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Canada To Stop Making Pennies
New submitter butilikethecookie writes with news that the 2012 federal budget for Canada calls for the Royal Canadian Mint to stop producing pennies. "The budget calls the lowly penny a 'burden to the economy.' 'It costs the government 1.6 cents to produce each new penny,' the budget says, adding the government will save about $11 million a year with its elimination (PDF). Some Canadians, it says, consider the penny more of a nuisance than a useful coin. ... Rounding prices will become the norm as the penny is gradually removed from circulation, the budget says. If consumers find themselves without pennies, cash transactions should be rounded to the nearest five-cent increment 'in a fair and transparent manner,' it says. Noncash payments such as checks and credit cards will continue to be settled by the cent, however."
Pennies are so annoying here in the U.S. now that I refuse them when they're offered as change (or toss them into the penny jar or charity jar on the counter when they have one).
Sometimes I forget though, and I usually just throw them in the trash. I just hope my Grandma never finds out. She would have a heart attack on that one. I could never get it through to her that they would cost me more in time to deal with than the pennies themselves are even worth.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Happy Canadian April Fool's day to all my frosty friends North of the border!
Here in Switzerland this is already implemented. The smallest unit is 5 Rappen (5 cents)
is going to be rounded up to a nickel.
Phase II of our descent into a cashless society: the elimination of physical currency, starting with the lowest denominations and working up from there.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to my secret bunker, as I believe I hear the Hyperbole Police coming up the stairs. *dons tinfoil hat* Excelsior!!!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That's OK. We'll just continue to use American pennies. Thanks, guys!
www.clarke.ca
The new federal budget included a lot of nasties. As much as I'm glad to see the penny go away, I can't help but think it's a ploy by the conservatives to deflect attention away from all the nasties they included in the budget.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
That seems like a lot of inconvenience to go through for such a tiny return.
#DeleteChrome
Pre-1996 Canadian pennies are 99% copper. Last I checked, the ones I'm saving (hoarding?) are worth 3.6c each.
First the penny. Then the nickel. Then the dime. Then the quarter. Then the loonie. Then the twonie. Everything will eventually be in $5 increments.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Now all they need to do is get rid of daylight saving time and they will REALLY make the US look silly... come on fed, the Canadians are making us look like idiots here.... THEY can get rid of pennies....
This should have been done 10 years ago. I don't hoard my change, I always keep it in my wallet and spend it as I go, often clearing it out completely every 2 months or so. This is probably the only thing Harper's done right since he got into office.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
When I was deployed to Iraq in '05 the smallest unit of change the PX would give was $0.25, and we all got by with that just fine. When the smallest coin a bubble gum machine will accept is a quarter there's no need for even my children to want any denomination smaller than that. The cost of manufacturing pennies, nickels, and dimes isn't worth the benefit. Add the cost banks and vendors incur in transporting these too-heavy-for-their-worth slabs of metal to the cost of their original manufacture and it's clearly a drain on the economy.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
Anything about this site, blame the conservatives but on here we have closed minds.
Some years ago it also happened in Brazil, the smallest coin now is the 5 cent.
At the time, the government alleged that it was more expensive to make it than it was worth, it was copper but I'm not sure if it was mixed with some other alloy. Before that it was stainless steel. I still have a jar full of it somewhere as a door stopper...
And the deficit is still going to grow. It feels like the 80s, with the Tories. I don't know how the conservatives do it, but cut, cut, cut and still they grow the deficit. The liberals were able to weather the dotcom crash without deficit. Right now, these guys have just about undone all the work of the grits on the fiscal side of things. Cutting, cutting, cutting. I'd like to know where their money goes.
I think it's time our governments admitted that inflation over the past 20 years has made the penny worthless. We've long since abandoned the half penny, and good riddance. In 100 years it may be time to have $5 be the smallest unit. 3rd world countries deal with this on a regular basis, I think its just 1st world pride that's keeping us from following their example when it's obviously far past time.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
We still have a Liberal deficit. It's called 'Victoria-class submarines/corporate penalties for cancelling original Sea King replacements'.
not a big deal, in quite a ew countries of the euro-area anything under 5 cent is hardly used and everything is rounded to 5 cents. Works fine...
