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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

#561

Post by SkyPuncher »

anticorporate wrote: post #235
phantom784 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the SNAP law, could they just round down SNAP purchases in the same way to be compliant?

The SNAP equal treatment rule requirement works in both directions: Prices cannot be higher or lower for SNAP recipients. As a retailer, there is an option to request a waiver, though.

IMO, this is a strawman that is either going to be ignored or fixed easily.

The law did not account for every possible situation. Removal of the penny from national currency is clear a situation where minor variations on otherwise normal transactions would not be in violation of the intent of the law.

It'd be like TSA griping that your 100ml bottle of mouthwash was overfilled by .1ml because of slight variations in the filling process. Nobody cares.

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

#564

Post by gblargg »

sequoia wrote: post #451

Gas prices are frequently in fractions of a penny. This never matters because they round. Yep, rounding, in the real world, and the nation has not imploded. As pointed out by others Canada does this already and it's no issue.

And whenever tax is added it's usually a fraction of a penny as well. Rounding has been with us for a long time.

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

#565

Post by jedberg »

rkomorn wrote: post #556
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…

That wouldn't apply if everyone included tax in their prices. In this case, the item would just be $1.10.

If the business really thinks they will lose money by pricing over a dollar, then yes, they would have to take that hit. But they are already taking that hit if the "real value" is $1.02 for example.

It's just a price/demand curve. They would simply have to optimize it differently.

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

#566

Post by maxerickson »

immibis wrote: post #316
internetter wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not argue that the average is the same and thus the law isn’t violated?

Does the law say the average price must be the same, or does it say the price must be the same? Reality: the supermarket does it the common sense way, and never gets sued, but if they do get sued, the outcome is "you must now refund 2 cents from every SNAP transaction you ever did"

It's probably the case that the real risk is being suspended from SNAP for failing to comply with their rules.

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

#567

Post by SkyPuncher »

hrimfaxi wrote: post #3

I watched a video on the demise of the penny and its predicament was so succinctly explained: everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them, so we are stuck producing ever more. One news outlet even did an "experiment" where they threw hundreds of pennies on the ground in a city on a busy morning and not one person stopped to pick any up.

Only place I've ever noticed them is the $0.01 pony ride that's been sitting at my grocery store for 30 years.

Even they've gotten the hint and simply leave a tray of pennies next to it so people can actually use it.

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

#568

Post by delecti »

JohnFen wrote: post #55
delecti wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quarters might be premature, but the half-cent was discontinued when it was worth a (modern equivalent) of $0.12-17. Even 20-30 years ago, when I was just starting to interact with money enough to have an opinion, I thought it was a hassle to deal with anything smaller than a quarter. The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value) also supports doing at least nickels.

> The same logic behind getting rid of pennies (they cost more to make than the face value) I've honestly never understood why this is a valid reason to object to the coin. Coins aren't used only once, so that they cost most to make than their face value doesn't seem very important, unless the differential is much, much larger than it actually is.

I get what you mean, but the Mint does "sell" currency in a sense, so it's not a terrible point to make. It also serves as a decent benchmark for the "should we even bother" aspect; should we lose money by literally making money?

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

#569

Post by skylurk »

0_____0 wrote: post #276
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gourmet high-end Keurig pods are like $0.50 each. Make your own coffee.

If you go through coffee regularly, it's actually quite a nice thing to invest in. There are a really amazing number of craft roasters throughout the country, and simply having a quality grinder is enough. And you don't need a crazy espresso setup to enjoy it. My setup consists of a motorized flat burr grinder, a 20$ kettle from target, and a pour over funnel. The quality is so much higher than anything you can get f…

There's some really good hand grinders these days too, minimal effort and only takes a minute.

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

#570

Post by gblargg »

ianferrel wrote: post #427
timeinput wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where they just posted the price you would pay at the register on the shelf instead of some number that is ~93.082% of the price you would pay. I know it's hard to imagine the price on the shelf being the price that you pay, but I believe it is possible even in complex tax situations.

I live where there is no sales tax, so it's not hard to imagine! But good luck convincing every state, county, municipality, and other weird governing body that requires something other than that and also collects a weird sales tax. Or go with the solution that papers over all that nonsense: a flexible and maximum $0.04 per purchase discount.

What if businesses issues their own penny coupons that could be used in future purchases? If you bought from there regularly you'd on average only have a couple of them.
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