Many of our parents remember when a penny could buy a piece of candy. At the Federal Reserve's creation in 1913, a penny could buy you 2/3 of a pound of potatoes. Three pennies could buy you a pound of flour. Nine pennies could buy you a quart of milk. What can nine pennies buy today? Nothing, really. Inflation has so reduced the purchasing power of the dollar that the penny is useless for commerce. Nobody wants to use them and nobody wants to accept them. It's not uncommon to see a trail of pennies leading out of a store, as some customer would rather drop them on the ground than put them in his pocket.

It's no wonder, then, that retailers are beginning to do away with the penny. Whether it's small convenience stores like my brother's store Mission Market, or the Department of Defense's PXes on overseas military bases, the hassle and cost of purchasing, shipping, and storing pennies that will only be thrown away after being given as change is too much for some businesses to tolerate. Don't forget that businesses have to bear the cost of ordering coins from the bank, sorting coins from cash registers at the end of each shift, and rolling and returning any excess coins to the bank. The time it takes to do all of that is more expensive than the value of the pennies. Those additional costs are an imposition to businesses.