Hookers, blow, and maple syrup?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Us Canuckistanians tend to use debit for anything more than a few bucks. Timmies already makes sure their prices come out to a nice even number.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Pennies cost more to make than their worth, that can't be good for an economy or cash strapped government.
I wonder how Canadian retailers will price things now though. Instead of pricing something at $4.99, (to psychologically make you think it's $4 not $5) will they drop the price to $4.95 and lose 4 cents on every purchase, or just mark it up to an even $5.00? And yeah, even though that little trick doesn't work on most of us, it works on enough people that they keep doing it. Or at least US retailers do, I'm not sure about Canadian ones.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Realistically I'd think larger companies will universally raise their prices just enough that they can round up. A assuming 1.25 cents per purchase over hundreds of thousands of purchases will actually add up, if you're doing lots of cash transactions.
1. Remove the penny, save $11m.
2. All prices now a multiple of 0.02, so divide by two
3. Reintroduce penny - lose $11m but all prices are now half what they were!
Rounding prices will become the norm
I can hear Billy Mays raging from his grave.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Here in Norway we been doing this for years:
- The 1 øre and 2 øre coins disappeared in '74
- The 5 øre and 25 øre coins were withdrawn in '84
- The 10 øre coin ended being legal tender in '92
- The 50 øre coin will be withdrawn may 1st this year.
So in a little over a month there will be no coins circulating that is worth less than 1 Norwegian krone... but you know what? The wast majority of Norwegians pay by card anyhow, and the prices has not changed with the smaller coins going away. If you pay by card, you pay the exact amount. If you pay cash, it is rounded up or down to the nearest coin-value.
For those curious; after the retirement of the 50 øre coin, a purchase of 9.49 kroner will be rounded down to 9.00 while a purchase of 9.50 kroner will be rounded up to 10.00 - unless you pay by card, in which case you pay the exact sum owed.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Canada To Stop Making Ponnies
Wikipedia to the rescue. They're 97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper, and have been that way since 1983.
Rounding prices will become the norm as the penny is gradually removed from circulation, the budget says. If consumers find themselves without pennies, cash transactions should be rounded to the nearest five-cent increment 'in a fair and transparent manner,' it says.
My guess is it will always be rounded up when your paying, and when they are paying you, rounded down.
Be seeing you...
The penny should have gone some time ago, it's good that it's finally going away.
This will make exactly 1 difference, half of the stores will go from $3.98 to $3.95 and half will round to $4.
I'm fine with either, and since it will be about half and half it'll work out in the wash.
we dumped the penny already too
So in a little over a month there will be no coins circulating that is worth less than 1 Norwegian krone... but you know what? The wast majority of Norwegians pay by card anyhow, and the prices has not changed with the smaller coins going away. If you pay by card, you pay the exact amount. If you pay cash, it is rounded up or down to the nearest coin-value.
That's the problem, and my biggest problem with this boneheaded move...
1. Not everybody has access to a card.
2. Unless you keep a certain minimum balance in the bank, or pay a monthly fee, you get hit with a service charge every time you use your card in Canada
3. The merchant gets hit with a service charge every time anyway.
4. (and my main personal concern with it) it's harder to budget when you're paying with plastic, because the money is not tangible.
I have quite happily been using folding money for small expenses for a while. It's much easier to budget if I take $100 cash out of the bank every payday, and tell myself that's my whatever money, and when it's gone it's gone. If they force me to start using a card for that, I will have to actually open a new bank account or buy a prepaid visa specifically so that I can have a card with separate funds from the money I use for groceries, gas, the rent, etc.. And yes, this would force me to use a card, because there's no way "rounding to the nearest $0.05" will work out in my favour.
This, of course, will mean that the merchants have to eat the increased costs of running a merchant terminal, and decreased margins, which means that it will increase the costs for everybody. The price of a cup of coffee will go up because of this.
The point is, the penny wasn't worth the expense of minting it, and the hassle of carrying the extra coins around. Nobody said the penny was utterly worthless though. The cash transactions being rounded will surely wind up rounded UP to the next closest 5 cent mark, not DOWN, in almost all cases -- because merchants don't want to lose that 1-4 cents per transaction that adds up over a month's time.
