Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 428 posts

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#201

Post by chrisparsons »

Loughla wrote: post #174
jellicle wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone uses an electronic POS system and it will round however the manufacturer told it to round (which will be correctly). The only people you have to worry about cheating you out of 3-4 cents in a world without pennies (the maximum you can be cheated) would be people without electronic systems. Which is to say, no one.

I just disagree with this. We will see Wal-Mart and other chain retailers make their own POS software/systems. 3-4 cents isn't a lot. Unless it's added up by all of the people shopping in those places over the course of a year. The incentive to cheat the system is there, therefore the system will 100% be cheated. That's The American Way, in my experience.

You'll have all the data to fact check whether or not they're doing this, too. We all do on a receipt.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#202

Post by ebg13 »

gojomo wrote: post #193

The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢, as described by Austan Goolsbee here: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/business/01scenes.html This is (very) mildly stimulative/inflationary, and in the time leading up to en expected re-basing, accelerates the phase-out of the 1¢ penny (as people hoard in expectation of a 5x return). But as of the moment of re-basing, it flushes all those penny-jars out into…

> The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢

But they say "ONE CENT" on them.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#203

Post by causality0 »

lovegoblin wrote: post #168
nayuki wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since Canada changed but left the taxes the same (14% in Ontario IIRC) there seems to be a lot of rounding-off in favour of companies instead of consumers. $0.01-$0.02 per transaction This assertion is wrong. If the item you buy is $1.00, then after your 14% tax it will be $1.14, which is rounded up to $1.15. If the item is $2.00, then after tax it is $2.28, which also rounds up to $2.30. But if the item is $3.00,…

Also, it's only cash transactions that are rounded. If you pay by debit or credit (which I would guess is the majority?) then it's still the exact amount and nothing has changed.

All transactions are rounded. It's just that paying by card is rounded to the nearest cent instead of the nearest 5 cents.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#204

Post by gojomo »

ebg13 wrote: post #202
gojomo wrote: post #193

The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢, as described by Austan Goolsbee here: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/business/01scenes.html This is (very) mildly stimulative/inflationary, and in the time leading up to en expected re-basing, accelerates the phase-out of the 1¢ penny (as people hoard in expectation of a 5x return). But as of the moment of re-basing, it flushes all those penny-jars out into…

> The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢ But they say "ONE CENT" on them.

They also say, 'Liberty', 'In God We Trust', & 'E Pluribus Unum'. Lots of writing on government-issued materials is false, ceremonial, outdated, or overridden by later acts.

If it really bothers you, you can file that off your pennies before spending them at 5¢ value. We won't mind.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#205

Post by hilbert42 »

Australia dropped the copper 'penny' (one cent) along with its two-cent coin ages ago and nobody complained except for a few electronics people like me who used them as heat sinks for diodes and other electronic components. (Yuh simply drill a hole and solder them onto the wire leads of hot components.)

At exactly one cent each, they were much cheaper than their proper catalogue equivalents, we were left all adrift when our cheap source of coppers ran out.

So guys begin stocking up now while you've still the chance.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#206

Post by dhosek »

When someone posted an article about the coin shortage on Facebook recently, I realized that I haven't used cash for a purchase since sometime before the lockdown started. And even before that, my primary use of cash was the collections basket at church—which the lockdown has ended up transforming into a credit card transaction now. Our formerly cash transactions for our cleaning lady have converted into Zelle payments. Friends who also commented mentioned tipping delivery people although I prefer contactless delivery and always include the tip in the original payment rather than have to come close enough to a delivery person to hand off cash. Cash has long been on a decline and I think the pandemic is accelerating this to the point where it's going to end up being moot.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#207

Post by dlivingston »

lolsal wrote: post #170
ryandvm wrote: post #125

The US penny is perhaps the most illustrative example of why I am wary that the US government can do ANYTHING efficiently. The continued existence of the penny is absolutely ludicrous. Here we have something that has almost zero economic value to everyone involved. It costs more to mint them than they're worth. It likely costs more to even transport or count them than they're worth. It is almost entirely just economi…

> It costs more to mint them than they're worth. Isn't this largely irrelevant since the producer of pennies makes up for this when they print any other form of currency? > But the fact that this country can't even figure out how to stop making a coin that is worthless tells me that it is probably asking a little too much to expect that the federal government can competently manage anything as complex as healthcare o…

If we assume that it takes 2 seconds to pick up a penny, and you were to pick up pennies continuously, then you would be “earning” only $18 / hour.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#208

Post by SamBam »

ebg13 wrote: post #202
gojomo wrote: post #193

The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢, as described by Austan Goolsbee here: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/business/01scenes.html This is (very) mildly stimulative/inflationary, and in the time leading up to en expected re-basing, accelerates the phase-out of the 1¢ penny (as people hoard in expectation of a 5x return). But as of the moment of re-basing, it flushes all those penny-jars out into…

> The best plan is to re-base all pennies to be worth 5¢ But they say "ONE CENT" on them.

I assume they would be redeemable at banks for nickels.

Re: Is It Time to Kill the Penny?

#210

Post by axaxs »

DonHopkins wrote: post #86
klyrs wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But because of quarters you still probably need nickels. Only in the presence of dimes. That's why I say, cut them too.

Good point. Binary money is ideal. But you can get arrested (or shot if Black) for trying to spend a two dollar bill in America. Man arrested for using $2 bills at Best Buy - clip from The Two Dollar Bill Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS3yjfefUD8 A $2 Bill At Taco Bell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbp-UyLH2ng Police Involved After Student Tries To Buy Lunch With $2 Bill https://www.forbes.com/sites/k…

Thanks for sharing these links. I think the second video was the most enlightening. Even the security guard had the insight to think "why would someone fake a $2 bill?".
Post reply on HN