DEAD COIN WALKING/CIRCULATING: The penny is dead. The last was stamped out this month, leaving us with a measly 300 billion still in circulation, waiting to be lost to “erosion” (U.S. Mint term).

Unless a huge number of people buy thoughts, i.e. a penny for your thoughts, erosion will take decades on end – or in the technical vernacular of the mint, “a really long time.”