There is something almost absurd about a government minting money at a loss. A coin—the most basic unit—becomes instead a confession, not just of inefficiency, but of a deeper fracture between what money is supposed to represent and what it has become. The American penny collapsed under that weight—3.69 cents for every penny minted. Thus, it cost multiples of its face value to produce—a financial contradiction sustained for years out of habit and political inertia. Now the nickel stands in the same position, costing far more to mint than it is worth. This is not a marginal accounting problem