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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

#731

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

vel0city wrote: post #670
robocat wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rats chewing up the money Profit for the US government. Fixed by plastic bills. Every $ printed but never redeemed is a significant profit (assuming other costs are low like printing). Especially yummy when countries just want to hoard the currency - same as selling stamps that are never used: estimate the stock of U.S. currency circulating in Argentina ... U.S. currency inflows during 1988-1992 totaled $20.8 billi…

> Every $ printed but never redeemed is a significant profit Redeemed? Redeemed for what? Its not like they're still trading dollars for gold at any kind of fixed rate.

I interpret "redeemed" as meaning "spent on a good or service".

Since the government can just print money, it can spend whatever it wants, but doing so creates inflation because of the higher money supply.

Dollars that disappear (ie, they get eaten by rats) push that inflation back down by removing money from the supply.

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

#732

Post by jeremyjh »

randyrand wrote: post #651

I'm not sure why the article says this is so hard for retailers to figure out. They already round . When they apply 7% sales tax to a $1.99 purchase, what do they charge you? $2.1293? Obviously not. Just do whatever they already do.

The article mentions several practical and legal issues, and your comment does not address any of them.

Also, "whatever they do" currently is rounding to two decimal places - that doesn't help us here. I'm not saying the software changes required are challenging, but I'm sure there are lots of POS systems that are not properly maintained anymore that will cause issues for a lot of smaller merchants.

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

#733

Post by ProjectArcturis »

potato3732842 wrote: post #590
ekelsen wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Whenever I'm late to a meeting I blame it on the french revolutionary calendar.

Lousy Smarch weather

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

#734

Post by sgerenser »

jimbokun wrote: post #296
datadrivenangel wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But add a $3.50 coin so that we can strongly incentivize coffee to stay below a certain price.

One of the things I admire most about Italy is how they have held the line on the price of an espresso. It’s still just slightly over €1 if you drink it standing at the bar. They really have their priorities straight when it comes to food and drink prices.

So they charge more for an espresso if you want to drink it seated? Or take it away?

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

#735

Post by Jblx2 »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #696
Waterluvian wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe we actually have a law that dictates how to round in Canada. There’s just a government recommendation. I get that the U.S. is a much lower trust culture, but is it really necessary? The rounding is only for cash transactions.

I think stores will adjust their prices pretty quick if they cannot even aquire pennies to give as change. So no law should be needed. you may need to stipulate a grace period during which stores are still obligated to take pennies, to slowly shake them out of circulation without every American needing to visit a bank for cashing in. But its also possible that isn't needed either. In the 2nd half of the phaseout you…

Why would pennies need to expire? Why wouldn't stores still accept them, even if they are in short supply? Surely stores would still accept $2 bills and $1 coins (which are "rare") even if they don't like it?

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

#736

Post by ghaff »

degamad wrote: post #659
flymasterv wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s illegal in a lot of places.

Advertising the tax-included price is illegal? Where? (No snark - serious question, as I'm not from the US, and would love to see the legislation and justification which required that...)

I have seen at some small coffee shops and the like but it’s rare.

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

#737

Post by dpark »

echelon wrote: post #644
hn_acc1 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For large volume businesses, $400 / year is what we usually call.. a rounding error.

A large volume business isn't doing 10k transactions.

Your hypothetical 4 cents per transaction is inflated but it’s still only 4 cents per transaction. Credit card fees dwarf that even for very large volume business.

No CEO is rubbing their hands together salivating over the idea of 4 cents per transaction. This likely won’t even show up on an earnings report because it’s literally going to be rounded away.

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

#738

Post by cratermoon »

Telemakhos wrote: post #662
dyslexit wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article also points out that some states and a lot cities require retailers to provide exact change. Congress would need to pass legislation to allow rounding nationally. I'm guessing in the meantime they'll continue holding pennies from previous years?

So, implement sales tax like Europe does VAT and include it in on the shelf price, and make sure all shelf prices end in 0 or 5. Then, adding up items in a cart will also end in 0 or 5, and the tax is already included, so there is no math beyond the addition that could change the total to anything ending in something that is not 0 or 5. No matter how people pay, cash or card, the price will be the same, and it will a…

Penalizing the poor further?

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

#739

Post by Jblx2 »

paxys wrote: post #304
MrHeather wrote: post #6

>But with 20 million customers a year, and 17% of them paying with cash, the policy will eventually cost Kwik Trip a couple of million dollars a year, McHugh said. If we figure two-fifths of cash transactions need to be rounded up and the store is losing an average of 1.5 cents each time, their expected losses would be around $2,000, yeah?

20 million customers doesn't mean 20 million transactions. Considering we are talking about a convenience store I'm sure a large chunk of their customers visit every day, some probably multiple times a day. Assuming 3.4 million customers (cash users) and 2.5 cents average loss per transaction, it would only take one visit a month for them to cross a million dollars in losses. Of course at that scale it's not like tha…

>visit every day, some probably multiple times a day

Anyone have data on what percentage of the population visits convenience stores 500+ times per year? Sounds pretty inconvenient.

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

#740

Post by drivebyhooting »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #625
drivebyhooting wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the gourmet high end plastic ends up in the brew.

As opposed to the plastic pipes your water runs through, the plastic water filter, plastic coffee maker, and plastic travel mug you pour it into?

I usually don’t run high pressure boiling water through my plastic pipes.
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