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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

#971

Post by throwawaymaths »

delecti wrote: post #148
throwawaymaths wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is the law? Can you show me the statute requiring the treasury department to coin pennies?

Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution gives Congress the authority responsibility to coin money. And in the coinage act of 1792, 31 USC 5111(a)(1), congress directs that the treasury "shall mint and issue coins described in section 5112 of this title in amounts the Secretary decides are necessary to meet the needs of the United States", with the list in section 5112 explicitly listing the penny (31 USC 5112(a)(6))…

Exactly. I believe the treasury will continue minting commemorative pennies, which would even not make it "none" and give a stronger argument that "well yeah we are meeting the [numismatic] needs"

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

#972

Post by balamatom »

mkehrt wrote: post #943
balamatom wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO best would be some kind of money where you could physically break a given piece of cash into two pieces of half the value.

So pieces of eight?

Pieces of thirty would let you split the booty 2-, 3-, or 5-way.

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

#973

Post by philipallstar »

bluGill wrote: post #903
philipallstar wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems crazy to even advertise the pre-tax price.

The tax is applies after the total is added up so there is no other choice When I was a kid a value meal at McDonalds was $3.18 after tax, but two of them was $6.37 - that extra penny over all the meals McDonalds sells in a state adds up to a lot of money and they were not going to let that go.

As long as all the amounts when taxed add up to round numbers, you don't need pennies.

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

#974

Post by refurb »

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…

I think the issue is you’re confusing social media comments with broad, overall opinions.

I’d bet most Americans don’t even know they are getting rid of the penny. Or if they saw it on the news, they forgot about it a day later. It ranks pretty low on general concerns.

Social media commentary about the issue are a tiny minority - first people need to come across the topic, then they need to muster up the effort to actually comment. People who don’t care don’t comment.

I see this mistake with a lot of people. Issues they think are top of mind across people aren’t even known by the vast majority.

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

#975

Post by zahlman »

quesera wrote: post #960
zahlman wrote: post #909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fake terminal ... at the self-checkout of a major grocery store? > Outside the US tap+pin/dip+pin is even common As far as I can tell "dip + pin" is exactly what I do with a debit card. This is literally the first time I've ever heard the term "EMV", so I looked it up: > EMV cards are smart cards, also called chip cards, integrated circuit cards (ICC), or IC cards, which store their data on integrated circuit chips…

Tap (NFC, radio), dip (EMV, chip), or swipe (magnetic stripe). The fake terminal concern that vlovich mentions above is real. Look up "credit card skimmers" (the same threat applies to debit cards and ATMs -- anything with a magstripe and keypad). This is a big deal. It's happened to me three times in the last few years, twice within a week of each other (and likely from the same location). There are some EMV skimmer…

> NFC is the safest, and fastest.

You have still not explained why. You have only expanded the claim. What is different about how "the cryptography" etc. is implemented? Why would other physical interactions between the card and the reader not enable the same security? If it's possible, why doesn't it happen?

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

#976

Post by quesera »

zahlman wrote: post #975
quesera wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap (NFC, radio), dip (EMV, chip), or swipe (magnetic stripe). The fake terminal concern that vlovich mentions above is real. Look up "credit card skimmers" (the same threat applies to debit cards and ATMs -- anything with a magstripe and keypad). This is a big deal. It's happened to me three times in the last few years, twice within a week of each other (and likely from the same location). There are some EMV skimmer…

> NFC is the safest, and fastest. You have still not explained why . You have only expanded the claim. What is different about how "the cryptography" etc. is implemented? Why would other physical interactions between the card and the reader not enable the same security? If it's possible, why doesn't it happen?

NFC can't be skimmed.

EMV can and sometimes is, and magstripe skimming happens all day every day.

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

#977

Post by ceejayoz »

hollerith wrote: post #962
kgermino wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's primarily done for security and secondarily a benefit making it easier (for everyone!) to identify denomination by feel

What security benefit is unlocked by varying the size of the bills?

For (very fancy) cloth/paper bills like American ones, some counterfeiters wash the inks out of $1 bills to make $100 ones. Only possible if the $100s are the same or smaller size.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/counterfeit-currency-warni...

I believe the US made washing much harder with other techniques because of this in recent years.

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

#978

Post by PostOnce »

stevage wrote: post #880
PostOnce wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics continue to fail in severe weather events, and cash keeps working, which is important when we're talking about food.

Does it? What about weather that stops the ATMs being refilled? Takes a lot of weather to bring down satellite internet...

I wasn't aware the satellites also beamed down power, and that all ATMs were connected to satellites instead of cellular networks or wires.

It would also take quite a lot of refilling when everyone in a city needs to use the ATM.

We still need to be able to function during weeklong post-storm/flood power outages, which happen with quite some regularity. Here in New Zealand, the most recent weeklong outage in Southland was only last month, primarily due to 200kph winds.

Let us not sacrifice everything to the gods of convenience.

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

#979

Post by mooreds »

dylan604 wrote: post #253
mooreds wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember moving out of a place (decades ago). I was the last roommate out, and so was stuck with some of the cleanup (wanted to get that deposit back!). One of the things we had was a ton of pennies (no idea why). I had no room in my car, so I spend a few minutes late at night flinging pennies out onto the sidewalk after a long day of cleaning the place.

Would it not have been better/easier for all involved to have just set a container of all the pennies on the street on your way out? If someone really could use them, you're kind of a dick for making them pick them up one at a time, but if they were all together...

Yeah, in retrospect that would have been better.

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

#980

Post by Maxion »

whoaoweird wrote: post #196
Maxion wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Braille does not help everyone. Most people with vision issues are not legally lind and do not know braille.

It's wild to see you downvoted. Only about 10% of blind people know braille. There are many more people who have visual impairments but are not blind. Braille is not a universal solution (though I would rather have it than not have it).

Hackernews is filled with you healthy 20 year olds who do not understand that many will by the age of 30 have reduced vision.

Society is not supposed to be engineered for young single healthy 20 year old males.

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