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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

#571

Post by hypeatei »

close04 wrote: post #547
hypeatei wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are laws that say Hmm, maybe this is why it should be handled by Congress and not at the whim of the executive. They can handle all this in one piece of legislation.

If the law is slow to change or there are no available pennies, the stores can adjust the prices to match the expected rounding of prices. I can't imagine someone being prosecuted from rounding a penny but it's a quick and easy way to avoid any doubt.

> I can't imagine someone being prosecuted from rounding a penny

Under this executive, I wouldn't be so sure. If a grocery chain starts deviating from the law, then the government can use it against them to further a political agenda like we've seen with Eric Adams for example.

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

#572

Post by rkomorn »

jedberg wrote: post #565
rkomorn wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me cynical but I don't at all believe the issue is tax jurisdictions or anything related to complexity. It's that it's easier to show a price of $0.99 and have the consumer pay $1.08 (for example) than either show a price of $1.08 and have the consumer pay it, or show a price of $0.99 and have the consumer pay $0.99 and "lose" 7 cents (because your price was $0.92 before taxes). Pre-tax price is lower and sells…

That wouldn't apply if everyone included tax in their prices. In this case, the item would just be $1.10. If the business really thinks they will lose money by pricing over a dollar, then yes, they would have to take that hit. But they are already taking that hit if the "real value" is $1.02 for example. It's just a price/demand curve. They would simply have to optimize it differently.

There's a reason everything is priced at some variety of .99, 99.99, 999.99, etc: it sells better than 1.08, 108, 1080, etc.

My point is getting the consumer to eat the sales tax on top is just a wise trick by US businesses, and nothing to do with complexity.

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

#573

Post by [deleted] »

axiolite wrote: post #509
nayuki wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size Let me assure you that all Canadian banknotes are the same size too, 6.00 inch × 2.75 inch (152.40 mm × 69.85 mm). I'm not sure how the article got this fact wrong. As a side note, Canadian banknotes don't have braille, but have an ad hoc system of bumps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_currency_tactile_feat...

> Let me assure you that all Canadian banknotes are the same size too [...] not sure how the article got this fact wrong. Because Canada is just part of the U.S. (flame away)

[deleted]

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

#574

Post by toast0 »

axiolite wrote: post #442
toast0 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nickles are likely to go shortly after. You can do everything you can with nickles with dimes and quarters, nickles have worse economics than pennies, and have had their minting suppressed below the market needs for years. Once pennies leave circulation, the problems with nickles will become urgent and they'll quickly leave. Dimes are small and cheap to make though, so they'll probably stick around.

It's impractical to eliminate the nickel and penny, while keeping the quarter and dime. The most practical way forward is to keep only the dime, but people will be quite upset about the loss of the quarter.

It might be a little bit cumbersome, but I don't think it's impractical.

With only quarters and dimes it's difficult to pay $0.05 or $0.15, but it's possible. If I owe you $0.05, I must give you a quarter and you give me two dimes. Or I give you a $20, you give me $19 in paper money, three quarters and two dimes. If I owe you $0.15, I must give you a quarter and you give me one dime. If I owe you $0.95, I can't give you $1 and get change, I'd need to give you $1.25 and get three dimes back. Or give you $2, get three quarters and three dimes. Owing $19.95 or $19.85 would be most inconvenient, since many people seem to live life with only $20 bills in their wallet and there would be a lot of extra change required.

But, if we stopped minting pennies because they cost too much (3.7 cents), it's hard to imagine we're going to keep producing nickels when they cost 13.8 cents to mint. Dimes are much cheaper than nickels (5.8 cents), and quarters aren't too bad relative to face value (14.7 cents). Article with values [1], which I rounded to millidollars. I'd bet people would rather keep dimes than quarters, but rounding everything to quarters is a big step. I certainly would prefer quarters --- it's been a long time since arcade machines took dimes, and I only have quarter mechs (most of my games are on free play, and I can reuse the quarters I need forever, or add a credit button, but still).

[1] https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/...

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

#575

Post by nayuki »

axiolite wrote: post #509
nayuki wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size Let me assure you that all Canadian banknotes are the same size too, 6.00 inch × 2.75 inch (152.40 mm × 69.85 mm). I'm not sure how the article got this fact wrong. As a side note, Canadian banknotes don't have braille, but have an ad hoc system of bumps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_currency_tactile_feat...

> Let me assure you that all Canadian banknotes are the same size too [...] not sure how the article got this fact wrong. Because Canada is just part of the U.S. (flame away)

> Because Canada is just part of the U.S.

As a Canadian, I'm amused to hear this because it is basically true as a first approximation.

Random factoid - Canadian coins ($2, $1, $0.25, $0.10, $0.05, $0.01 (withdrawn)) come in almost the same denominations as US coins ($1 (uncommon), $0.05 (rare), $0.25, $0.10, $0.05, $0.01), and they are the same diameter and thickness, but maybe having different weight and magnetic properties. It's kind of scary that Canadian coins are essentially state-sanctioned counterfeits of US coins.

