Did anyone ever make a simulator for pennies hitting the floor like in the top video?
The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
121–130 of 981 posts
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#122Honestly nickels and dimes, and maybe even quarters, should go too. It's ridiculous that we don't have $1 and $2 coins in widespread circulation in the US (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it).
I'd mourn the loss of the quarter. I use those quite often. > (we have a $1 coin but nobody uses it) Because they keep designing it in the stupidest way, making it easy to confuse with a quarter. I don't know why they do that. That said, I do prefer paper $1 bills over coins. Paper is lighter and easier to carry. But I'd only slightly grumble if we replaced it with a reasonable coin.
Bring back the Eisenhower dollar!
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution: > 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.
> require merchants to provide exact change All the items in my dad's farm shop were priced so they came out to a round dollar amount after tax, and that was 40 years ago.
It’s far more complicated than that. There is no one sales tax for everyone.
Oregon residents didn’t pay sales tax when making purchases in Idaho. Washington charges sales tax on out of state purchases if that state’s sales tax is less than Washington’s, including if it is zero.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#124We 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…
US notes also stink.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see why you couldn't do it in either case. If you modify the actual price, then you are giving exact change. Why wouldn't round() be as valid a price modification as floor()?
Maybe sales tax makes that harder? I guess you could calculate all of your prices such that, once sales tax is added, they round to a 5 cent value.
You don't need to do that. Compute the total sale, then figure the tax, then round. You don't need to round per item.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#126Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
The linked article raises a few problems that the US could have with that solution: > 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.
If the US properly got rid of pennies (instead of Trump just doing another end-run around congress, by ordering the Mint to stop making them, on shaky legal ground), the legislation could easily supersede those state laws.
I think this is wrong.
As far as I can tell the relevant statute is 31 USC §5112, and it does not require the minting of all authorized coins:
“(a) The Secretary of the Treasury *may mint* and issue only the following coins: ... (6) ... a one-cent coin that is 0.75 inch in diameter and weighs 3.11 grams.”
(Emphasis mine)
There may be another clause somewhere that requires the Treasury to issue all coins, but that seems unlikely to me. The _number_ of coins to issue of each type is left to the discretion of the Treasury; why wouldn't that include the option to issue none?
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the stores in my area have started requiring people to pay with exact change or by card because they can't get pennies to make change. Personally, I think stores should just start setting prices to avoid the need for pennies, but that would be too easy, I guess.
If your sales tax rate is 8.875%, what do you price a banana at to avoid change?
$10
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the quarter is pretty much the smallest useful unit of US currency and even that usefulness is shrinking pretty quickly. If we would adopt a policy of including local sales tax in advertised prices, skipping to whole dollars would be pretty painless. The main reason to keep at least quarters is all of the various coin-op machines that are still in service.
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.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#130We 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…
American banknotes have numbers on them to easily distinguish the different values!
And it would be even easier to distinguish them if they were different colors in addition to the printed numerals.