Mint: January 2008 (retro-blogged)

Okay, the Mint is acting suspicious. After last month's near-total work stoppage, things are back to a muted start in January. The numbers were up early this month, but I wanted to wait and see if they changed.

Comparing Jan '08 to Jan '07: pennies down 32.9%, nickels down 37.1%.

But here's the real kicker. When the Mint starts a new year, they remove the oldest year's data from their website (http://tinyurl.com/2fufzb). Heaven knows why, since server space is so cheap these days. For example, when the 2007 data was released, the Mint got rid of the 2004 data. But this year, when the 2008 data went up, they took down the 2007 data, and left 2005 up instead! Why would they do that, and what are they hiding? There's something about the 2007 numberes that they don't want somebody to know. Maybe it's to conceal from Congress the fact that they didn't make the statutory requirement of Sacagaweas, as specified in the 2005 Presidential Dollar Coin Act. Maybe they're hiding the sudden bump in half dollar production. Maybe they're hiding (or were told to hide) any numerical evidence of inflation or deflation. Any other guesses?