So what if a highly reusable token with a face value of 1c costs 1.6c *to build*?
Leading with that clip makes me doubt our government will save the promoted $11 million, and while we're on that, will it produce any savings at all in our economy?
This is just more headline shenanigans by the Harper administration. Arguably being a democracy we deserve this, but please give us small credit because a hell of a lot more people did vote against the Conservatives than for them. These guys got a minority gov't from our riding system - they don't have popular support. But hey, didcha catch the game last night?
Oh, and that promoted government savings? Works out about a third of a cent per person to have that highly useful token for a year. It's a pathetically small figure, and that's without going into how it's kept within the economy with our own mint and mines. As promoted, this is batshit math all over.
I understand why they might want to do this, but it seems like it takes a certain amount of slack out of the monetary system. Surely some things really aren't worth 5 cents more than others and would benefit from the in-between increments. On the other hand, unless governments periodically redefined their currencies (which has been done in the past) the built-in inflation of most countries will lead to the value of the physical material of the coinage being greater than its face value. Of course there's also been a push for cashless systems which limits one's ability to conduct transactions without the government or other people knowing about it.
can you imagine all the looney tunes shouting about Bilderberg this, world domination that, UN plot this, communist muslims that...
all countries have nut jobs, but what is it about my country that the nut jobs are so loud?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In the US, the dollar is now worth between 1% and 2% of its average value during the 1800s. By that measure, it would not be unreasonable to eliminate all coins below 50 cents.
This is strictly the fault of government (and Nixon more than anyone else) for decoupling the dollar from gold.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
1) Round all totals requiring 2 cents and below down to next lowest unit
2) Round all requiring 3 or 4 cents up to next unit
3) Monitor sales and adjust prices so most totals end in 3, 4, 8, or 9 cents
4)No ?
5) Profit!
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Hey, well, you know Canada has government-run health care...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It was the cons who cancelled the helicopters, and it's worth pointing out that the penalties for cancelling that contract were higher than it would have cost to actually buy the damned helicopters.
I do agree, however, that we got royally ripped off on the submarines.
And they suddenly cost less.
I bet US Seniors use Pennies to buy Canadian Drugs!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
If the base unit goes to 5 cents, then essentially the 5 cent piece IS the new one cent piece since nothing can be priced as a fraction of it. You've achieved massive deflation. Instead of revamping the economy, you can simply revalue the currency. Does the same thing, functionally.
Can't we just split the difference already!?!??
Lets just move the time forward or back, I don't care, half an hour and leave it there!!!!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Here in Holland we don't use Eurocents anymore. Before the Euro, when we used Dutch Guilders (0,45 Euro) we already stopped using cents. The smallest coin then was 5 cents.
When we got the Euro in 2001 we shortly used the Eurocent. But soon it was discarded. Every shop now rounds to 5 Eurocent. Only when you use your debitcard you pay in cents.
At first there were some people complaining about losing cents in the rounding, but now most people can accept it. Of course rounding goes both ways anyway.
I already think 5 Eurocents is too much hassle to bother with. But I guess that one will last for some years to come.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
And yes, this would force me to use a card, because there's no way "rounding to the nearest $0.05" will work out in my favour.
So what you're saying is that for something that has cost $0.99$, which once 13% sales tax is added (e.g. in Ontario), the merchant will up the price to $1.00 just to make sure he can rip you off of 2 cents, or that something which now costs $2.00 will be priced $2.02? Stores won't change their pricing scheme and everything will keep ending in .99 where it currently ends in .99 and everything will have nice (before taxes) rounded prices where they currently already have nice (before taxes) rounded tax.
Bitching about merchants who will rip you off for all of 2 cents because of this, without considering all the logistics they would have to go through just to do that reeks of tin-foil hatism from conspiracy theorists.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Both Canada and the US should have gotten rid of not only the penny but also the nickel by now, rounding transactions to the nearest ten cents. The waste of good metal in making pennies which are worth less isn't even half the story; much more importantly, though the whole purpose of currency is to make transactions easier, pennies and nickels simply complicate transactions and waste everybody's time.
See also this well-done youtube video.
The problem here is that the article claimed that they are eliminating the penny for cash transactions and still using it for non-cash transactions. This means that paying cash in a transaction can legally save up to 2.49 cents over the same non-cash transaction.
