In a video chat yesterday, President Obama shared some hard truths about the penny when someone asked him why cents were still in circulation:

"I gotta tell you ... I don't know," Obama replied. "It's one of those things where I think people get attached emotionally to the way things have been ... We remember our piggy banks and counting up all our pennies and then taking them in and getting a dollar bill or a couple dollars from them, and maybe that's the reason why people haven't gotten around to it."...He went on to call the penny "a good metaphor for some of the larger problems that we've got," pointing to the fact that the government has problems getting "rid of things that don't work so that we can then invest in the things that do."

Yeah, he's right. Dammit, if only someone in government had the power to force the penny out of circulation...oh, wait, I forgot. He's the president of the motherfucking United States. Maybe he ought to take the lead on this?