Killing the Penny

The United States debased its dimes and quarters in 1965 from silver to cheaper, cupro-nickel-clad metals, driving the silver coins out of circulation into hoarding [Gresham’s Law – bad money drives out good money]. Now, instead of just debasing the penny, legislation is just eliminating it. And the trend is not just pennies, but cash in general. Hoard those pennies!

Killing off cash: Could new tech mean the end of money?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21427472

14 Feb 2013

Last week, Canada minted its last penny. Eurozone countries are working to restrict cash payments. Bitcoin is all the rage. Payments start-ups such as Square and iZettle are on a cash-killing mission, while non-profit organizations, governments, the World Bank, small businesses, multinational corporations, app developers, hippies, libertarians, Powerful forces are aligning against cash.

Canada stops distribution of penny coin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21328892

04 Feb 2013

The Canadian penny is being withdrawn from circulation because production costs have exceeded its monetary value. The Royal Canadian Mint will no longer distribute the coin to financial institutions around the country, but it will remain legal tender. Other countries that no longer use the penny include New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. Despite the change on Monday, electronic transactions can still be billed to the nearest cent.

Canada Senate calls for one-cent coin to be scrapped

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11996970

14 Dec 2010

A Canadian Senate committee has urged the government to remove the one-cent coin, or penny, from circulation, saying the cost of producing it exceeds its financial value. "The fact is that the penny is not of much use any more," the Senate Finance Committee chairman said. There are roughly 22bn pennies in circulation or about 600 for each Canadian citizen. It costs Canada an estimated 1.5 cents to produce each penny coin. The committee recommended the government stop production of the penny as soon as possible and that the coins currently in circulation be withdrawn during the next two years. A 2005 study found that getting rid of the penny would save more than C$131m (£83m; US$130m) in the cost of producing, storing and transporting the coins.

Kill-the-penny bill introduced

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/18/news/penny/index.htm

18 Jul 2006

Representative Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona) on Tuesday will unveil details of legislation to eliminate the penny. The move is in reaction to the rising cost of zinc - the penny's main ingredient - which at current prices brings the cost of making the coin to 1.4 cents each. Over half of the U.S. Mint's coin production comes in the form of pennies, which are made of 97.5 percent zinc. The cost of producing the coin has risen from 0.97 cent per penny in 2005 to 1.4 cent per penny. At that rate, the Mint would spend some $44 million producing pennies this year, nearly $14 million more than in 2005. Arizona is the largest copper producing state in the nation. Copper is the main material of the nickel which would benefit by becoming the lowest denomination of currency in circulation.

Crocker's Spite Fence on Nob Hill

The Big Four by Oscar Lewis, 1938, Excerpts

Nob Hill was then a treeless waste, bleak and windswept, but its high eastern shoulder dominated the growing town. In the early '70s, it required vision and faith to foresee the future of the hill. Only a few small houses had yet been built on its crest, and for an excellent reason. San Francisco's uncompromising streets veered up its steepest sides at grades so abrupt that two horses had difficulty pulling a carriage up the sandy inclines. That streetcars would ever scale the height had until very recently been regarded as fantastic, and rumors that Stanford and Hopkins planned to build mansions there aroused reasonable doubts of their sanity. But a local manufacturer of wire rope named Hillidie had for several years been tinkering with a device intended to grip and release a moving cable buried in a trench beneath one of the slanting streets. By 1874 the invention had been proved practical to a degree and the partners' sixty thousand dollars worth of "vertical real estate" promptly became a conservative investment. Comstock millionaires joined those of the railroad, and the late '70s saw a dozen mansions taking shape on the hill.

Not to be outdone, Crocker also acquired a site on the hill, a block west of his partners and on ground a shade more elevated. His property was gradually extended until he possessed, except for one small lot, the entire block surrounded by California, Taylor, Sacramento, and Jones streets. The exception noted was owned by one Yung a local undertaker, who persistently refused to sell, the undertaker continued to refuse successively higher offers for his land. In exasperation Crocker took a drastic step. Dray-loads of lumber one day appeared on the hill and a gang of carpenters set to work surrounding the Yung dwelling with a wall forty feet high. The matter, of course, attracted city-wide attention and throngs daily climber Nob Hill to stare at the "spite fence."

Lost Histories of San Francisco by Hilton Obenzinger, 1993, Fictional History

Gertrude Yung:

That's when the fence went up. One day wagons and carpenters and other workingmen showed up, and they began hammering away until an immense plain wooden fence towered over us from all three sides of Crocker's property. We could only see the sky when we craned our necks out the window and twisted our faces up. We could not believe it, nor could we believe the audacity of the man, the arrogance and lack of sentiment. A man so fabulously rich could not strike a fair bargain, so he resorted to such an incredible, unthinkable act against an entire family. How gloomy our house became, how sad. All we could see out our windows was the blank wood of the rich man's fury. The flowers in our garden all died, and our lawn turned brown, while inside the house everything felt perpetually damp.

They called it the Crocker's "spite fence" or "Crocker's crime," and my father was painted in the press as the common man violated by a bloated bear. The fence became notorious, a Barnum attraction, and people came because they loved to be shocked into loathing the railroad magnate.

