About 10 years ago my friends and I made a Web site, removethepenny.com (no longer active) and starting calling around to see who would support us. I recall speaking to someone who was very angry that we cared so little for the metal industry. I think this has been known for a long time but special interests have kept it on life support for obvious reasons.
I'm not sure the reasons are so obvious. Surely very little metal is turned into pennies compared to the quantities consumed by industrial processes.
Another thing to remember about Canada is that we don't use cash as much as the US. Cash accounts for less than half (44%), by volume, of transactions in Canada. I'm not sure what the split between Interac (direct debit from your bank account) and credit cards is, but the mechanics of the transaction are almost identical - Interac prompts you for an account to pay from, both prompt for your PIN. When you pay for some…
> Cash accounts for less than half (44%), by volume, of transactions in Canada. That’s about where the USA is as well. Cash is used in 31% of consumer transactions. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/06/spike-the-dollars-obit-cash-... Anecdotally I haven’t carried cash around in years.
> Anecdotally I haven’t carried cash around in years.
Generally I keep a $40 in the wallet just in case there is a cash-only situation, but that's literally just a backup -- 99% of transactions are on some kind of card.
The melt value of a copper penny (1982 or prior) is worth more than the face value. However, it's illegal to melt down legal tender currency. AND, fun fact, it's illegal to leave the US with more than $5 worth of pennies, so you can't drive to Canada with a bag of pennies and melt them there. So some people are now starting to hoard copper pennies, waiting for the day when pennies are no longer legal tender, and then…
In case anyone else is curious, apparently a pre-1982 penny could be worth about 1.8 cents when melted down:
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.
In this case paper means polymer. Canada uses the same bills as Australia (and that the U.K. is switching to). Much better than in the USA, where their cloth money always feels like dirty laundry.
How am I supposed to light my cigar with a burning $100 when it's plastic?
I don't think that's the case myself. While I do think that the parliamentary system is better than the congressional system, I think it's more that the parliamentary system emphasises consensus-building and executive accountability more. This is especially apparent in countries where a form of proportional representation is used for elections.
> This is especially apparent in countries where a form of proportional representation is used for elections. Proportional representation is almost a necessary condition for the parliamentary system to encourage consensus-building. More specifically, it's necessary that no party hold an absolute majority. With first-past-the-post, you usually end up with one party having full control for one term, and no one to hold…
That assumes members of the legislature always vote with their own party, which they don't. Plus, there are usually two houses and the upper house can scrutinize and hold to account the lower house. In the UK it's an appointed (and partially hereditary) upper house, so there's less party discipline (although not none).
Honestly, I've wondered from time to time what effect (if any, clearly) penny's having an actual metallurgical value goes towards stemming inflation and creating not a "gold standard" but rather an accidental "copper and nickel standard"?
I think the best approach is for the US to move more concerns to the state level. E.g., it would be great if states would start implementing their own universal healthcare for their residents. States commonly have more internally aligned political goals and therefore can move quicker. It also has the benefit of allowing different states to experiment with different solutions and all states can learn from the results.…
it would be great if states would start implementing their own universal healthcare for their residents This isn't really feasible because residents of one state with no universal healthcare + lower taxes could easily move to another state with universal healthcare + higher taxes when they get a serious illness.
You can have residency requirements. In Canada you have to be present in most provinces for half the year and live there for a certain amount of time before you get free health care.
All I want is for all paper cash to be plastic so I can wash the covid off of it. I support getting rid of the penny, but I feel that plastic cash would make more of a difference.
CGP Grey has a wonderful video on the penny, he is my favorite YouTuber.
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…
> Since Canada changed but left the taxes the same (14% in Ontario IIRC) there seems to be a lot of rounding-off in favour of companies instead of consumers. $0.01-$0.02 per transaction This assertion is wrong. If the item you buy is $1.00, then after your 14% tax it will be $1.14, which is rounded up to $1.15. If the item is $2.00, then after tax it is $2.28, which also rounds up to $2.30. But if the item is $3.00,…
>If the item is $4.00, then after tax it is $4.56, which rounds down to $4.55.
Everybody who lived the transition to the Euro knows that this is not what will happen. Prices will be always rounded up.