Another weird thing is that the National Basketball Association (NBA) has 29 American teams and 1 Canadian one... making it more of an international basketball association. I think another sports league with "national" in its name also crosses national boundaries.

If you take a random person and teleport them between a random mix of Canadian and US cities, I think they'll find it hard to tell the two countries apart. The primary language is English, the accent is the same, the streets and buildings look the same, people watch/listen/read much of the same media, and so on.

One party trick that I practice when traveling in America is to not volunteer information about where I'm from, and see how long I can blend into groups of people and conversations until someone suspects something or asks a direct question. Needless to say, I can last pretty long, and even debated things like US federal politics. The internal diversity of people within the US (e.g. skin color, accent, beliefs) really helps an outsider like me blend in.

Also note that there is a one-way relationship going on. Canadians know more about the US than what's necessary for life. Heck, even the state broadcaster CBC will put out entire news segments (e.g. 5 to 20 minutes) on US-specific issues. Knowing about the US - whether it's major companies, cities, TV series - is unavoidable to Canadians. But ask the average American about anything related to Canada, and you'll likely get a blank stare.

However, some of the differences between Canada and the USA include: Guns(!), personal and state violence, healthcare, social safety net, political polarization, income, prestige, number of big companies, French language, atmospheric climate.

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

#576

Post by coryrc »

pwg wrote: post #464
b112 wrote: 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…

> then they stand to lose from one to four cents per cash sale for any sale that is not a multiple of five cents

Which is much less than they're paying the CC companies on card sales.

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

#577

Post by xienze »

jacobgkau wrote: post #318
nothrabannosir wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we pretending that nobody has ever tried phasing out smaller denomination currency, and that we don’t have a vast body of actual case studies to draw from? Why are we running thought experiments at all?

As others have pointed out, governments sometimes issue actual guidance on how it's supposed to work when they phase out currency. It's not always "just stop making them and see how the market deals with it."

> It's not always "just stop making them and see how the market deals with it."

On the other hand, we’ve been delaying this inevitable and necessary action for decades over hand-wringing about the implications of rounding up or down by a maximum of two damn cents per transactions _for decades_. If we did it “the right way” I’m sure it would take years and years and cost millions of dollars to “study the effects” of eliminating the penny. Just do it already. Even with the best plan in the world people are going to whine about rounding.

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

#578

Post by Uvix »

wat10000 wrote: post #354
Uvix wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because they'd still be paying less/more than people paying with credit cards, debit cards, or checks.

Round them all. Why is this so difficult?

Retailers will reject ever rounding down because they lose money, and customers will reject ever rounding up because they lose money.

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

#580

Post by dpark »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #543
dpark wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretending that these problems don't exist because they don't exist elsewhere is not helpful. Pretend that’s everything in the US is globally unique to us also is not helpful. “No one else has sales tax like us” is likely not true but also not super relevant. Tax collecting agencies in 50 states and however many territories could issue guidance tomorrow for how to deal with this and it would have the force of law u…

The tax authorities cannot unilaterally change the law with "guidance". It is explicitly written into statute in many cases, requiring legislative action across thousands of independent tax authorities. Complicating it more is that in some cases a change must satisfy constitutional requirements which are even harder to change. Everything is easy if you pretend that you can change things by authoritarian fiat instead…

> The tax authorities cannot unilaterally change the law with "guidance".

The standard model for regulation is generally that the law empowers some agency to clear up any ambiguities.

Doubtful that any state has legislation on how to handle taxation if pennies are unavailable so a state tax body issuing reasonable guidance is a very believable outcome.

> It is explicitly written into statute in many cases, requiring legislative action across thousands of independent tax authorities. Complicating it more is that in some cases a change must satisfy constitutional requirements which are even harder to change.

Show me the legislation that says “taxes must be collected to the penny based on the posted price without rounding”.

What are these “thousands of independent tax authorities” anyway? Are you under the impression that every city and county needs to agree change the tax law? State law trumps local laws. Washington State doesn’t need Seattle to agree with laws specifying new rounding rules.

> Everything is easy if you pretend that you can change things by authoritarian fiat instead of abiding by existing statutory and constitutional restrictions. The courts would never allow it.

Have you not been around for the last 10 months?

But also the courts tend to be fairly reasonable. Faced with conflicting requirements they generally don’t say “fuck it you’re all going to jail” but direct legislatures to fix the issue. No way we end up in a situation where pennies are unavailable and the courts tell stores that they have to shut down or stop accepting cash entirely because there isn’t a legislatively specified way to round transactions to the nickel.

Unless I’m missing something, existing pennies are also not being removed from circulation, so none of this seems to be a major issue yet. Legislatures could do their jobs and clear this up quickly of they choose to.

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