Is It Time to Kill the Penny? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#211

Post by dhosek » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #206

When someone posted an article about the coin shortage on Facebook recently, I realized that I haven't used cash for a purchase since sometime before the lockdown started. And even before that, my primary use of cash was the collections basket at church—which the lockdown has ended up transforming into a credit card transaction now. Our formerly cash transactions for our cleaning lady have converted into Zelle paymen…

Coin-only laundry machines are probably the biggest drivers of persistent cash usage in most of my acquaintances' lives. I'm guessing that apartment buildings big enough to have in-building laundry rooms but small enough to not be able to justify a cashless payment system may just end up shifting to not charging for laundry.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#212

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #204

ebg13 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢ But they say "ONE CENT" on them.

They also say, 'Liberty', 'In God We Trust', & 'E Pluribus Unum'. Lots of writing on government-issued materials is false, ceremonial, outdated, or overridden by later acts. If it really bothers you, you can file that off your pennies before spending them at 5¢ value. We won't mind.

I would check 18 U.S. Code §331 (fraudulently defacing currency) before doing that.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#213

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #211

dhosek wrote: post #206

When someone posted an article about the coin shortage on Facebook recently, I realized that I haven't used cash for a purchase since sometime before the lockdown started. And even before that, my primary use of cash was the collections basket at church—which the lockdown has ended up transforming into a credit card transaction now. Our formerly cash transactions for our cleaning lady have converted into Zelle paymen…

Coin-only laundry machines are probably the biggest drivers of persistent cash usage in most of my acquaintances' lives. I'm guessing that apartment buildings big enough to have in-building laundry rooms but small enough to not be able to justify a cashless payment system may just end up shifting to not charging for laundry.

[deleted]

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#214

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

lostapathy wrote: post #199

jdhawk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

last year they made 8.4BN pennies, which would be about 21 million KG of Zinc, worth about ~$40 million?

That's a lot of money, but not "change public policy" levels of cash, either. On the other side, handling pennies is expensive for businesses and banks, I bet it costs at least that much. There are special interests on both sides of this.

[deleted]

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#215

Post by Pamar » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

crdrost wrote: post #180

Loughla wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of what the practice is in Canada, I have zero faith in literally any US business to round down on anything, at anytime, for any reason at all. It will, I guarantee, be round up on everything.

Note that you can also, while you're at it, abolish rounding. You already have this in some sense on gas pumps: the price advertised has taxes included so you are not always playing guess-the-final-total with your money. Just pass a law that requires fair advertising of the actual amount the purchaser will pay, taxes etc. included. If there are special circumstances that might make certain people exempt from a tax --…

Well, yes, this... I am European and during my brief stay in the USA the fact that taxes were added at the cashier was awkward. I am sure you had your reasons and if you grow up in that sustem you won't notice much, but it looks a bit counterintuitive to foreigners.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#216

Post by theluketaylor » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

eumenides1 wrote: post #146

lostapathy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trivial inter-state mobility is a big obstacle for states doing grand social programs individually. If a state provided universal healthcare for residents, it'd quickly be overwhelmed with "hard cases" from other states where coverage is a problem. Which would drive up costs, and taxes, and drive productive/healthy people out. See the current inter-state shipping of homeless people, especially those who suffer mental…

Canada it is a "state"/provincial system. All provinces manage their own. Canada doesn't get inundated with Americans because if they do come, patients will be charged like private health care. If the patient's home province has universal health care, both province's will just work it out. In general, we don't dump problems on to other provinces. It's bad form and federal courts will fix that quick especially with so…

The system here only works because the Canada Health Act requires every province to have a universal health insurer for provincial residents and mandates each province accept the insurance of the others. If only Ontario had a provincial insurer or the provinces didn't have to accept each other's programs there would be a ton of game theory style manipulation.

Any state trying to implement a single payer system would get crushed as tons of individuals and even other states tried to milk the system (like putting homeless people on a bus with a one way ticket).

States would need a "suicide pact" of sorts to ensure a bunch of states made the leap at the same time. There actually is such a plan to subvert the electoral college to ensure the popular vote winner always wins the presidency, but that's a relatively simple pact around single law. Health care laws a incredibly complex and rather than try some kind of weird multi-state pact you're better off fighting for a national law.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#217

Post by saagarjha » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #144

frosted-flakes wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. It will get soggy, but once it dries it will be perfectly fine. It's mostly cotton, isn't it?

But they rip when wet. They also rip when dry! British, Canadian, Australian bank notes can't be ripped when wet or dry - they're polymer.

Thankfully, you can exchange them even if they're totally torn up as long as you have the pieces.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#218

Post by jwigg » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #169

Loughla wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of what the practice is in Canada, I have zero faith in literally any US business to round down on anything, at anytime, for any reason at all. It will, I guarantee, be round up on everything.

Everyone uses an electronic POS system and it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly). The only people you have to worry about cheating you out of 3-4 cents in a world without pennies (the maximum you can be cheated) would be people without electronic systems. Which is to say, no one.

> it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly)

either you're way too optimistic, or i'm way too pessimistic, but lemme tell you, we do not see eye-to-eye on that point.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#219

Post by einpoklum » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

talideon wrote: post #82

einpoklum wrote: post #25

I really like it that they offer you, instead of a site with a lot of junk and JS, a plain text version! That's much nicer news than the story itself :-) ... that said - why _don't_ you guys cancel the penny? > Penny defenders' strongest argument was that eliminating it would hurt consumers. All those $9.99 products? The prices would be jacked up to an even $10! That sounds like an argument made up retroactively to t…

Where I'm from, shops started using .95 pricing _long_ before the idea of scrapping 1c and 2c coins was raised, purely because handling those coins wasn't worth it. A key difference is that we have VAT, which is built into the price, rather than a US-style sales tax, which is not. In the US, if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that. That made it easier for us to scrap 1c and…

> if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that.

I don't think so. The same way you don't have to handle sub-1-penny tax amounts, you won't have to handle sub-nickle tax amounts later. There'll be some sort of rounding mechanism just like you described.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#220

Post by californical » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

causality0 wrote: post #203

lovegoblin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it's only cash transactions that are rounded. If you pay by debit or credit (which I would guess is the majority?) then it's still the exact amount and nothing has changed.

All transactions are rounded. It's just that paying by card is rounded to the nearest cent instead of the nearest 5 cents.

Weird that people disagree with you -- try taking a 7% tax of $1.25. your total will be $1.3375 -> $1.34