Cent again? How about dollar?

The end of the cent in Canada has been delayed from sometime in the autumn to Feb. 4, 2013, the Canadian government has announced.

I happened to see an online newsitem on National Post.com.

Reason for the delay is Canadian businesses don’t want to be trying to introduce the new system of rounding on cash transactions as the annual holiday buying season kicks in.

Production of the denomination ceased in May.

Even with the delay, Canada’s decision-making and implementation process clocks in at less than a year, lightning fast compared to that in the United States.

It might be said that the United States has been facing the question of the high cost of cent production (and nickels, too) since 2006, but instead of coming to a decision to abolish one or both denominations, or change compositions and/or sizes of the coins, all the Treasury has managed to accomplish is impose a ban on the melting or export of the two coins.

This buys time.

When the U.S. Mint delivers its report on the matter to Congress next year, will any actions be undertaken, or will the inertia of recent years simply be too strong to break?

In the great scheme of things, coinage matters are way down the list of priorities, but six years of deliberation time through administrations of both political parties now will culminate in the upcoming Mint report.

Will it be worth the wait?

Or will we do what we seem to always do? Change the subject to the dollar coin.

Hey, that’s it. How about a new dollar coin that people will use?

Yeah, right.