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Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

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Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#371

Post by fatbird »

streb-lo wrote: post #322
fatbird wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're leaving out, in Canada's case, is that the norm is a strict party-line vote. In rare cases, the PM will allow a "conscience vote", where individuals vote as they will; in every other case, you vote as your party directs or you're kicked out of the party. As party-line voting is the norm, sitting as an independent is basically worthless in terms of accomplishing anything--no access to party resources or as…

This all very true but I just wanted to add one more thing I think is a strength of parliaments. In a parliament majority, the buck stops with the Prime Minister and win or lose his performance is on the line in the next election. There's no (effective) hand-waving about opposition or other excuses to deflect accountability. Elections are a black/white referendum of the incumbent's performance. In the US it's a lot e…

I agree with this, and I would further add that "confidence votes", where if the vote fails, the gov't falls, are another valuable safety hatch. Budgetary votes are always confidence votes, but anyone can move for a vote of no-confidence if they have the votes. With a majority gov't, this is hard to do unless the majority is slim and a couple people are sick (or "cross the aisle", switching parties), but with minority gov'ts it's a significant risk--the PM can't afford to alienate a large enough number of MPs to falll to a confidence vote, which is literally a ten-minute affair if it occurs. US politics has nothing of this effectiveness.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#372

Post by torgoguys »

dlhavema wrote: post #300
jpindar wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say, imagine no more sorting coins since we'd only have one kind - but then I realized I never do that anyway, the Coinstar machine does it for me.

And if you get a gift card instead of cash it's typically free. I did that and walked away with an 80$ Starbucks card. The other time, the machine had an issue connecting and a normal checkout clerk gave me cash directly, again no fee.

I've never understood why people use coinstar. I take a jar of coins to the bank and if I have an account with them, they throw it in their big coin counter and do it for free. Is this not a common service banks provide? I've only banked with a couple of banks (I'm in Wisconsin, USA) but they both do this.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#373

Post by Blueskytech »

arcticbull wrote: post #348
Blueskytech wrote: post #347

We shouldn't kill the penny because it is a reminder that our currency has been inflated and is no longer worth a small fraction of what it once was. Never forget that pre-1965 coinage besides the penny was made of 90 percent silver. A face value of 1.40 in pre-1965 dimes and quarters is worth 20.00 today, the fact that a penny, not even made of copper, is too expensive to make should be concerning.

(1) Inflation doesn't matter if you're not hoarding cash. By and large, real estate tracks inflation across the United States. Stock indices exceed inflation. Inflation doesn't matter to you if you aren't holding cash. (2) It doesn't matter how we got here, we're here, and it's useless.

You are of course correct until Exters pyramid collapses which becomes more and more a distinct possibility as the currency is debased.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#374

Post by Aunche »

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.

A fun example of this is gas prices. It’s actually $1.999 a gallon instead of $1.99 a gallon.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#375

Post by Blueskytech »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #351
Blueskytech wrote: post #347

We shouldn't kill the penny because it is a reminder that our currency has been inflated and is no longer worth a small fraction of what it once was. Never forget that pre-1965 coinage besides the penny was made of 90 percent silver. A face value of 1.40 in pre-1965 dimes and quarters is worth 20.00 today, the fact that a penny, not even made of copper, is too expensive to make should be concerning.

Nit: the nickle wasn't made of silver, either.

Thank you for pointing this out you are correct and I should have been more precise in my language.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#376

Post by jpindar »

torgoguys wrote: post #372
dlhavema wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you get a gift card instead of cash it's typically free. I did that and walked away with an 80$ Starbucks card. The other time, the machine had an issue connecting and a normal checkout clerk gave me cash directly, again no fee.

I've never understood why people use coinstar. I take a jar of coins to the bank and if I have an account with them, they throw it in their big coin counter and do it for free. Is this not a common service banks provide? I've only banked with a couple of banks (I'm in Wisconsin, USA) but they both do this.

Yes, but then I'd have to go to the bank just for that. The Coinstar machines are conveniently located in grocery stores and big box stores. And as dlhavema said, if you get your money as a gift card, it's free. Different Coinstar machines have different cards, but they all seem to have Amazon or Walmart.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#377

Post by tehjoker »

It's really funny to talk about the government making or losing money when producing money ("seigniorage"). It really shows how money is just pretend numbers and the foundries can create or destroy it at will depending on the political winds (inflation being good for debtors and deflation being good for creditors). There's a reason the monied interests are against inflation of more than 2%, and it's because it would cause the debts logged as assets in their books to be worth less. Honestly, they would prefer deflation, but they were forced to accept some inflation as the cost of a growing economy.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#378

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

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 wish they had dropped nickels at the same time. We could have lost one digit in the currency and kept numbers round. I just throw out nickels when I encounter them.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#379

Post by ianhorn »

kerkeslager wrote: post #368
ianhorn wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't other countries limit the amount payment providers can charge?

Yes. The US, however, does not. Additionally, the terms of use of credit card companies forbids charging a different price for cash versus card. This means that businesses which aren't large enough to negotiate different terms, have to raise prices across the board to cover the cost of credit card payments--even using cash, you're paying rent to the credit card companies.

Maybe the simplest law to make it less of a shit deal for society is forbid the forbidding of charging different prices for cash vs card. Or something halfway, like forcing card companies to allow price differences up to x% of their charge.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#380

Post by logicalmonster »

My favored strategy would be be to put Harriet Tubman on the penny as the best path forward. This puts a wanted social change into the culture (Putting a black person on US currency) without removing any president from existing bills (Lincoln still stays on the $5) and erasing history. Additionally, the first black person on US currency should appear on a coin rather than paper money as they’re harder to deface. Given the media situation in this country, I’m 100% sure the media will find or invent some disfigured paper bills with racist slurs to generate controversy and inflame racial tensions even further.
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