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Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

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Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#271

Post by 51Cards »

bawolff wrote: post #265
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…

> Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it's a multiple of 5. 5%, 10%, 15%, etc... 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 * millions of transactions per day has got to make some accountants happy. This 100%. Quebec i…

Quebec went to 9.975 because they used to have "stacked" taxes, where you would charge GST first, then charge QST on the combined total as a second step. (yes, they QST taxed the GST) A few years back they went to a "sane" system of only charging GST and QST on the base amount, however they didn't want to lose money so they adjusted QST to 9.975 so the final tax collected would be the same as before.

Source: I write point of sale systems in Canada

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#272

Post by bawolff »

ping_pong wrote: post #233
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 difference is that the Canadian Federal government is extremely powerful and the provinces have very little power. In the US, the States are very powerful and the Federal government is much weaker comparatively. For anything to be done collectively across the entire US, it requires cooperation from all states, otherwise one of them can screw everything up. That inherently means more talking, more coordination, mo…

I dont think thats true.

In canada, health care is the sole responsibility of the province. The federal government helps with planning and coordination (and maybe funding) You didnt get the insanity because the individial provinces are mostly sane. You still saw individual differences, especially look at ontario's early response.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#273

Post by laurencerowe »

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…

> Side note: If you drop the penny, for the love of $diety change your sales tax structure so that it's a multiple of 5. 5%, 10%, 15%, etc...

Better to make the advertised price include sales tax so there's no surprise at the checkout.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#274

Post by thekyle »

roywiggins wrote: post #231
Pamar wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's insisted upon by anti-tax advocates, so that Americans always get reminded about exactly how much the government is adding onto the price. Otherwise, the theory goes, we would get too happy about taxes.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there is any law that says businesses have to add sales tax on separately. Since it's the business who actually pays the tax not the consumer they could just take it out of their own profits.

However, the reason I think stores do this is: If store A is selling candy bars for $1 (+ $0.05 tax at register) and store B is selling candy bars for $1.05. Most people would buy their candy from store A because their prices are lower.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#276

Post by barbegal »

nicoburns wrote: post #94
DonHopkins wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Binary money is ideal. But you can get arrested (or shot if Black) for trying to spend a two dollar bill in America. Man arrested for using $2 bills at Best Buy - clip from The Two Dollar Bill Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS3yjfefUD8 A $2 Bill At Taco Bell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbp-UyLH2ng Police Involved After Student Tries To Buy Lunch With $2 Bill https://www.forbes.com/sites/k…

We have a similar problem in the UK with Scottish bank notes. They're legal tender across the whole of the UK, but most shops in England have never seen them before.

They are not legal tender according to the Bank of England https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal-...

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#277

Post by mardifoufs »

ping_pong wrote: post #233
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 difference is that the Canadian Federal government is extremely powerful and the provinces have very little power. In the US, the States are very powerful and the Federal government is much weaker comparatively. For anything to be done collectively across the entire US, it requires cooperation from all states, otherwise one of them can screw everything up. That inherently means more talking, more coordination, mo…

I don't get it, provinces are very powerful here in Canada. It's very hard for the federal government to go against the big provinces. Angering Quebec or Ontario is a recipe for disaster. Btw provinces definitely bought their own PPE too, most provinces have total control over their healthcare system and their public health policies. There's no expectation from the canadian public to see the Federal government intervene in that regard either. If anything, I'd argue the canadian Federal system is much more decentralized than America's.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#278

Post by wnissen »

gojomo wrote: post #193

The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢, as described by Austan Goolsbee here: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/business/01scenes.html This is (very) mildly stimulative/inflationary, and in the time leading up to en expected re-basing, accelerates the phase-out of the 1¢ penny (as people hoard in expectation of a 5x return). But as of the moment of re-basing, it flushes all those penny-jars out into…

This is the only sensible solution. I don't know of a single thing that I could buy with a nickel, let alone a penny. I think there is some candy that's still sold for a dime, so having a penny worth that much would have at least some utility. The U.S. half-cent coin was withdrawn in 1857, when it was worth about $.15 today!

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#279

Post by bane »

I've actually found that I virtually never use cash anymore, virtually every place has a PoS now that accepts some kind of card of digital payment system. Heck, my favorite BBQ place which is run on weekends out of a vacant gravel lot uses square.

I also travel overseas a bit, and it's always strange to visit a country that's pretty cash heavy Japan cough cough. But even then we mostly get by with our credit cards.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#280

Post by PopeDotNinja »

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…

About a year ago I tried giving a 1L bottle full of pennies to a homeless dude. He wouldn't take them. He was like "what am I gonna do with that shit?" I just left them on the sidewalk. They were still there a few hours later. True story.
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