"Hot damn I have beaten Bernanke;
I beat Ben Bernanke today."
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It's a lovely morning, cool, light overcast, pleasant breeze. So I assigned myself to dawn patrol, just for the delight of being out in the country side. On my way back to Rally Point J I stopped to make a small purchase. On arrival here I tossed the change on the table, one nickel, four pennies. Then, a fresh cup of coffee at hand, i examined the coins of the realm. The nickel automatically went to the nickel jug, repository of coins worth the government advertised price, or nearly so.
Leaving four pennies on which I beat the odds. Three of them were pre-1982, mostly copper, hence worth 2.2 cents each measured against the fraudulent zincs foisted on us early in the reign of the Keynesian Ronald Reagan.
The commodity value bonus on the $1.78 purchase was thus 3.6 cents (.012x3) or slightly more than 2 per cent. And before you start laughing at me, let me state as a fact that the 2 per cent is 20 times greater in one day than Ben is paying for a full year on my savings account. (Yes, Ben. He's just using my bank as a middle man.)
The zinc went into a larger container with dimes and quarters, The Cup of Despair. Periodically it is emptied into a bank account, my Certificate of Concession. (Nominal return is as low as 1/10 of 1 per cent, translating to a loss of about 1.9 per cent per year in purchasing power -- even accepting the official lies about the inflation rate.)
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Sorting pennies is not something about which a guy should get obsessive, but it's one manner of idling away a minute or two when there's nothing good on the internet. And, over time, it gives you a gloatable feeling of investment wisdom.
Why, just last week I weighed my stash of copper pennies and nickels and discovered I own coinage containing more than eleven pounds of copper. Even in the temporarily depressed metal market that amounts to a whopping $35. Next time I see a cute babe at the end of the bar I'm gonna sidle up and ask her what color car she wants.
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1 comment:
Beats pounds of devaluated Pounds, dunnit?
BTW, I read James Joyce and was confused until I was informed that LSd in the England of the time meant "Pounds, Shillings and Pence" commonly written as L, S, and d.
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