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Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With the penny going away, what should you do with the ones in your coin jar?
Learn to love your coins. That's the message from Kevin McColly, CEO of Coinstar, the company behind those coin-cashing machines you see in supermarkets. American consumers made only 16% of their payments in cash in 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. A 2022 Pew survey found that two-fifths of consumers never use cash at all. President Donald Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies because their production cost exceeds their value. (Intriguingly, the same is true of nickels.) Many Americans regard both nickels and pennies as more nuisance than currency. The typical household is sitting on $60 to $90 in neglected coins, enough to fill one or two pint-size beer mugs, according to the Federal Reserve. Americans throw away millions of dollars in coins every year, literally treating them like trash. Why do we treat coins like trash? McColly thinks we should change the way we think about coins. To state the obvious, coins are worth money. Coinstar converts $3 billion in coins into spendable cash every year, one coin jar at a time. The average jar yields $58 in buying power. Most of us don't realize how much our coins are worth. Thus, a trip to a coin-exchange kiosk (or a bank, or credit union) can yield a pleasant surprise. 'People underestimate the value of their jar by about half,' McColly said. 'It's a wonderfully pleasurable experience. People have this sensation of found money.' Certain groups of Americans – lower-income households, and those over 55 – still use plenty of cash, the Fed found, along with people who prefer to shop in person. As for the rest of us, McColly thinks it is time for a paradigm shift. Don't think of your coins as clutter. Think of them as recyclables. 'They're metal,' he said, in case we needed a reminder. 'And they have a long and useful life.' The Treasury still mints more than 5 billion coins a year, although the figure is dropping, according to the journal CoinNews. 'Those are just natural resources coming out of the Earth,' McColly said: Copper-plated zinc for pennies, copper-nickel alloys for nickels, dimes and quarters. His point: If Americans got serious about gathering up their idle coins and 'recycling' them into the monetary system, the Mint wouldn't have to make so many new ones. Granted, McColly has a vested interest. His company collects a small cut of the coins that consumers deposit. 'You can go to your own bank or credit union and not pay any fee,' said Kimberly Palmer, personal finance expert at NerdWallet. Both NerdWallet and Bankrate offer tip sheets on exchanging coins for cash. Most banks will take an account holder's coins for free, Bankrate reports, but not all, and you may need to roll the coins yourself. 'I think that a lot of people probably do have hidden coins stashed around their home, and it can be worth their time to go and collect them,' Palmer said. McColly notes that Coinstar generally waives its fee if the depositor chooses to trade in coins for a retail gift card, rather than cash. He is not alone in forecasting a future for the penny, the nickel, and their more profitable kin. 'We've been much slower than parts of Europe and Asia to adopt mobile payments and contactless credit cards,' said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. The pandemic delivered a timely reminder of how much we still rely on cash: Consumers and business owners sat on their coins amid a global shutdown, seeding an actual coin shortage. 'It kind of froze the whole system,' Rossman said. While Trump has only instructed the Mint to stop making pennies, some voices have urged America to stop using them. The Common Cents Act, introduced on April 30 by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, would round cash transactions to the nearest five cents. 'The penny is outdated and inefficient and no longer serves the needs of our economy,' said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Democrat. But the bill could push the nation down a slippery slope. 'So, You Want to Get Rid of the Penny,' the New York Times mused in a recent headline. 'Do You Have a Plan for the Nickel?' As it turns out, nixing the penny creates new problems. If America rids itself of pennies, the Times reported, the nation will soon find itself flooded with nickels. The government loses nearly three cents on every penny it mints. On a nickel, it loses nearly nine cents. More nickels would mean steeper losses. More: Fort Smith's Creekmore Park Pool opens for 2025 summer season on May 24 America could kill both the penny and the nickel, the two money-losers on its roster of coins. But without pennies or nickels, how would a consumer pay a 15-cent tab? You could round every price to the nearest 10 cents, taking the Common Cents Act a step further. But then, what becomes of the quarter? And so on. Experts say it's highly unlikely. You may have seen one of many headlines blasted online lately about valuable pennies in circulation, "Lincoln Wheat Penny Worth $124M You Could Have at Home" reads one, but the reality is most pennies are worth one cent or possibly a bit more. Reality does not meet the hype, according to one expert. More: From Charleston to chutes: Sosebee brings laughs, safety to Old Fort Days "There are million-dollar pennies, but there are no $100 million pennies," said Donn Pearlman, spokesman for the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), a nonprofit organization composed of many of the nation's rare coin experts. "Only a few Lincoln cents dated 1909 to 1958 with the wheat stalks design on the back ("wheat pennies") have sold for $1 million or more." The most valuable U.S. coin ever, a $20 gold piece, a 1933 "Double Eagle" coin, sold for $18.9 million at auction in 2021. The most valuable pennies, which are rare but possibly still in circulation, are 1943 copper Lincoln wheat pennies, a few of which were produced accidentally as the U.S. mints were supposed to use zinc to save copper for the World War II effort, said John Feigenbaum, publisher of rare coin price guide Greysheet. In rare cases, some 1943 pennies have sold for $1 million, while one went for more