By FEICHANG WURAN
Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (China Daily Show) – The piggybanks sit empty and silent. Wishing wells report a sharp decline in deposits. And across the continental United States, despairing thugs resort to filling socks with bottle caps in desperation.
The bloody Shifang protests in Sichuan, China may have ended with one in the win column for the little guy – but in the US, the decision to shut down this giant, polluting copper factory is already having dire consequences.
“Without copper sweatshops in China excreting toxins into the local water, the US will have to look elsewhere to make its pennies,” explained economist Paul Kruger.
The penny shortage is hitting Americans where it hurts the most – by causing minor inconveniences in their everyday lives.
“The other day, I needed to open the back of the remote, but… nothing. It’s not the kind of problem you expect to find in a developed country,” said exasperated student Ben Warner.
Amateur garden enthusiast Jim Thorne claims the drought has already claimed its first victim – Thorne’s own hydrangea bushes. The plants needed a pH boost, a common problem usually easily solved by planting a few pennies.
“They didn’t know what hit them. They died. And for what?” asked a bitter Thorne yesterday. “So that some kids in China don’t grow tumours?”
Meanwhile, panic buying of pennies has driving the price of pennies up to 1.5-2 pennies.
Faced with the prospect of having to do their own DIY, it seems many Americans are turning their anger on China. In Poolfield, Wisconsin, protestors outside a Chinese takeaway carried signs demanding, “Who will fix my wobbly table-leg?”
No one seems sure when the shortage will end – but from penniless towns across the nation, the message is clear: “Will Pollute China for Pennies.”
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