{"podcast":{"title":"Freedom Unaffiliated","slug":"freedom-unaffiliated-6377441","podcast_index_feed_id":6377441,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/independence-institute-fu/","website_url":"https://thinkfreedom.org","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/560ed20e-bd0d-4345-a03d-e5dbbf2a1bd7/xXlFVqlrZPsYyna95eX6pwIf.png","author":"Independence Institute","episode_count":194,"summary":"Did you know 46% of the voters in Colorado are unaffiliated? Have you ever wondered why? Hear from the experts at Independence Institute talk about the issues important to Colorado and how to bring some sanity to this increasingly leftist state.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-10T06:20:14.080106+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441"},"episode":{"title":"We'd Be Better Off Penniless","slug":"we-d-be-better-off-penniless","published_at":"2026-03-02T19:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/we-d-be-better-off-penniless","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441","url":"https://thinkfreedom.org","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/7d1a0471-9d83-4991-82cf-0baacd3d5fe2.mp3","summary":"It’s worrisome enough that we have to live with the ever-present threat of nuclear war hanging over our head, the fiery extermination of humanity from global warming, a worldwide depression triggered by the U.S. defaulting on its $39 trillion national debt on its way to $50 trillion, to say nothing of an uptick in falls from Denver rent-a-scooters. On top of all that, yet another crisis has descended upon the American public: Donald Trump has ended the minting of our one-cent coin, affectionately known as the penny. Good grief! Don’t panic, 240 billion of them are still in circulation. Actually, this is long overdue. “Seigniorage” is the revenue a government derives from the difference between the face value of a coin and the cost of its mintage. (Ignore paper currency.) The U.S. Mint stopped making quarters, half dollars, and dollars out of silver when inflation made the metal content more valuable than the face value of the coins. Minting a penny now costs 3.7 cents each. The penny is the only current U.S coin with negative seigniorage. When I was a kid, a penny had some intrinsic value. You could actually buy something with it. Place one in a bubble-gum machine, turn the crank and a candy-covered gum ball would drop out. You could even put a 1-cent stamp on a penny post card. In 1857, the U.S. stopped minting half-cent coins, and the nation survived even though a half penny actually had some purchasing power; you could buy a half-dozen cigars for that. The cumulative inflation rate of 370% over the last 270 years since then has rendered the penny virtually worthless. Today, it isn’t worth the trouble of picking up off the sidewalk (especially if it’s face down; that’s bad luck). Dimes or quarters have replaced pennies in kids’ piggy banks. And credit cards, debit ca…","meta_description":"It’s worrisome enough that we have to live with the ever-present threat of nuclear war hanging over our head, the fiery extermination of humanity from glo…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":360,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/episodes/we-d-be-better-off-penniless/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/freedom-unaffiliated-6377441/we-d-be-better-off-penniless.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}