than $200,000 at an auction in 2019. Depending on their condition, those 1943 Lincoln wheat pennies would be worth at most between $100,000 and $250,000, Feigenbaum told USA TODAY. But the likelihood of having a near-priceless penny is similar to "saying your lottery ticket might be worth $100,000. Of course, anything is possible, right? But not likely," said Feigenbaum, who is also the PNG's executive director. So-called "wheat pennies" get their name from the back of the coin having stalks of wheat encircling the "One Cent" text. They were produced from 1909 to 1958. After that, the wheat stalks were shorn and pennies began displaying an engraving of the Lincoln Memorial. Most Lincoln wheat pennies are not super-valuable and are worth just a few cents more than one cent. However, some may escalate into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the condition and when minted. Certain vintages, especially with minting errors, may be worth thousands. You can see the NGC price guide here. But headlines about super-valuable "Lincoln wheat pennies" stretch the imagination. Most likely, the headlines are created by artificial intelligence to drive traffic to a website, Feigenbaum said. "These coins are improbably in people's change," he said. Still, all the online-stirred interest has resulted in "coin shops being inundated with these folks who believe they have something rare, but they don't," according to Feigenbaum. Increased interest in coins has led to overvalued coins being sold on eBay and Etsy, plus there are counterfeit Lincoln wheat pennies made in China being hawked. "If I've seen these coins ... somebody is every now and again being taken advantage of," Feigenbaum said. Even though the most valuable coins are usually in collections and have very publicly been "sold and resold," Feigenbaum said, sometimes people may inherit a cache of well-preserved coins or purchase some at an estate sale. Read up on your coins. While there are apps you can use to check on your coins, they aren't always accurate. But you can check the value of coins in "The 2026 Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins," available in book stores and online on and Barnes and Noble. "It answers all kinds of questions, like, 'Oh, if I'm thinking about collecting Lincoln cents, what can I expect to pay?" said Feigenbaum, one of the book's editors. "You'll see in that book there's no million-dollar cents." Go get your coins graded. You can have your coins authenticated at their value, just as jewelry is, from several services, including CAC, Numismatic Guaranty Company, and Professional Coin Grading Service. Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY's Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: With the penny going away how to know if you have one that's valuable Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Mint
19-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
De-escalation and new normals: Does today's churn have a limit?
The month of April brought with it unilateral actions, escalations and (depending on your point of view) provocations. This has been true across the world in areas as varied as trade, terrorism and security. Fortunately, this has been followed by de-escalation and 'climb-downs' in many instances. But the process has left the door open for the setting of 'new normals' that just some time ago may have been unthinkable. The term 'new normal' grew fashionable as a consequence of the covid pandemic. Looking ahead at that time, a Pew Survey showed that a plurality of experts believed that the pandemic would: 1) worsen inequality; 2) increase the influence and power of big tech firms; 3) multiply the spread of misinformation; and 4) fan the flames of authoritarianism. Perhaps an overall environment favouring new normals was born then. Also Read: Nitin Pai: Operation Sindoor sets a new normal for India's strategy Take the case of international trade. President Donald Trump, representing that beacon of free trade that hitherto was America, imposed wide and deep tariffs of such a magnitude that the world was taken by shock. He imposed tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, upending convention. He then singled out China for punitive tariffs of 125%. The New York Times carried a copy of a customs bill for a batch of T-shirts shipped from China to the US in April that amounted to a total tariff of 185%. This figure is made up of a 125% 'reciprocal tariff,' a 20% fentanyl-related punitive tariff, a 7.5% carry-over Section 301 tariff from Trump's first term, and a 32% base tariff rate on garments. That was in April. In May, after secret talks in Geneva, the 125% tariff rate was dropped to 10%, resulting in a headline 30% tariff rate for China (with the 20% fentanyl tariff still in place). The same package of T-shirts would now attract a total tariff of 69.5%. The 115-percentage-point 'climb-down' is significant, but the rates that remain would still have been unimaginable even a few weeks ago. This new normal for everyday items is sure to stoke US inflation if tariffs aren't cut further. But given the way it happened, the market reaction to the 30% China rate is less severe than if this rate had been proposed in the first place. The S&P 500 equity index is flat on the year and almost back to its level on the day of Trump's inauguration. Also Read: Tariff whiplash: The US truce with China offers hollow relief Tariff wars started by the US will make way for bilateral trade agreements (BTAs). Inevitably, BTAs will provoke confrontation between peers, as the US-UK trade framework has already done with China. This was precisely the logic of creating a multilateral trade order under the World Trade Organization (WTO). The global trade order under the WTO that has served the world remarkably well for decades now seems at risk of dying by a thousand BTA cuts. Closer home, the conflict between India and Pakistan first escalated and then de-escalated quickly. India responded to the April terrorist attack in Pahalgam in Kashmir that killed unarmed tourists by using missiles to precisely strike terrorist bases in Pakistan. Pakistan escalated this into a military conflict with drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missiles targeted at Indian military installations. In