumers. Thesis: Because of this trend, the United States should discontinue the use of pennies in our currency. The value of pennies to Americans is all but lost; they waste time during our transactions, and the cost to produce them has surpassed the actual monetary value of a penny. The best policy for efficiency and economy is to eliminate the American penny. II. The case for discontinuing pennies 1)Pennies have lost their value. a) You cannot buy anything when using pennies alone i. Have you ever used 99 pennies to buy something for $.99 cents? b) People literally throw them away. 2) Pennies waste time. a) It takes at least 30 seconds to find those pennies in the checkout line i. We've all experienced the time spent standing in line waiting for someone to find exact change. 3) Making pennies wastes everyone's money. a) It costs 1.62 cents to make a penny b) 7.4 billion pennies are made every year at the cost of 11.3 million dollars

III. Conclusion

Summary: It is no longer logical to continue making pennies. Final Appeal: as the American debt goes up and up we NEED to cut spending. Let's start with pennies.