Doesn't sound like much, but when you're in a business that handles hundreds of thousands of transactions a day, that kind of difference can add up fast. 500K transactions = ~$12,500 a day, ~$4.5m a year. Some companies will gain that much, and other companies are going to lose it...
If they want to eliminate the penny, they should do it for all transactions, at the same time.
Hookers, blow, and maple syrup?
And Poutine, I'm told.
For very large ticket items, you'll often find they are rounded to things larger than a dollar. It isn't worth fussing over fractions of a percentage of the total price. A house would be a simplistic example, you normally bid in increments of $1000 on it. Less is just not worth it.
However it can go the other way too. If you order large quantities of small parts from a place like Newark, you'll find the price is spec'd to the tenth of a penny. Reason is if you are ordering 10,000 of something, it matters, it adds up. Heck some parts cost less than a penny each in quantity (a Fairchild 1N4148 diode is $0.009 in quantities greater than 2000).
There is no magic subdivision amount that is worth it for all cases. For cash transaction, a penny is really not worth it.
be pedantic all you want you're wrong...
Penny is the official name of the one cent coin, just as Nickel, Quarter, and Dime are the official names of the coins.
That sounds like an AWESOME party. Count me in.
It would never work. Our politicians will always be dicks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UT04p5f7U
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
As a Canadian, I would have been happy with eliminating the nickel too. That way, they stick with a nice round decimal system, and drop one zero from all commonly used monetary calculations. 10 dimes makes a dollar, so a dollar and thirty dimes would be written $1.3. Newly printed dimes wouldn't say "10 cents" on them, they would say "1 dime". That way the dime becomes the new penny as the smallest denomination of coin. This would eliminate all confusing rounding rule. It also makes sense because dimes are the physically smallest coin anyways.
Dime for your thoughts?
My mother has an ongoing dispute with the electric company. The bill always seems to come to a value that will be rounded up, and despite the fact that no-one pays their bill with cash they round the total. She complains every month, and usually the person on the phone tells her to just pay the amount she actually owes, but then next month there's a 2 cent balance carried over. Now obviously she's not concerned about 2 cents ever month, but if you say something costs 98 cents, you should only charge people that amount, it's basic honesty.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
No one is forcing you to get a card. All they would do is get rid of denominations that inflation has caused to cost more to produce than they are worth. The price of a coffee is already too high and it is caused by forcing staff to count out small change when they could be doing something productive, and you are paying for it. This move will actually REDUCE the real price of a cup of coffee.
If you are worried about "rounding to the nearest "0.05", then logically you should be worried about rounding to the nearest "0.01" as well, since this is already what is being done. Are you up in arms about that? Do you want to bring in a "0.005" coin to stop the merchants you with the rounding? Well, once you get that "solved", you can move on to bringing in a "0.002" coin. And it's turtles all the way down.
If you go back far enough in history to when the dollar was worth 10 times what it was now, the value of a fictional "0.005" coin then was worth more than the "0.01" coin is today but presumably you were happy about that state of affairs.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
It was the cons who cancelled the helicopters
Huh? The CBC says:
Then came the 1993 federal election campaign, when Jean Chrétien and his Liberals attacked the Tory plan as wasteful, calling the EH-101 a "Cadillac" helicopter. When the Liberals won and Chrétien became prime minister one of his first acts was to scrap the Tory deal, an act that cost the Canadian government nearly $500 million in cancellation fees.
Given that the (vast?) majority of transactions are already by card, prices won't go up because of this - that happened long ago.
4. (and my main personal concern with it) it's harder to budget when you're paying with plastic, because the money is not tangible.
Wow so do you not know how to use a calculator or at least count money that isn't physically in your hands? I mean you're at the very least capable of using the internet, WTH can't you just make the next logical step and use your computer to do some simple mathematics and learn to budget your money without having to look at it in your hands?
I got here through a series of tubes
And this is EXACTLY what happens when your nation issues currency that is backed by nothing!
Inflate away. Good luck finding a savings account with interest (which, of course, is going to be taxed) that can even match the true inflation rate.
[...]there's no way "rounding to the nearest $0.05" will work out in my favour.