Then came the trouble of 1877. There was a depression. Workingmen all over the country were hungry, unemployed, living in the streets. Then came what they call the July days. Soon mobs were burning down every single city in the country. San Francisco didn't escape the turmoil. There were about four days and nights of riots and fires here.

John McCabe:

The depression was something terrible, and it was only made worse by the drought. Thousands and thousands of men were out of work, they were literally starving, even the Comstock Mine was shutting down and the rich was getting ruined. All of these poor souls from the mines and the farms and the small towns kept pouring into San Francisco hoping for some kind of job or at least a handout.

Crocker:

Then comes all that trouble, with crowds of people climbing the hill in order to see Crocker's spite fence, but I just go ahead with life just as I intend to live it, like throwing that big party for our Silver Wedding Anniversary.

Gertrude Yungr:

It was October 29th. Thousands and thousands of this rabble of disgruntled, angry workingmen congregated on the hill, marching past our house. Stanford had employed a hundred men with batons under their coats to mingle with the crowds. Crocker's house had five hundred rifles stacked and soldiers hidden in his hallway, just in case. We were terribly frightened. Kearney demanded that Crocker tear down the fence by Thanksgiving Day or he and the workingmen would tear it down for him. After a while, the demonstration broke up, the thousands of men began stampeding down California Street and at the bottom of the hill the agitators dissolved into the night.

Dennis Kearney never did follow through with his threat to tear down the fence. The Kearney excitement passed, and he and his hoodlums went on to bigger and better things.

But fate has a way of turning everything upside down. When the 1906 earthquake destroyed the city, Crocker's mansion went up in flames. Now I understand that the Crocker family has donated all their property to the Episcopal Church in order for them to build their cathedral. The Episcopalians intend to call it Grace Cathedral.

The Octopus by Frank Norris, 1901, Excerpts

"They own us, these task-masters of ours; they own our homes, they own our legislatures. We cannot escape from them. There is no redress. We are told we can defeat them by the ballot-box. They own the ballot-box. We are told that we must look to the courts for redress; they own the courts. They swindle a nation of a hundred million and call it Financiering; they levy blackmail and call it Commerce; they corrupt a legislature and call it Politics; they bribe a judge and call it Law; they hire blacklegs to carry out their plans and call it Organization; they prostitute the honor of a State and call it Competition."

"Freedom is not given to any who ask; Liberty is not born of the gods. She is a child of the People, born in the very height and heat of battle, born from death, stained with blood, grimed with powder. And she grows to be not a goddess, but a Fury, a fearful figure, slaying friend and foe alike, raging, insatiable, merciless, the Red Terror."

Rape of Syria

Gang Rape

Syria conflict causing 'staggering' humanitarian crisis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21007519

14 Jan 2013

With more then 600,000 Syrians having fled the country, the International Rescue Committee is calling on the outside world to step up its response. The US-based group describes the level of rape and sexual violence occurring in the conflict as "horrific".

Women and girls under attack

http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/IRCReportMidEast20130114.pdf

Jan 2013

After decades of working in war and disaster zones, the IRC knows that women and girls suffer physical and sexual violence in every conflict. Syria is no exception. Rape is a significant and disturbing feature of the Syrian civil war. In the course of three IRC assessments in Lebanon and Jordan, sexual violence was consistently identified by Syrian women, men and community leaders as a primary reason their families fled the country. “We surrendered to the reality of rape,” said a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, remarking on the severity of rape in this crisis.

Many women and girls relayed accounts of being attacked in public or in their homes, primarily by armed men. These rapes, sometimes by multiple perpetrators, often occur in front of family members. The IRC was told of attacks in which women and young girls were kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. Roadblocks, prolific throughout Syria, have become especially perilous for women and girls. The IRC’s women’s protection team in Lebanon was told of a young girl who was gang-raped and forced to stagger home naked—heightening her shame in a society where modesty is so valued.

Because of the stigma and social norms around the “dishonor” that rape brings to women and girls and their families, Syrian survivors rarely report sexual violence. Many of those interviewed by the IRC said women and girl survivors also fear retribution by assailants. Others are afraid of being killed by family members if they report incidents, since a raped woman or girl is thought to bring shame to a family.

The fear of rape is so significant that many families are marrying off their daughters to “protect” them from rape. Others revert to early marriage if their daughters have been sexually assaulted “to safeguard their honor.” In one extreme case, the IRC was told of a father who shot his daughter when an armed group approached to prevent the “disgrace” of her being raped.

Syrian Fertility Goddess

The 'Anti-Starbucks' Starbucks

Coffee Series

The 'Anti-Starbucks' Starbucks by Jim Hightower

http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/the-anti-starbucks-starbucks.html

12 Aug 2009

With Starbucks' sales declining as more and more caffeine consumers reject the cookie-cutter corporate climate that the chain epitomizes, it is launching a new line of stores that disappears its name. There's no corporate signage on the new buildings, no logo stamped on every product inside and none of the generically bland ambience that makes one Starbucks just like the other 16,000 in the chain.

