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Nickel-and-Diming
Apr. 25th, 2012 05:41 pmIt's trendy again for charities to send out junk mail with coins taped to it and a plea to "return these 15 cents, plus a generous contribution, and 15 cents a day will feed a child in Africa!" (I am using the New York Times style section definition of "trendy," where "happened to me twice this week" = trend piece.) The thinking here is that I will feel obligated by their gift to me to give them a gift back, when in fact I am horrified that they seem to have misunderstood the "redistribution of wealth" concept.*
I do believe in food aid; you can argue that it wrecks local economies, but it is not worth somebody starving to death to start a business. Not worth it. I'm inclined to direct my money toward sewage systems instead, because they're less glamorous than wells and food and therefore less funded, but feed a starving person on 15 cents a day? Yes. Let's do that.
But when I get coins through the mail, I am not thinking "starving people, I must help them." I don't even read the letters. I think:
1. Wonder how many ounces this letter is. Since there's a nonprofit stamp on it, I can't find a number to see how much the postage was. Should I get out my scientific scales? Are nonprofits differently charged for postage by the post office? Is this nonprofit charged at the theoretical nonprofit rate, or at the rate of a bulk mailer? Is there a standard rate for bulk mailers, or are these negotiated individually, and if so, by whom?
2. I think it's illegal to throw away money. I think that's a form of defacing the currency. For instance, you can't melt down pennies for copper, legally. Not sure how anybody feels about people who stick coins on their walls/tables/floors for decoration. Probably illegal. In the same category as jaywalking. This illustrates why mandatory sentencing is a blight on our society. You have to have a reasonable community of people making judgments on what is and isn't reasonable behavior. Not that mandatory sentencing applies to tossing out coins, I don't think. It would be funny if there were a mandatory fine. Can the same coin be defaced twice, is an interesting question, for instance if I ripped out a penny-covered floor and tossed it out. I seem to recall that anything under $25 is not stealing, although this is a different category of the criminal code. One good thing that's come out of the Trayvon Martin case is that I now understand the legal definition of second-degree murder, which I'd never heard expressed clearly.
In any case, I've got a nice pile of nickles on my counter. And a dime, which is a much better coin to send through the mail, because two nickles probably weigh 10 grams and one dime weighs 2.268. And saving on postage matters if you're trying to make the point that you could use just 15 cents to save the life of a starving person.
* What are we going to do with a bunch of lupins?
I do believe in food aid; you can argue that it wrecks local economies, but it is not worth somebody starving to death to start a business. Not worth it. I'm inclined to direct my money toward sewage systems instead, because they're less glamorous than wells and food and therefore less funded, but feed a starving person on 15 cents a day? Yes. Let's do that.
But when I get coins through the mail, I am not thinking "starving people, I must help them." I don't even read the letters. I think:
1. Wonder how many ounces this letter is. Since there's a nonprofit stamp on it, I can't find a number to see how much the postage was. Should I get out my scientific scales? Are nonprofits differently charged for postage by the post office? Is this nonprofit charged at the theoretical nonprofit rate, or at the rate of a bulk mailer? Is there a standard rate for bulk mailers, or are these negotiated individually, and if so, by whom?
2. I think it's illegal to throw away money. I think that's a form of defacing the currency. For instance, you can't melt down pennies for copper, legally. Not sure how anybody feels about people who stick coins on their walls/tables/floors for decoration. Probably illegal. In the same category as jaywalking. This illustrates why mandatory sentencing is a blight on our society. You have to have a reasonable community of people making judgments on what is and isn't reasonable behavior. Not that mandatory sentencing applies to tossing out coins, I don't think. It would be funny if there were a mandatory fine. Can the same coin be defaced twice, is an interesting question, for instance if I ripped out a penny-covered floor and tossed it out. I seem to recall that anything under $25 is not stealing, although this is a different category of the criminal code. One good thing that's come out of the Trayvon Martin case is that I now understand the legal definition of second-degree murder, which I'd never heard expressed clearly.
In any case, I've got a nice pile of nickles on my counter. And a dime, which is a much better coin to send through the mail, because two nickles probably weigh 10 grams and one dime weighs 2.268. And saving on postage matters if you're trying to make the point that you could use just 15 cents to save the life of a starving person.
* What are we going to do with a bunch of lupins?
