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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

cnn.com

471–480 of 981 posts

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

#471
> the final coins pressed will be auctioned off and that the actual last pennies put into circulation from the US Mint were struck in June.

Seems like this is a stunt to extract a bit of money from collectors. I kind of wonder if collectors really value coins/stamps/etc. that were specially made to target the collector market and didn't even exist in the natural world. Feels icky.

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

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfair burden?? I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.. Credit card fees are 2-4%. Rounding to the nearest nickel costs at most $0.02 (1,2 round to 0; 3,4 round to 5) It is cheaper for the merchant to round to the nearest nickel for any transaction of one dollar or more than it is to pay CC merchant fees.

It costs on average 2 cents because without legislative authority to round to closest the retailer must round down and eat up to 4 cents of difference. Cash costs retailers money too. Safely transporting it to the bank, et cetera. For many, cash is more expensive than credit cards.

> Cash costs retailers money too. Safely transporting it to the bank, et cetera.

Yes, and now they won't have to incur that cost for pennies.

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the US attempted to transition to the metric system, gas stations raised their prices per unit volume and the American consumer was convinced that the metric system was bad. I have family that think metric is bad because some fringe people thought there should be 10 hours in a day and 100 minutes in an hour, also something like 10 months a year, and the whole thing is bad because some awkward ideas were floated.…

During the French Revolution, they tried to make a right angle have 100 degrees and even recomputed all new trig tables for this new standard. It obviously did not catch on :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian

The Indiana pi bill mandated certain mathematical values be changed to the wrong value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_pi_bill

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now people stop shopping at your store.

If the store is e.g. Walmart, then their scale's already large enough that I don't think this is going to put them under. And if every store's doing it, then there'll be nowhere to turn to.

What if the stores detain you and force you to work in their perfume department to pay off the million-dollar multi-item fee they just thought up? What if they also do a bunch of allergen testing on you to figure out what you're allergic to and then make you exclusively sell perfumes containing those allergens?

All because of that darn penny-rounding.

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

#475
post #464
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

> Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. A…

They can add a "total not divisible by 5" fee, ranging from 1 to 4 cents

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

#476

Many countries eliminated their pennies without chaos or unfair burdens on shopkeepers. In Canada, the process was widely popular after the fact even though newspaper articles prior to the elimination intimated it wouldn't be due to their "both sides" style of reporting. It's indicative of the current US administration that they managed to screw this up despite many examples world wide of how to do it properly.

If you believe this is going to cause chaos or significant burdens on merchants I have got a bridge to sell you (but I don't take pennies). This quote tells you all you need to know. > The government’s phasing out of the penny has been “a bit chaotic,” said Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents. The pro-penny group is funded primarily by Artazn, the company that provides the blanks used to mak…

The same thing happened many years ago with the same company (previously called Jarden Zinc).

> Americans for Common Cents is a non-profit lobbying group dedicated to the protection of the one-cent coin. The group is primarily interested in preserving the penny for economic and historical reasons. In 2012, Executive Director Mark Weller was paid $340,000 by Jarden Zinc to discuss issues relating to minting with members of Congress and the US Mint.[41] Weller has acknowledged this funding, saying that “We make no secret that one of our major sponsors is a company that makes the zinc ‘blanks’ for pennies."[42] Weller has testified on multiple occasions before Congress. In 2020 Weller testified that the use of cash protects privacy, provides economic stability and "is a public good" that should not be replaced by mobile money.[43]

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

#477
post #464
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

> Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. A…

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

#478
post #464
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

> Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. A…

If it means shops stop charging $4.99 and start charging $5.00, I will be ecstatic.

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

#479
post #464
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

> Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. It's not. Some US states have laws on the books that make it illegal for retailers to round up. The turmoil is that if the retailer can only round down to the nearest five cents, then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents. A…

If your shop can be wiped out by losing that little on each transaction it wasn't long for the world anyways... Retail margins are thin by industry preference but they're not 1-4 cents per transaction thin.

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

#480
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…

As the article points out, there are laws that say people who pay via SNAP debit cards "cannot be charged more than others". If cash payments are rounded down, but debit card payments aren't, they are in violation of state law. The article also points out that rollback of pennies in Canada and other places were planned, addressing these kinds of issues. USA is doing it with no such planning.

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