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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

#791

Post by paulmooreparks »

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.

I think it's a generational thing. I used to mow the lawn for an elderly distant cousin, in the hot Florida summer weather. She would invite me in afterward for a snack and a 6.5oz Coca-Cola. I would guzzle mine in a couple of seconds. She would pour half of hers into a glass, over ice, and put the bottle back into the refrigerator.

Wine glasses have also gotten bigger over the years.

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

#792

Post by mwcz »

everdev wrote: post #790

If they're stopping production of the penny because it costs more to mint each one than each is worth, that's a stupid reason. Why does everything have to be about making money? Can't we just have useful things without worrying about how profitable they are?

We do lots of things that are unprofitable, and we should probably do more than we do. But they should be things that bring non-monetary value into the world. Pennies do not bring non-monetary value into the world.

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

#794

Post by paulmooreparks »

fstarship wrote: post #660
droptablemain wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famous little jingle "shave and a haircut, two bits" Most people today have no clue what a "bit" is. I imagine the future will hold something similar for the penny in all the idioms and cultural phrases we have. What the hell is a penny?

It’s kind of like lots of imperial measurements where we use metric still have these in idioms.

"I would walk 500 kilometers" just doesn't sound as romantic.

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

#795

Post by kmeisthax »

philistine wrote: post #498
simpleguitar wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't want to be glib, but hey what the hey. This is how you can see that the United States is in decline; it can no longer discontinue a coin through legislation.

The last time America discontinued a coin legislatively was the half cent about 150 years ago. That's a pretty long decline.

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

#796

Post by wasabi991011 »

axiolite wrote: post #373

penny-rounding “imposes a tax of $3.27 million Canadian dollars from consumers to grocery stores on a yearly basis in aggregate https://economics.ubc.ca/news/penny-rounding-profitable-for-... eliminating the penny would require producing more nickels to “fill the gap in small-value transactions.” But nickels suffer from a similar “seigniorage” problem: the 2024 U.S. Mint report said the five-cent coins have a unit co…

Cool research, thanks for being one of the few to bring substantial arguments to this discussion.

For your first point, I would like to add the next sentence for context: "That means that a typical grocery store would receive an additional estimated $157 in revenue just from rounding." I feel like this is negligible.

Also, for the nickel, the seigniorage ratio is 2.something, isn't that lower than the penny? I think there's a decent chance that removing the penny would still be a net benefit for the mint.

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

#797

Post by wasabi991011 »

criddell wrote: post #588
wasabi991011 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying cash, you would pay $1.05.

I'm referring to states that don't allow rounding. > in some states, merchants could face legal trouble for rounding up or down It seems obvious to me they are already rounding to the $1/100. Why is rounding to $1/20 a problem?

Ah I see. Yeah I agree then.

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

#798

Post by k2enemy »

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…

It is a misconception that credit card rewards are a transfer of wealth from poor to rich: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/credit-card-r...

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

#800

Post by stevage »

b112 wrote: post #252
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 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…

Kind of emblematic of the issue of Americans not looking to other countries to see what works and what doesn't.
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