Why qouldn't there? In Norway it works fine, same in Denmark (almost same system). Merchants are required by law to round the way GP describes.
What?
At least now they can't deflect attention by saying "Oh look, a penny!".
What?
I worked at the plant that built those CH-148 Cyclones.
Ye Gods, I just did IT stuff, but from what I understand, that contract was a huge pain in the neck. Good news is that the cabins for the helicopters that were purchased were made in Japan. Major body sections are cockpit, cabin, sponsons and tail boom assembly. Sikorsky now sources the cabins from TASL in India. I saw photos of the production floor in India that made me cringe. We used well engineered stands, with safety features and padding, for doing wiring harness work on the cabins. This keeps the outside of the cabin from being beat up and is fairly important for making a good aircraft. TASL used bamboo and 2x4 "stands".
I don't even want to think of the QC problems coming in the door after the transition completes.
It's Europe, where banking is electronic and many people carry debit cards. A homeless man may not be able to accept small change via card, but he can get a debit card of his own from whatever bank his account is in quite easily.
I wish I had a nickel for ever time I heard about the costs of a penny...
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
Theres a little trick to put the rounding to your advantage. When paying groceries, in the supermarket, just check if its rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents. When its rounded up - pay by debit card. When its rounded down, pay cash. It doesnt sound like much, and it isnt, but at 2 transactions a day, saving a 1.5 cents per transaction on average, it totals to about $10 on a yearly base. Yes, saving pennies really works!
at that level of rounding people WILL start gaming the system, hell i know i would. coffee costs $1.51 - i'm going to pay with a card. coffee costs 1.49 - i'm going to pay in cash.
the paranoid schizophrenic fringe perks up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You do know they will always round up to the next five not down. It will cause inflation.
Not to mention that setting prices to optimize for rounding won't work for purchases of multiple units.
Which, if you had payed attention, is in the merchants favour. There's no reason to not require merchants to _always_ round down, and (for example) employers to _always_ round up, if it bothers them they could just have set the prices so no rounding is necessary.
at that level of rounding people WILL start gaming the system, hell i know i would. coffee costs $1.51 - i'm going to pay with a card. coffee costs 1.49 - i'm going to pay in cash.
So you're going to pay $0.01 more for each coffee?
$1.51 with card = $1.51, with cash = $1.50
$1.49 with cash = $1.50, with card = $1.49
even get rid of the 9/10 of a cent part of the price of a gallon of gasoline....
I've got a ten kroner, a five kroner, a twenty kroner. No wait, that's another ten kroner. A fimty kroner? How much is that?
The government is a "burden on the economy".
This decision makes no cents.
Canada's just following the US's example of eliminating the half penny way back in 1857.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
And let's say that I discover an item (or possibly a group of items) in a store such that after tax, the total price in pennies ends with the number 8.
And let's say that I intend to buy something from a store such that its price in pennies, after tax, would end with the number 4, 3, or 2.
If I combine these purchases into one, and then pay in cash, then the resulting price will be rounded to the nearest nickel, which means they would round down.
If I then later exploit the store return policy to return the first items on the list for a refund, since I paid in cash, I should receive cash back, which again, should be rounded to the nearest nickel... but this time, they would have to round it up, and I would get an extra 2 cents back.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm old enough to remember half pennies and pound notes in the UK. The pound coin was met with bemusement when it came out but I came to like them very quickly. I was passing through Vancouver airport one time and the airline guy who was checking my boarding pass noticed the coins I'd taken out, he was fascinated by the British pound coin because I set a few of them on the counter (while digging something out of my pocket) and a few of them stood up on their edge. He asked me all sorts of questions about these coins, like what it was worth and what it could buy. He was a sweet old fella too, I let him keep one.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Didnt they do this in a movie once? Someone's going figure out a way to slide a few pennies into an account on the sly without no one knowing. Worked so well for the boys at Initech, "That sounds good Peter"
Sounds like someone with a calculator and a bunch of coins could save a lot of money in several small purchases. Beats using coupons.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The half cent was minted in the USA until 1857. I think it took even longer for the Canucks to dump it.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Why qouldn't there? In Norway it works fine, same in Denmark (almost same system). Merchants are required by law to round the way GP describes.