response, India struck Pakistan's air defence system and airfields deep within Pakistan. And then it ended. Abruptly. No one seems to be sure of exactly why. While de-escalation has happened and the ceasefire has held, it is unclear whether one side or both had to climb down. Also Read: Nitin Pai: Operation Sindoor leaves India better placed for the next round Regardless, the short conflict has left us with a new set of benchmarks that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid out: 1) That India will strike terrorists and their sponsors even if they are deep inside Pakistan; 2) India would carry these actions out on its terms; and 3) India would not be cowed down by 'nuclear blackmail." Without the provocation by terrorists in April and the subsequent action, this 'new normal' would have been considered extremely unlikely. President's Trump's adversarial trade position against China, his lack of interest in Europe as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and his wooing of West Asia move the centre of gravity squarely to Asia. One direct consequence is that several more countries may become nuclear-capable in the coming years. This week, in another first, the American president met the former Al Qaeda-linked President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and promised to lift sanctions on his country, although a $10 million US bounty on his head was removed only in December. Even more than multi-billion-dollar deals with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, the re-establishment of a Syrian link is significant, particularly if more Arab countries join the Abraham Accords with Israel. Also Read: The time is right for a reset of India's trade ties with China This short cycle of escalation, de-escalation and setting of new benchmarks over the past month or so is greatly aided by a highly polarized global social media where facts and pseudo-facts are indistinguishable. Many have called this a 'flurry of great distraction" amid a great churn. A society needs to marinate in change if it is to accept it. Of course, the occasional revolution can happen. But if a society faces frequent revolutions, then uncertainty and angst could cause real dislocation. America modelling this behaviour could encourage other countries to follow. P.S: 'The Asuras (demons) and Devas (divinities) are churning the ocean of milk. Will they extract Amrit (nectar) or Halahala (poison)?"—Paraphrased from the Shrimad Bhagavatam, Chapters 12-18. The author is chairman, InKlude Labs. Read Narayan's Mint columns at
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Health
- Forbes
Could AI Mitigate Mental Health Concerns For Teen Social Media Use?
ANKARA, TURKIYE - MARCH 25: In this photo illustration, Meta logo is being displayed on a mobile ... More phone screen in Ankara, Turkiye on March 25, 2025. (Photo by Ismail Aslandag/Anadolu via Getty Images) Meta recently announced it will be using artificial intelligence to detect teen accounts on Instagram, identify whether they are lying about their age and then switch their accounts from standard to teen accounts. AI will use engagement data as well as signals for users that are under the age of 18 to switch their account settings to those of teens. Instagram accounts of teens are more restrictive; they are private, strangers cannot send them messages and the content that they have access to is limited. This could have very positive effects on teen mental health and reduce the risks of cyberbullying which has detrimentally affected mental health. A 2019 UK Millennium Cohort Study found increased social media use to be associated with higher levels of cyberbullying, poor sleep, low self-esteem and depressive symptoms. But are the AI changes enough to halt the mental health crisis amongst teens? A recent Pew Survey found that nearly half (48%) of teens say that social media has a negative effect on people their age, but only 14% think it negatively affects them personally. In addition, teens are spending enormous amounts of time online and in front of screens, with 90% of teens reporting being online for an average of nine hours per day, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. A major issue with social media, including Instagram, is the way the platforms use likes, notifications and comments in their algorithms to perpetuate addictive and compulsive behaviors in youth. This invariably leads to teens constantly checking their screens and potentially seeking validation from peers and friends. There is also a growing body of evidence that is demonstrating physical changes in the teen brain with respect to increased social media use. Distinct changes have been shown in teens who frequently use social media in the amygdala, which is responsible for emotional learning as well as the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that moderates social behavior and impulse control. The more teens are on screens and social media platforms, the more sensitive these areas of the brain can become with respect to social rewards and punishments. Although Meta has made a laudable step in regulating social media for teens, its use of AI does not address the addictive or compulsive component of social media that could have devastating effects on the developing brain. Although likes and comments can be manually turned off, not all parents and teens opt for that feature when using social media. Solving the mental health crisis as it pertains to teen social media use will require much more than AI, although AI can certainly help mitigate some of the harm that repeated use has cost our youth. Parents and children must work together to use social media most optimally. Online platforms are not going away, and many teens find them useful to connect with friends and express themselves. Parents can play an important role by having transparent conversations with their kids about social media use, and taking social media breaks such as at dinner when social media use could be prohibited. Finally, parents should be pro-active in assessing whether the mental health of their children is deteriorating, such as changes in mood or unexplained poor performance in school. Addressing social media use in teens will take a village, and AI could be part of but not the whole solution.
