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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

#401

Post by zahlman »

rz2k wrote: post #231
nayuki wrote: post #20

We 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…

I am suspicious of any claims about relative cleanliness. As with wooden vs plastic cutting boards, our intuitions are likely misleading. To be an effective fomite the currency has to not kill the microbe, and it has to readily give up the microbe to the next recipient. Organic materials like cotton or linen seem more likely to simply absorb a viral envelope or bacterial cell wall, thereby rendering it ineffective. F…

"Dirty" also connotes physical appearance, you know.

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

#402

Post by Jblx2 »

jacobgkau wrote: post #281
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…

> Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up. So everything's going to be $1.03 or $1.04. Not sure why you think retailers (or any sellers) would ever, ever, ever let this play into customers' advantage. But apparently pointing out that obvious truth makes me a "moron," because you can think of some clever ways to get around it that retailers surely won't work arou…

What percentage of people live in a jurisdiction without a sales tax? In my local area, sales tax is 8.8%. And if you take the bridge across the river, tax is 8.9%. So there is already rounding involved, $1.03 becomes $1.12167. Unless of course you bill also includes a mix of taxable and non-taxable items like food, etc..

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

#403

Post by 542458 »

burningChrome wrote: post #346
quantified wrote: post #307

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.…

>> and we won't have $100 bills anymore. Heard some pundits on the radio talking about the elimination of the penny and one of them who worked at the Secret Service as an analyst talked about why the US paper money only goes to $100 bills. He said it was to reduce criminals and illicit activity and criminals having to store it. He related the story of Pablo Escobar's brother or cousin who was the accountant for the c…

I'm not really sure about "He said it was to reduce [...] criminals having to store it". Storage shouldn't be a huge problem - IIRC you can pack about a hundred million onto a standard pallet. Even for Escobar, who is THE outlier here, and assuming he's holding 100% of it in cash, that's about 300 pallets which easily fits into a normal warehouse. If you've got that much money it shouldn't be impossible to keep a warehouse like that clean and dry.

Now, "illicit activity" more broadly speaking checks out to me. The EU stopped printing the 500 euro note because it was primarily used for illegal transactions and money laundering.

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

#405

Post by zahlman »

nayuki wrote: post #212
afavour wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States is the only country that prints all denominations of currency in the same size. The US and Switzerland are the only two countries that use the same colors for all of their various bills. Needless to say, this sameness of size and color make it impossible for a blind person to locate the correct bills to make a purchase without some sort of assistance, or confirm that he or she has been given the c…

> 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...

> Although similar in appearance to braille, it differs because standard Braille was deemed too sensitive.

Yes. This system is more resistant to wear and tear.

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

#406

Post by zahlman »

wasabi991011 wrote: post #150
SoftTalker wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit odd that the mint doesn't emboss the denomination in braille on each note. I'd think that there would be a way to do that and have it hold up pretty well in circulation?

I think I've seen that blind people in the US have a little machine that they can use to add the braille themselves. Also from a quick google search there's also electronic bill readers that can be provided to blind people for free if they qualify. In Canada the bills are embossed with braille by the mint. There may be other accommodations too, but I haven't looked it up.

Not braille; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45904000.

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

#407

Post by zahlman »

Arubis wrote: post #93
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American banknotes have numbers on them to easily distinguish the different values!

Which is great if you are fully abled! But for folks for whom sight isn't as strong, additional aids (different colors, different sized banknotes for different denominations) are super helpful.

Being fully sighted, I still appreciate it.

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

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

#408

Post by quantified »

burningChrome wrote: post #346
quantified wrote: post #307

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.…

>> and we won't have $100 bills anymore. Heard some pundits on the radio talking about the elimination of the penny and one of them who worked at the Secret Service as an analyst talked about why the US paper money only goes to $100 bills. He said it was to reduce criminals and illicit activity and criminals having to store it. He related the story of Pablo Escobar's brother or cousin who was the accountant for the c…

When the $1000 bill was retired, a loaf of bread cost a couple cents. There was indeed a push to purge them during the drug scares of the late 20th century. A suitcase of $1000 bills is far sexier than one of $100 bills. It really was porting them.

With bitcoin, it's moot.

A $100 is basically a tank of gas and a sandwich in CA.

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

#410

Post by echelon »

tempestn wrote: post #369
echelon wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is no rounding down, it could amount to more. Hypothetically if you incur 10,000 transactions per year with the max rounding up of $0.04 per transaction, you're out $400. This doesn't make a huge impact to individuals, but it absolutely will to large volume businesses.

But there would be rounding down, so how is this relevant?

Nobody has to round down. There's no government rule.

I would expect many businesses to implement ceil()-flavored rounding.

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