In the US this would be called "price controls" and the merchants would oppose them adamantly. They want to set the prices for what they sell. Any law forcing them to round "to the closest" would be followed if the "closest" is up. If the "closest" is down, they would obey the law and then immediately apply a price increase UP.
I.e., a 97 cent item forced to be rounded up will become $1. A 92 cent item forced to be rounded down will become 90 cents, and then the price will go up ten cents to make it $1 anyway. You can't prohibit price increases, except when you are enacting price controls.
OK - being provocative in the title - but Australia did this in 1992 and it worked well.
We also moved the $1 and $2 notes to coins as they get used SO much and they are much more durable (your pockets DO wear out though - but on the plus side - when we are low in the bank - we raid the coin jars and live on them for months !)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_one-cent_coin
Our notes are also Plastic - so you can wash them as many times as u want - they are also different colours (colors for the spelling challenged USA people) so you dont need to keep your wallet in denomination order - notes are EASY to spot in your wallet by the easy Monopoly money style colours and they are fairly indestructible except for supernovas etc....
All they would do is get rid of denominations that inflation has caused to cost more to produce than they are worth.
In other words, curing the symptoms, not the actual problem. (Which is inflation.) And in the process, introducing all kinds of second order effects which will inconvenience many.
What else do we expect from the government?
The real tragedy is that Canadians won't be able to read the pennyarcade web comic anymore...
All they would do is get rid of denominations that inflation has caused to cost more to produce than they are worth."
common misconception.
The cost to produce is a one time cost of 1.5 cents.
A penny is worth a penny for EVERY TRANSACTION it is in. It is worth nothing between transactions.
Rounding is different then adjustments for inflation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I wonder....do Canadians have the opposite problem? American quarters somehow finding their way into a Canadian's pocket, ruining his plans when he tries to buy a pop from the machine or operate a payphone? Or do the Canuck machines happily accept both, since you know, why would one want a Canadian quarter when one can have an American one?
Just curious...
Those aren't global currencies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So you're going to pay $0.01 more for each coffee?
$1.51 with card = $1.51, with cash = $1.50
$1.49 with cash = $1.50, with card = $1.49
I'll add my 0 cents:
$1.49 + 12% HST = $1.6688
This will be rounded down to $1.65, so you're paying $0.0188 LESS for each coffee at that price.
Buying the helicopters is not the only cost in the mix. They have to be fueled, maintained, piloted, housed, etc for who knows how long. The purchase cost plus the penalties may still have been less than the purchase cost plus the operating costs, which would make it cost effective to cancel. (I have no idea if this is true or not, I'm just throwing the possibility out there.)
Given our arctic waters, we should be buying nuclear subs, not air breathing diesels.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
We Aussie's got rid of our 1 and 2 cent 20 years years ago.
I don't understand these people:
http://pennies.org/
http://www.pennylovers.org/
Just checkout this unassailable logic from pennies.org:
Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) are concerned merchants would raise prices without the penny. And they're probably right. Raymond Lombra, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Penn State University, told a Congressional committee in 1990 that rounding cash sales up or down to the nearest nickel would cost consumers over $600 million annually.
So that's what, less than $2 for every man, woman and child in the nation each year? I'll gladly pay $2 a year to never have to waste time with pennies. My time is worth that much to me.
This sig is inappropriate in a post-9/11 world.
Bit of relevant trivia: There is a US precedent for eliminating a coin for being too small in currency. The US Half Cent was around until just before the Civil War. We ended that program without any major currency problem popping up.
Just like we tossed the half cent and rounded up or down, it's probably time to do the same with the penny. In a decade or two (or sooner, depending on the coming wave of inflation), the nickel should probably follow suit. I'll miss what you WERE, Mr. Penny, but I won't miss what you are today.
A question for the remaining defenders of the penny: Do you have a pile of pennies in your car or at home that you haven't touched or forgotten about for more than a month? If so, your own economic sensibilities should see the problem and want to eliminate it.
Sounds like someone with a calculator and a bunch of coins could save a lot of money in several small purchases. Beats using coupons.
