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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
771–780 of 981 posts
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#772I'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 know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…
Of course you’re absolutely right and the whole thing just illustrates how dysfunctional the US is. I mean, this edict originated in a tweet or whatever it’s called now. Even after months, nobody could be bothered to think about how to properly execute it that solves the various concerns. We really can’t solve the simplest of problems any longer our politicians just cause noise with no signal and just actively undermine everything they touch. Not even talking specifically about the person you might think I am, this is a systemic issue.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…
As the article points out, there are laws that say people who pay via SNAP debit cards "cannot be charged more than others". If cash payments are rounded down, but debit card payments aren't, they are in violation of state law. The article also points out that rollback of pennies in Canada and other places were planned, addressing these kinds of issues. USA is doing it with no such planning.
Tons of laws go unenforced
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#774Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story. Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. An…
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.…
> You still need to include the cents in a tax bill that runs into the millions of dollars.
No, each number I enter into my tax form is rounded to the dollar. Not just the total, every input value.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#775I remember thinking there's a small arbitrage opportunity in countries that don't have pennies and nickels. In NZ I believe stores round to the nearest decimal (.02, .01 => .00 and .03, .04 => .05). They lose on some sales but gain on others. However, they don't round if you use a CC.
Here's one for the FIRE folks: if it rounds up, use a CC and if it rounds down use cash. Use all those pennies you save using your CC to retire 3 minutes early.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d regularly use quarters in vending machines, but not waste time during a retail transaction.
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.
Entering your PIN and using a debit card is the least secure/safe version of electronic payment.
Tapping (NFC) or dipping (EMV) are safer and faster for everyone.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#777Earlier 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.
Your neighbors who pay a service with similar sized lawn are mostly paying them to drive to their house. The neighborhood kids can undercut them without that time inefficiency. But they only need to slightly undercut them, so they get a good payout (for them)
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#778Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never had a retailer refuse to accept a $2 bill, although a couple of times the clerk summoned the manager about it. But I've never found a retailer willing to give a $2 bill as change. The resistance to the $2 bill is a very weird cultural thing.
> But I've never found a retailer willing to give a $2 bill as change. Mostly retailers don't stock $2 bills (because they're weird), so if a customer brings a $2, the cashier will put it in their their exceptional bills area, which usually is just large bills. No change is made with exceptional bills, so twos don't get recirculated.
It's hard to even get $10 bills in change these days because of the ways that retailers handle putting larger bills into the safe, and getting smaller bills for change out of the safe.
"Alright. Your total is $25.13. You're paying with $100? No, no, it's fine; I just hope you like fives and ones."
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#779Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
I work in admin for a retailer. We got a nastigram from USDA last week reminding us that we were in no circumstances to help SNAP recipients in any way. The current administration very much does not care what the intent of the law is, and is actively looking for trivial violations as an excuse to punish SNAP recipients and SNAP retailers. It would not surprise me at all to see a retailer banned from the program for h…
Again. Context matters.
Last week, the government was in a shutdown and it was unclear if SNAP benefits were going to go out. That's not the same as rounding pennies.
Re: The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody wants 10 months in a year. What we want is 13 28-day months a year plus one or two intercalary days. But organized religion gets in the way.
Which organised religion is demanding a 10 month year?
Since we’re talking about US monetary policies, I’m going to assume the same religion that thinks the world is only a few thousand years old and dinosaurs are a hoax.