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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

#551

Post by BenjiWiebe »

pests wrote: post #439
oktoberpaard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands cash payments get rounded to the nearest 5 cents, in both directions. Card payments are not rounded. If I’m not mistaken, you can still demand exact change according to the law and you’re allowed to pay the exact amount (cents are still legal tender). Most merchants wouldn’t be able to give you exact change, so it depends on the situation what would happen. I’ve never heard of such a situation happ…

If someone demands exact change is it allowed to give them more? What if you don't have the exact change?

You could always refuse service, I guess.

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

#552

Post by nine_k »

quantified wrote: post #408
burningChrome wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

In 1934 the dollar was worth approximately 24x more than in 2025. A cheap loaf of bread is about $2 here in NYC, so it would be about 8¢ at the time.

On one hand, the difference between 2¢ and 8¢ looks completely inconsequential now. OTOH it's a four-fold difference.

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

#553

Post by [deleted] »

pests wrote: post #439
oktoberpaard wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands cash payments get rounded to the nearest 5 cents, in both directions. Card payments are not rounded. If I’m not mistaken, you can still demand exact change according to the law and you’re allowed to pay the exact amount (cents are still legal tender). Most merchants wouldn’t be able to give you exact change, so it depends on the situation what would happen. I’ve never heard of such a situation happ…

If someone demands exact change is it allowed to give them more? What if you don't have the exact change?

[deleted]

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

#554

Post by dpark »

wat10000 wrote: post #352
jacobgkau wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Sales taxes already result in rounding, which the store could try to take advantage of. They never do. They set prices to end in 99 because it's psychologically more attractive. That will most likely continue. If they're required to price in multiples of 5, we'll see prices ending in 95.

Unlikely that stores would be required to price in 5 cent increments. That would presumably require legislative action and would fly in the face of gas stations today pricing with fractional cents.

But yeah, this isn’t a real issue regardless.

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

#556

Post by rkomorn »

jedberg wrote: post #544

"What are we going to do about the rounding problem?!" INCLUDE TAX IN THE PRICE, then you won't have a rounding problem! The common argument against that is "but there are so many tax jurisdictions" One, Europe has a bunch too and has solved this, and two, it would only apply to in person cash transactions. You should be able to figure out the tax rules for the one specific place the transaction is taking place.

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 better than post-tax price.

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

#557

Post by wrs »

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…

That's because in Canada you actually prepared for the transition, instead of just proclaiming it in a tweet.

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

#558

Post by onraglanroad »

ekelsen wrote: post #332
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.…

During the French Revolution, they tried to make a right angle have 100 degrees and even recomputed all new trig tables for this new standard. It obviously did not catch on :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian

There's no reason you can't have 400 degrees in a circle and therefore 100 for a right angle.

It's a degree scale: you can choose any number you want.

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

#560

Post by rendall »

jedberg wrote: post #544

"What are we going to do about the rounding problem?!" INCLUDE TAX IN THE PRICE, then you won't have a rounding problem! The common argument against that is "but there are so many tax jurisdictions" One, Europe has a bunch too and has solved this, and two, it would only apply to in person cash transactions. You should be able to figure out the tax rules for the one specific place the transaction is taking place.

Ikr? It's like everyone thinks "It is simply not possible to set a price on an item so that its total price is a nice round number after tax is applied! One would need to... invent a special kind of math to do that!"

It's like the whole country is unwilling to calculate 1.065x=$2 or whatever.

And... why not include tax in the display price? I never did get a good explanation for that.

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