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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

cnn.com

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Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#231

Post by rz2k »

nayuki wrote: post #20

We eliminated pennies in Canada in 2012 and the transition was a non-issue. The vast majority of retailers would round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05, but a few would round down to the nearest $0.05 in favor of the customer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_low-denomination... Canadian cash is better than American cash in several ways: No penny, durable polymer banknotes (instead of dirty wrinkly c…

I am suspicious of any claims about relative cleanliness. As with wooden vs plastic cutting boards, our intuitions are likely misleading.

To be an effective fomite the currency has to not kill the microbe, and it has to readily give up the microbe to the next recipient. Organic materials like cotton or linen seem more likely to simply absorb a viral envelope or bacterial cell wall, thereby rendering it ineffective. Furthermore, the porous nature makes it more difficult for the note to give up any microbe that isn't immediately killed before it naturally dies over time.

A brief search of the scientific literature doesn't seem to show any conclusive results, but it does seem like the relative performance is pathogen specific.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#232

Post by nerdsniper »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #141

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now. It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything. Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a c…

The half-penny was discontinued in 1857. Adjusted for inflation it was worth 37 cents in todays money when it was discontinued.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#233

Post by justsomehnguy »

whoaoweird wrote: post #196
Maxion wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Braille does not help everyone. Most people with vision issues are not legally lind and do not know braille.

It's wild to see you downvoted. Only about 10% of blind people know braille. There are many more people who have visual impairments but are not blind. Braille is not a universal solution (though I would rather have it than not have it).

But you don't need to know braille to learn how the most common bills are marked.

Just like you don't need to know Japanese to count the exact amount of yen bills.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#234

Post by dawnerd »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #201
paxys wrote: post #169

Too early to say "ever", considering there has been no act of congress on this matter and the penny continues to be legal tender. The decision to stop minting it is a (legally debatable) executive order, and the next president or even the current one can change their mind about it tomorrow.

lets hope not. This is long overdue and should pose relatively little issue compared to most other recent questionable executive orders. stop minting and stop accepting is commonly separated to allow adjustment. so likely a later president will just add the second phaseout step.

I agree it's time to follow Canada and the rest of the world but it needs to be done through congress, not executive orders. It needs to have a proper framework for migration and laws for how payments are rounded.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#235

Post by anticorporate »

phantom784 wrote: post #147
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #113

Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately: >Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change, according to the National Association of Convenience…

For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?

The SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#236

Post by [deleted] »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #199
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #113

Some interesting complications with rounding I had not heard about before were mentioned here, worth noting I think, especially given the prominence of SNAP in the news lately: >Four states - Delaware, Connecticut, Michigan and Oregon - as well as numerous cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Washington, DC, require merchants to provide exact change, according to the National Association of Convenience…

They can round down the card transactions too if it’s really a problem to charge differing amounts. For those that seriously think this would be a major problem there was a comedy skit circulating in Australia when this happened. A guy would push his car to the petrol pump, fill with 2c of petrol, rounded down to 0. The guy at the counter just laughed at it. You could in theory do this 1000 more times (would take hou…

[deleted]

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#237

Post by FredPret »

SoftTalker wrote: post #129
FredPret wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has too many tax permutations for this to be practicable. Companies would have to make prices a bit higher to accommodate unexpected sales tax increases in some or other jurisdiction. There's a small industry that specializes in knowing what the sales tax for a particular transaction should be at the moment it goes through.

Forcing the simplification of all those taxes doesn't seem like it has a downside, to me.

That would centralize power to the larger taxing authority.

Right now, there's a huge number of elected people in the US who wield real local power through these taxes and other rules that they can make.

It's a headache but we live in the computer age and we can automate administrative things like tax calculation at checkout; we should be using systems to aid decentralization and democratization instead of the opposite.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#238

Post by smallerize »

hollasch wrote: post #194
mattnewton wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State and local taxes make this infeasible

It's just American custom to exclude some taxes from the posted price. Many countries include all taxes in the price, something I've always wished we would do in America. After that, I'd love to see the elimination of the custom of always ending fuel cost per gallon in 9/10 of a cent.

Rounding sales tax on each item will often result in a different price than rounding once for the total. The store will collect the wrong amount of tax that way.

Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

#239

Post by cft »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #141

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now. It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything. Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a c…

And hell, put Bank of Zimbabwe on the bills.
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