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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

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

#701

Post by varenc »

jjcm wrote: post #686
close04 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the law is slow to change or there are no available pennies, the stores can adjust the prices to match the expected rounding of prices. I can't imagine someone being prosecuted from rounding a penny but it's a quick and easy way to avoid any doubt.

> the stores can adjust the prices to match the expected rounding of prices Not necessarily. Anything measured by weight will still be subject to this issue.

Anything measured by weight is already rounding prices to the nearest cent. If something is $1/lb and I have 0.995 lbs of it, I get charged $1.00 not 99.5 cents. Presumably just rounding to the nearest 5 cents isn't that different.

Of course we don't expect anyone to be charged fractional cents because our currency doesn't support it. So just changing our smallest currency unit from 1 cent to 5 cents.

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

#702

Post by delecti »

mjd wrote: post #208
delecti wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I addressed in another reply that "'none' is all that's necessary" is probably a defensible interpretation of the law (the more relevant portion being in 5111 rather than 5112), but the penny being explicitly listed makes it clearly not the intention of congress. That's why I said it's a "shaky" and not "baseless" legal ground. The law is clearly written with the expectation that there will be some , which is why Con…

You're right, 5111 is more pertinent here. 5111(a)(1) says “shall mint and issue coins” but qualifies it explicitly with “in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States”. This is a clear delegation of authority. If you don't think zero pennies is a permissible amount, what about one penny? Two? What minimum number are you arguing for here, and what's your justification for it? I…

> If Congress had wanted to set a minimum number, they could have done so.

I don't think this is necessarily a sound argument. The current presidency is full of examples of aspects of laws being used in ways no president previously had. Those laws existed, but I don't think it follows that congress intended for those powers to exist.

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

#703

Post by anamexis »

kragen wrote: post #620

Copper pennies weigh 3.11 grams. Copper is currently US$10987 per tonne https://www.metal.com/en/prices/LME_CA_3M so a copper penny is worth 3.4¢. This is a surprisingly low number to me; I would have expected it to be closer to 10¢ or 20¢, since presumably it was about 1¢ of copper when it was still copper. By comparison, a silver dime (90% silver, 10% copper) is 2.268 grams, and silver is US$1486.77/kg https://www.…

> From the point of view of an 18th- or 19th-century person, for whom the purpose of the mint was to certify the value of the precious metal in the coin by stamping it

Was that the purpose of the mint? That would imply that the relative value of silver vs. copper was static.

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

#704

Post by knollimar »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #327
carlosjobim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You price it including sales tax. Sticker price is final price.

If someone is buying a banana for resale, or buying with WIC or SNAP benefits (among other things), they would not owe sales tax. So if the price included sales tax, the sticker price would not be the final price. You do not know the final price until you know how they are paying for it, what they are using it for, and when they are buying it (among other things). Falsehoods programmers believe about sales tax (among…

this is me preempting: yes I know I picked a bad example since produce isn't often taxed. Assume it's a prepackaged organic banana.

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

#705

Post by forinti »

basscomm wrote: post #7
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.

> everyone gets pennies as change but few carry them around let alone spend them It's not just pennies, it's all coins. In a former life I worked in retail and almost nobody would fish around in their pockets for exact (or even near) change. They'd always hand me bills for their purchase even if they had just completed a transaction and had the coins in their pocket . That was in the 90's, and I still see it happenin…

I like using coins because I'm always looking for commemorative coins. It's an interesting investment: you can immediately double or triple your money. Unfortunately, you rarely find them.

I also keep the obvious fakes.

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

#707

Post by knollimar »

randerson wrote: post #66
knollimar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your sales tax rate is 8.875%, what do you price a banana at to avoid change?

This problem is easily solved in countries that use VAT

It really isn't; it's just acceptable to accumulate this rounding error I'm implying in those countries. Which is fine, but should be acknowledged.

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

#708

Post by Aloisius »

cwmma wrote: post #539
ryandrake wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing gas stations to denominate their prices by the 10th of a cent has always struck me as a just an underhanded and extreme way to practice the "9.99" retail psychological trick. Why not allow retailers to price things 9.99999? Ridiculous.

It's because technically the dollar is divided into Dimes, Cents, and Mil. (this is why dimes say 'One Dime' on them instead of 'Ten Cents'. So while the mil isn't really used anywhere else that regular people see any more due to inflation, it is a valid division of the dollar and that's why they are able to get away with it.

> (this is why dimes say 'One Dime' on them instead of 'Ten Cents'.

No, it's purely stylistic. We tend to spell out denominations on coinage and "dime" is just the American spelling of disme, meaning a tenth.

The capped bust dime from 1809-1839 had "10 C." rather than "One Dime". Similarly, the capped bust quarter said "25 C." instead of the modern "Quarter Dollar", the half dollar said "50 C." rather than the later "Half Dollar" and the half dime said "5 C." rather than the later "Half Dime."

Most of the 18th century and early 19th century coinage, besides half pennies and pennies didn't have their denomination written on them at all.

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

#709

Post by wasabi991011 »

kpw94 wrote: post #164
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…

> $1 and $2 coins in wide circulation (instead of worn-out $1 bills). This has its own pros/cons... One advantage of $1 bill over coin is the majority of people in US don't need a wallet with zipper to hold coins. Five $1 bills is much less bulky and much lighter than five $1 CAD or five 1€ coins

Of course everything has its pros and cons, but not all of them are worth considering.

The amount of wallets with zipper is a country is not worth considering when discussing what coins should be minted.

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

#710

Post by EasyMark »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #141

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now. It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything. Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a c…

I don't want people using cards more, as I don't want a cashless society. Government knows enough about it, why make it easier? I'm find with getting rid of pennies and nickles though, we can do that.
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