Instead, the new shops strive to be the anti-Starbucks, dressing up as funky neighborhood coffeehouses with a cool, local vibe. A sort of rustic, thrift-shop decor screens the corporate presence, and such additions as live music and poetry readings are meant to lend an aura of down-home authenticity.

The first of these faux local outlets opened last month in Seattle under the nom de commerce of "15th Avenue Coffee and Tea," taken from the name of its neighborhood. Future stores are also expected to appropriate the names of their neighborhoods all across the country in a corporate effort to convey a sense of belonging. The idea, as explained by the chain's senior vice president of global design, is to give each of the coffeehouses "a community personality."

What we have here, of course, is a willful attempt to commit consumer fraud. But it's such a goofy fraud that it's doomed to be an embarrassing failure. Corporate chains can't do "community," can't do "funky," can't do "cool," can't do "independent" — because they're not. They're not any of those things. Starbucks is what it is. The corporate nature will always come out.

Starbucks History

Coffee Series

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast, 1999, Excerpts

Many of the disaffected baby boomers had hitchhiked through Europe or were stationed there while serving in the military, and they had discovered the joys of espresso, fine foods, specialty coffee shops, and the cafe. With heightened international tastes, they were also searching for community, for grassroots verities. They found them in aromatic fresh-roasted whole beans, tumbling from small roasters. Many had been directly inspired by a pilgrimage to Berkeley to inhale the atmosphere at Peet’s.

Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl started a small, quality roasting business in Seattle. With a bare-breasted, twin-tailed mermaid as a logo, Starbucks opened on March 30, 1971, and was an immediate hit, selling primarily whole beans and supplies.

By 1980 the specialty coffee was entrenched in the big cities on the East and West coasts of the United States and reaching further into the heartland. Specialty coffee proved to be the perfect drink for the go-go 1980s, which witnessed the triumph of yuppies – young urban professionals – willing to pay top dollar for life’s luxuries.

In March 1987, Howard Schultz bought Starbucks which lost $330,000 in 1987. It appeared that another business cycle was beginning. Just as the traditional coffee industry had gone through fragmented growth and merger, the specialty coffee movement would also consolidate. In the process, would it also lose its soul?

In 1990 the company turned the corner, building a new roasting plant and showing a small profit. Shultz began to hire MBAs and corporate executives with experience running chain franchises, creating complex computer systems, and training employees nationwide to deliver standardized consumer goods. He recruited many of them in the early 1990s from fast-food companies such as KFC, Wendy’s McDonald’s, Burger King, Pepsi, and Taco Bell, and they brought professional management to the preexisting coffee idealism – though the two did not always coexist comfortably. By the end of 1991, there were just over one hundred stores with $57 million in sales, and Schultz was preparing to take Starbucks public in order to finance even more rapid expansion. On June 26, 1992, Starbucks launched its initial public offering [IPO], going public at $17 a share with a market capitalization of $273 million. Howard Schultz had paid less than $4 million for the company only five years earlier. Within three months, the stock price had reached $33, making Starbucks worth $420 million.

A darker aspect to this coffee surge was that many yuppies were recovering cocaine addicts by the early 1990s, and they turned to maximum-strength coffee as an alternative recreational drug that they could take along with their antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other prescriptions. These aging baby boomers had come full circle, back to the drink of their parents, after a childhood of Cokes and coming-of-age with cocaine. The television show “Frasier” placed the pretentious psychologist in Seattle, where he and his friends drink cappuccinos at the Cafe Nervosa.

The chain paid slightly above minimum wage – better than most fast-food companies – and provided an innovative benefits package that included part-time employees who worked twenty hours a week or more. As a result, employee turnover at Starbucks was only 60 percent a year, compared to the industry standard of 200 percent of more.

In 1989 the sociologist Ray Oldenburg published The Great, Good Place, a lament over the passing of community meeting places like the old country store of soda fountain. Schultz loved the book and adopted Oldenburg’s academic term, christening Starbucks as a “third place” beyond home or work, “an extension of people’s front porch,” where people could gather informally. Modern coffeehouses such as Starbucks do arguably provide a much-needed space for friends and strangers to meet, especially as our cultural ethos becomes more paranoid and fragmented.

Shultz, however, was not in business primarily to provide community. He was in it to win. Starbucks mounted a blitzkrieg across the country following the initial public offering, growing to 165 stores in 1992, 272 by 1993, and 425 in 1994. By mid-decade, the company was opening an average of a store every business day, targeting appropriate locations by studying the demographics of mail-order customers. Though Schultz could have quadrupled his rate of expansion by franchising Starbucks, he chose to open only company-owned stores, except in airports or other odd spots the demanded licensure. This way he could maintain strict control over quality and training.

Starbucks became a household word without mounting a national advertising campaign. Indeed, the company spent less than $10 million on advertising in its first twenty–five years. It was a veritable “word-of-mouth wonder,” as a stunned Advertising Age reporter put it.

Starbuck’s overwhelming success, with its aggressive tactics, inevitably brought criticism along with adulation. Specialty competitors complained that Starbucks used predatory retail tactics, frequently opening outlets directly across the street from their stores. Defensive Starbucks executives denied they were targeting competitors.