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Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

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Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#61

Post by mkl »

tedd-the-tiger wrote: post #55
bruce511 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the pricing of individual items doesn't change. (Not least because of GST the price you pay at the till is not the sticker price.) Where I live the 1c and 2c coins were killed some time ago. The smallest coin now is a 5c. The way it works is that you go to the checkout, get a final total. If you pay cash then the change is "rounded up" to the nearest 5c mark. If you pay via card you pay the exact amount. It…

> GST. Found the Australian!

GST exists in a bunch of countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GST

The coins probably narrow it down though.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#62

Post by paulie_a »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #12
moolcool wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally with us ditching the penny, but I really wish we had a paper (plastic) $1. Any time you break a $5 bill you're left with a pocket full of change!

I honestly can't understand why any country on Earth is still using paper for notes. Is basic materials science some bizarre foreign concept? And for anyone who thinks otherwise, I'm going for a swim with $300 in my pocket.

American currency isn't paper. It's more akin to cloth than anything else. And you can go swimming with 300 in bills in the USA. They are not going to melt and will be just fine even if submerged for hours.

There are absolutely better materials to use, no argument there. But US paper currency are not even close to being fragile.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#64

Post by pantaloony »

cgrealy wrote: post #41

Do it. In NZ, we got rid of everything below $0.10 and pretty much no one cares. That said, a large portion of the country is cashless anyway. I almost never have cash on me.

Yeah, if the US does this the nickel ($.05) should go too while we’re at it. We’ve put off getting rid of the penny so long that even 5x a penny is worthless. Switch to $.10, $.50, and $1 coins.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#65

Post by bruce511 »

mkl wrote: post #61
tedd-the-tiger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GST. Found the Australian!

GST exists in a bunch of countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GST The coins probably narrow it down though.

In the interest of full disclosure I was talking about USA GST (Sales Tax) not the tax where I live. In the US the price on the shelf seems to be a "rough indication" of how much you may pay when you get to the till...

That I noticed this suggests I live in a VAT country not a GST country :)

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#66

Post by def8cefe »

nordsieck wrote: post #8
fit2rule wrote: post #3

Why kill it? Why not just re-value it instead? For example, make its value $1000. Would maybe be a neat solution to the 1% problem.

> Why not just re-value it instead? > For example, make its value $1000. The US used to have $1000 bills (and $10,000 bills, but those were only for internal gov't use). I'm pretty sure we're stuck with $100 as the top denomination to make organized crime more difficult. Also, it's WAY easier to counterfeit a coin than a bill.

>Also, it's WAY easier to counterfeit a coin than a bill.

I think that depends. Some countries do integrate security features in coins.

The important question isn't whether it's easier, it's whether it's more cost effective. It's probably easier to counterfeit a USD penny than a USD $20 bill, but it would be less economical to do so.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#67

Post by DonHopkins »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #5

Yes. Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0] The sky didn't fall. There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true. For too many politicians that's all they do.) There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it). People bitched abo…

The lower the stakes, the harder the fighting, and a penny is as low a stake as there is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law

>Sayre's law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905–1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#68

Post by tgb »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #5

Yes. Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0] The sky didn't fall. There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true. For too many politicians that's all they do.) There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it). People bitched abo…

In what sense would rounding of sales taxes be in the favor of companies? Surely it goes to the government, not the company.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#69

Post by cmrdporcupine »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #5

Yes. Canada stopped producing pennies in the fall of 2012. [0] The sky didn't fall. There was no great debate, no public opinion polls and politicians swearing heartily about the demise of our great nation. (Ok that's probably not true. For too many politicians that's all they do.) There was resistance when Canada dropped the $1 bill in favour of a Loonie (a $1 coin with the image of a loon on it). People bitched abo…

I feel like we missed an opportunity to also drop the nickel and round everything to 10 cent intervals and just forget about the extra level of precision entirely.

I imagine I will see this in my lifetime.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#70

Post by DonHopkins »

klyrs wrote: post #46

As an American living in Canada, I gotta say. Pennies and dollar bills SUCK. We have $1 and $2 coins and they're actually useful. Every time I visit home, I end up with piles of pennies and wads of stinky, tattered, overcirculated garbage bills. If you accumulate a pile $1 and $2 coins, nobody looks askance if you plunk down a stack of them. But god, the glares if you want to spend $20 in dollar bills. I say take it…

Yes, nickles should definitely go. But since money is decimal, dimes make more sense. (10 cents exactly)

But because of quarters you still probably need nickels.

Or you could just go binary use halves, quarters and eighths.

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