Several weeks ago the US Treasury made a disturbing announcement that shook the nation's financial centers to their very core. The penny has become a financial albatross around the country's neck.

The penny now costs 1.23 cents to make. It is, in short, a losing proposition.

Kevin Federline -- in yet another sign that neither he nor any of us have a firm handle on his celebrity -- embarked on a pro-penny campaign. Appearing in New York with a truck covered in pennies, he declared, "I feel good about the penny." He did not elaborate, leaving himself open to number of jokes about his relative worth.

In the end, it turned out this publicity whoring was nothing more than publicity whoring. Virgin Mobile was looking to promote a new deal wherein thumb-happy cell phone users buy one thousand text messages up front. The cost: $10, or a cent a pop. To further blur the purpose of the campaign, the trucks were collecting pennies for various youth charities as well as save-the-penny petition signatures. Zinc-industry shill and lobbying tool Americans for Common Cents partnered with Virgin on the venture.

Trying to link this promotion to the idea of saving the penny is as misguided as bringing in Mr. Federline as the project's spokesman. Paying for 1000 text messages at once renders the argument that there are still some things a penny can buy useless. Even if one can accept the ludicrous idea that anyone is buying their text messages in cash, a ten-dollar bill, not a thousand pennies, will be the denomination of choice.

More than anything, this shallow show of support highlights the lack of argument for keeping the penny.

Even leaving aside the nearly overwhelming consideration of the cost of the penny (for perhaps, some day, the US dollar will regain its former glory and will once again be able to buy 101 pennies) there are good reasons to ditch the one-cent piece. Coinage is heavy and pennies are the most likely piece of change to be given in a cash sale. Sorting through one's pockets for exact change is not common practice. Most of us have more pennies coming in than going out. Perhaps we roll them to get them turned into coins or bills we do like. Why not eliminate that step and just cut to a life with more dimes.

The penny has always had the least dignified coin name. While nickel, dime, and (everyone's favorite) quarter all end with a grown-up punch, penny crawls to a diminutive, E-sound finish.

Abandoning the penny would not even step on any presidential toes. Abraham Lincoln's honor is already taken care of with the five-dollar bill.

A penny-less system would be a glorious one relying on the simplest mathematical operation of all: rounding. We already round our cents all the time. Gas outlets continue to think they can trick us by listing their prices out to tenths of a cent, but when we pay, the cost is simply rounded to the nearest cent. Sales taxes also call for a good deal of cent rounding. After some initial hesitancy, the United States could easily upgrade to a five-cent rounding system and pull the penny from circulation. Penny candy could live on, if some sentimental shopkeep liked. Customers would simply be advised to buy at least five pieces if they wanted to get their nickel's worth. (Savvy shoppers could and would try to constantly end up on the inside of the rounding. Always buying, say, six pieces of penny candy with their nickel, constantly wary of buying eight. Most folks would probably accept that, at the end of their change spending days, rounding is a wash, but for those who saw the chance to scam the world, it would make a delightful game out of shopping.)

Nostalgia seems the only reason to cling to the penny. We've all known about inflation since the mint started running. Aren't we prepared for the idea that some of the denominations we've chosen will become useless? What but a personal fondness for the useless coin would keep us from supporting Congressman Jim Kolbe's Legal Tender Modernization Act?

There's no reason to stop there, either. If people are used to having four major coins, why not take advantage of the opening the penny leaves and yank one-dollar bills from the market, replacing them with more shiny Sacagaweas? To keep the novelty of having one really valuable coin one sometimes randomly finds oneself with, the Treasury could introduce a two-dollar coin. If the US had a toonie, Canada would finally become as unnecessary as the old American penny.

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