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The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

theatlantic.com

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Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#141

Post by brnt »

mint5 wrote: post #122
brnt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re not “trash.” I live in the Eurozone. We had 1 and 2 cent coins for a while. Where I live these were quickly deprecated and I think in most other Eurozone countries too by now. I have thrown any of these coins straight in the bin soon as somebody gave them. Too much hassle and requires too big a wallet to drag along, for literally pennies. When I first realized dealing with coins was inversely proportional t…

Throwing out cent coins doesn’t seem like an environmental waste to you, like throwing out aluminum cans? Yes they’re impractical to carry and use but does anyone actually do that? Why not do the standard practice of accumulate them in a jar instead of throwing them in the trash like waste? it’s easy to take them home and throw them in a jar until suddenly the jar is a Kg of metal that can be fed to whatever coinstar…

Metals are separated here, but compared to all the other waste I generate, I'd say it's... pennies on the dollar. Storing and collecting things is by itself an expense too: space, energy (you probably store them in a controlled environment), and so on.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#142

Post by brnt »

Symbiote wrote: post #126
brnt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re not “trash.” I live in the Eurozone. We had 1 and 2 cent coins for a while. Where I live these were quickly deprecated and I think in most other Eurozone countries too by now. I have thrown any of these coins straight in the bin soon as somebody gave them. Too much hassle and requires too big a wallet to drag along, for literally pennies. When I first realized dealing with coins was inversely proportional t…

At least leave them on the counter, drop them in a charity box, or leave them somewhere else where someone will pick them up.

I refuse to accept them. I got them anyway. Never seen a charity box. The homeless person also doesnt want them.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#143

Post by brnt »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #121
brnt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re not “trash.” I live in the Eurozone. We had 1 and 2 cent coins for a while. Where I live these were quickly deprecated and I think in most other Eurozone countries too by now. I have thrown any of these coins straight in the bin soon as somebody gave them. Too much hassle and requires too big a wallet to drag along, for literally pennies. When I first realized dealing with coins was inversely proportional t…

I stored some 1 and 2 cent coins in 2005 betting they will become collectible in a few decades.

There are many things that will become collectibles. I don't want to spend the energy and time storing various items on the chance they might become valuable.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#144

Post by rincebrain »

bccdee wrote: post #110
internet2000 wrote: post #2

> Many Americans—and many people who, though not American, enjoy watching from a safe distance as predictable fiascoes unfold in this theoretical superpower from week to week—find themselves now pondering one question. This is way too much spite for an article about coins. Lord.

If the author of the article had done a bit of searching, they might know that Canadians (the primary predictable American ficasco spectators) phased out pennies years ago. We also "had no plan" for the remaining pennies, and we didn't really need one. They get deposited, lost, and thrown away over time—that's why the mint had to keep printing them. Now they've gone the way of the 50-cent piece. It's not a big deal.…

The problem is not strictly the pennies themselves, but all of the prices that rely on being able to quantize things to a cent, and a number of different laws about not playing games with prices.

Most recently, a stick in the SNAP benefits laws is that you can't charge SNAP recipients different amounts from other people - which was presumably intended to ensure you can't play games like charging SNAP recipients more for things, but in practice, means that if you, hypothetically, wanted to charge SNAP and credit card holders exact amounts (which you would likely want to do to avoid weird effects where SNAP recipients, who tend to be very price sensitive, find their bills going up), and charge cash users rounded up or down, you would be in violation.

Those are the kinds of warts you would hope to see a plan for before these things were announced, rather than having to figure out one in the middle.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#145

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

stevekemp wrote: post #108
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of our supermarkets have at least one self service machine that accepts change. Once a week I pour any loose change in then settle the rest with a card.

I guess this might depend where you are. When I lived in Scotland there was a "loose change" machine at the local Tesco. You pour in your coins and it would give you a receipt you could take to a cashier to get cash back - but the downside was that it charged you something like 10% of the total as a fee. Which I wouldn't pay. Edit: I just searched and the Tesco documentation says "There is a 25p transaction fee and a…

FWIW in the US many of those machines offer to skip the fee if you take the money in the form of a gift card for Amazon or Walmart or similar.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#146

Post by csdreamer7 »

jldugger wrote: post #34
JCM9 wrote: post #24

This is all a bit hyperbolic. Stopping minting pennies made sense and has precedent. There used to be half penny coins. Also, pennies are still legal tender. Folks can take them to a bank or other venue and cash them in. They’re not “trash.”

> Folks can take them to a bank FWIW my bank refuses to accept unrolled coins, long before this month's retirement of the penny.

> FWIW my bank refuses to accept unrolled coins, long before this month's retirement of the penny.

My (edit: old) bank refused to accept unrolled coins back in the early 2000s.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#147

Post by jldugger »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #76
ghssds wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so easy to use coins, pennies included, in day-to-day transactions I never accumulate any. Accumulating pennies or other coins is a concept I don't understand. You can spend up to 4 pennies in any purchase you do, and if you don't can't never receive more than 4. For nickels, dimes, and quarters, the maximum is smaller.

Most of our supermarkets have at least one self service machine that accepts change. Once a week I pour any loose change in then settle the rest with a card.

That actually never occurred to me, I assumed they only took bills. Welp, problem solved and I'm no longer out of milk.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#148

Post by The_President »

FrankWilhoit wrote: post #5

Ask {some number of} engineers: You have just been made a free gift of six thousand metric tons of zinc. What do you do with it?

Value the mineral and prove ownership, get financing, start a company and sell it by unit wholesale.

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#149

Post by theodric »

ralferoo wrote: post #99
theodric wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things are still often priced in €xx.99 in Ireland, but since the 1 and 2 Eurocent coins are all MIA, if you pay in cash, you'll be paying the full €xy.00. Most of my transactions are by card, though, and thus not subject to rounding. So why? Maybe the vendors reckon it will work out in their favor this way.

Haha, as a Brit, I have quite a few eurocent coins in my foreign loose change drawer. Also, as a Brit, if I bought something for £9.99 and gave them a £10, I'd expect change. If they said they didn't have any 1p or 2p coins, I'd expect to receive a 5p coin instead. And when I say expect, I've been offered that a couple of times in the past in that situation, I've never had to ask for it.

They don't call this "the rip-off republic" without reason

Re: The government has no plan for America’s 300 billion pennies

#150

Post by usuallyquiet »

bccdee wrote: post #110
internet2000 wrote: post #2

> Many Americans—and many people who, though not American, enjoy watching from a safe distance as predictable fiascoes unfold in this theoretical superpower from week to week—find themselves now pondering one question. This is way too much spite for an article about coins. Lord.

If the author of the article had done a bit of searching, they might know that Canadians (the primary predictable American ficasco spectators) phased out pennies years ago. We also "had no plan" for the remaining pennies, and we didn't really need one. They get deposited, lost, and thrown away over time—that's why the mint had to keep printing them. Now they've gone the way of the 50-cent piece. It's not a big deal.…

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