It's the year 2035. A penny runs by being chased by multiple government agents who wish to cause harm to the penny by melting it down or destroying it. This has become a common sight these past few months as the effort to round up pennies to get them out of circulation has increased.

Back in 2025, President Donald Trump decided to halt the production of pennies because they cost 3 cents per penny to make. The US Treasury agreed to stop making pennies starting in 2026.

Due to this decision, many products in the USA became even more expensive to buy. This is because many product prices had to be rounded up to the nearest 5 cents legally. That might not seem so bad, but it adds up. Also, many stores and manufacturers used the opportunity to raise their prices ahead of time by much more than just to the nearest 5 cents because of capitalist greed.

As the prices rose, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose as well. That, in turn, triggered further rises in many public and private sector costs that are tied formally or informally to the CPI.

A lot of computer cash registers and other automated equipment had to be reprogrammed too. It was quite inconvenient. Some equipment couldn't be reprogrammed properly, so it had to be replaced with newer equipment, which ended up costing businesses quite a bit of money.

We also lost our beloved 99 cents AriZona iced tea as well as those fun souvenir penny press machines. It was a disappointing loss for the United States of America, to say the least.

Even sadder still, halting the production of pennies didn't save the government any money. Without pennies, they had to make many more nickels. Making nickels costs more than double what they are worth. They also cost more to make than pennies. Meaning, that the mint is still making coins at a loss, and it actually costs the government more money now.

Then, when it came to attempting to take the more than 200 billion pennies out of circulation, the government needed an additional place to store the pennies because the large amount overwhelmed their preexisting storage facilities. This ended up costing the government even more money.

In the end, this decision helped absolutely nobody. If they wanted to save money, a smarter idea might have been considering using different metal content instead, but it’s too late now.

As you reminisce about the past 10 years, the panicking penny runs up to you.

“Please, you have to help me! They are going to kill me! The penny is going to go extinct!”