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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

#751

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Retric wrote: post #32
basscomm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.

I used to do this for vending machines but now it’s common to need more than eight of them per transaction so it's kinda silly.

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

#753

Post by mrguyorama »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #673
mrguyorama wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid, most sodas had a short can size of 8oz available, good for "lunches" and similar. Funny story, Coca Cola just announced thin 7.5oz cans last month, to be available in January. Shrinkflation is often done by phasing out an old size, often by jacking up the price first to aid the sales of the "family size" version on its way out, and then introducing a "New" size that's just a bit smaller.

When I was a kid, there already weren't 8oz cans. But even if there had been, an 8oz can is 23% bigger than a 6.5oz bottle. 6.5oz is ludicrously small. How did that become a commercial size in the first place? As far as I can tell, a juice box today is 6.75oz, but you buy them in bulk and they're not actually large enough to be good for a small child's lunch.

Well sugary beverages are a treat, not exactly something you should be encouraging a child to drink a lot of or drink often. That's why that dumb logan paul lunchables ripoff is awful for coming with that large drink.

But not everybody agrees with that kind of statement so here's a better one: Small soft drink cans are really good for single serve cocktails.

A single "cup" of coffee is also 6oz, so it's not exactly an abnormal drink size.

As a glass bottle is strange though. But it tends to feel more "Premium" to people

Soft drink companies cater to literally everyone. They eagerly want to sell to both my friend who drinks several liters a day and my grandma who treats half a can of coke as a nice treat and people like me who used to like soda but now mostly use it for mixing drinks and the occasional treat. That's why they sell multiple different formulas of "Coke without sugar" and why there's so much diversity in just the "Citrus flavored" sub category. I miss Vault and Sierra Mist.

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

#754

Post by ryandrake »

munk-a wrote: post #716
cwmma wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd like to clarify that point a bit. They're allowed to get away with it because of a dysfunctional lobbying driven government. Mils don't exist in the common knowledge and if any reasonable person looked at this they'd call it out. It is useful in accounting but a Mill has never been minted and the last half penny was minted in 1857. It has never been possible using issued physical legal tender in the US to pay a d…

Yes, the "Mill" discussion looks to be totally irrelevant. [1] and [2] seem to back up my claim that, at least in modern times, it's purely a "just-below pricing" psychological trick and has nothing to do with the Mill unit.

$4.999 looks a lot smaller than $5.00 to everyday people and it makes the gas company more money than $4.99. That's all there is to it.

1: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/why-do-gas-prices-alw...

2. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/energy/why-gas-prices-fractio...

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

#755

Post by cpfohl »

connicpu wrote: post #596
hypeatei wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine someone being prosecuted from rounding a penny Under this executive, I wouldn't be so sure. If a grocery chain starts deviating from the law, then the government can use it against them to further a political agenda like we've seen with Eric Adams for example.

The easy thing for stores to do then seems to be apply the cash rounding to EBT and card transactions.

This seemed so obvious to me…

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

#756

Post by djtango »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #727
thewebguyd wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A $100 is basically a tank of gas and a sandwich in CA. I was just lamenting with my wife the other day about how "$100 is the new 20 bucks" When I was a kid, mowing someone's yard for $20 was a really good payout. Kids my neighborhood last year were doing it for $70 lol.

$70!? How big are these lawns? Hell, I'd mow lawns for $70 each. I wouldn't pay more than $5 for someone to mow my lawn, but then again, it's tiny at like 20x15 feet. I spend more time getting the mower out and putting it back away than actually mowing. Probably gonna replace it with just a bunch of wildflowers next spring.

Wage inflation and lawn shrinkflation

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

#757

Post by zahlman »

robocat wrote: post #587
zahlman wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. I will never "tap" my debit card as long as I have any legal option. Everyone else can wait for me to exercise my consumer rights, by inputting my PIN, verifying the amount displayed on screen etc.

I've seen a pattern where people that value their own time at $0 unfortunately often value the time of others at $0. Worse is valuing others at $0 and your own at $lots (which is also common).

Interesting.

I don't know what to make of the idea that I'm "not valuing my time" by carefully considering my purchases and caring about security. Or that the seconds I take on this are so important to both myself and others, compared to the time spent browsing the store shelves, getting to and from the place, etc. Heaven forbid I choose the cashier instead of a self check-out this time, and try to strike up a conversation.

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

#758

Post by djtango »

nine_k wrote: post #552
quantified wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It makes sense when you think of coins in terms of the commodities they were pegged to - a sliver of copper and nickel to pay for a loaf of bread.

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

#759

Post by zahlman »

zahlman wrote: post #428
basscomm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pay exact change whenever I can. And on the occasions where I can only make (exact change + simple amount), I often get deer-in-headlights looks from cashiers who can't do mental arithmetic and apparently haven't learned how to get the machine to understand payments of more than one physical bill or coin.

I legitimately don't understand why people object to this strongly enough to downvote it without comment.

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

#760

Post by zahlman »

Retric wrote: post #456
zahlman wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing to me that people consider "saving time while paying money" to be a good thing. I will never "tap" my debit card as long as I have any legal option. Everyone else can wait for me to exercise my consumer rights, by inputting my PIN, verifying the amount displayed on screen etc.

Wasting people’s time is rude here not illegal. Courtesy may seem outdated to some, but it can occasionally come back to bite people. Being overly rude to waitstaff is something I’m concerned with around promotions because of how they might treat people inside the company. Without better information you extrapolate.

... How is this related to what I said?
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