Yes at a whopping maximum saving of NOK 0.49 per purchase (requiring you to buy fifty-one x.99 items) if you run from store to store you could make maybe six purchases an hour and get save a whopping of NOK 2.94 an hour or about USD 0.50.
Something tells me this is not a big problem.
I fired Verizon because they overcharged me $0.02. Then I was stuck getting screwed by AT&T for two years. Real bright move. Sometimes it's better just to pay the bill and be done with it. My time is worth more than that.
Congrats! Now let's assume you actually did this right, instead of the wrong way you're doing it. You save $3.65 a year. Retard.
I've just been to Australia where they round to the nearest 5 cents. It works both ways - if the last digit it 1,2.3 or 4 they round down, otherwise up. They can fix the prices a bit, but it depends how many things you buy.
Buying the helicopters is not the only cost in the mix. They have to be fueled, maintained, piloted, housed, etc for who knows how long. The purchase cost plus the penalties may still have been less than the purchase cost plus the operating costs, which would make it cost effective to cancel. (I have no idea if this is true or not, I'm just throwing the possibility out there.)
Only if we didn't need helicopters. :)
We still use the Sea Kings for SAR, among other uses. So rather than having newer helicopters that were more reliable, more fuel efficient, and easier to get parts for, we keep a fleet of ancient helicopters in the sky, because the conservatives cancelled a contract that was signed by the liberals. And in so doing, they paid cancellation fees that were more expensive than buying the silly helicopters would have been in the first place. :)
And I agree with you on nuclear subs. We should be building our own, not buying 2nd hand subs that had been decommissioned by the Brits. There was a time when we had the best shipyards in the world, and I think if we're going to be buying ships, we should be putting that money into our own economy, not somebody else's.
A $20 dollar gold piece, on the other hand, back in the cowboy days, would buy you a Colt Peacemaker, a holster and ammo, a suit, and a night on the town with a saloon girl.
That hasn't changed much - that gold coin is now worth about $2k. Won't get you the Peacemaker - it's appreciated more than gold (who knew), but if you substitute a Glock or something cheaper yet, you're still right about there. It'll be a cheap suit and a cheap whore - but it was about like that then, too.
Anybody get it yet?
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
"Yeah, they did it in Superman III."
What does that have to do with anything? How many do you think is using US metal cash (not paper, not electronic) outside of the US?
What?
The Australian government got rid of 1c and 2c coins 20 years ago. The Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar have always been pretty much equivalent in value.
I was gonna comment, but this is just too silly. You're trolling me, right?
What?
Point me again to where it's in the merchants favour. He can set his prices how he wants and I can spend my money where I want
What?
..for being pennywise yet pound foolish--look out Britain, you are next. ;)
Christopher Pecoraro - Irventu.com
You know what? You're already being ripped off. When you buy this $1.95 item with 5% tax, the total is $2.0475 and the evil merchant rounds it up to $2.05, depriving you of a quarter of a cent. We have to bring the quarter cent back (yes I'm aware such a thing never existed)!
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I'll add my 0 cents: $1.49 + 12% HST = $1.6688 This will be rounded down to $1.65, so you're paying $0.0188 LESS for each coffee at that price.
See, the HST IS good for something after all!
is when things are really cheap they are useful. When I was a kid (~25 years ago) my favorite candies were penny candies. By the time I was 12 or so stores stopped selling them. I'm guessing they started costing more than a penny. So you had to pay a dollar for about 60 of them in a pack instead. Was great to have things like that because it was nice to be able to get a chocolate bar and a handful of different flavored candies when I was a kid. You can't do it anymore, you pretty much are stuck buying extra large chocolate bars, big bags of chips, whole bags of jelly candies etc. A kid can't go to a store and get a handful of different stuff anymore. Boo. As an adult I have a credit card so they could get rid of all physical cash as far as I'm concerned.
2. Unless you keep a certain minimum balance in the bank, or pay a monthly fee, you get hit with a service charge every time you use your card in Canada
Not to sound like a schill, but three years ago, I moved all our day-to-day stuff to PC Financial - no minimum balance and no fees, I have yet to run into a downside.
I'd use the cent symbol located above the 2 on my keyboard, but /. doesn't handle that modern technology.
This is a slick way for the CA Gov to increase taxes. They tried/talked about this in the U.S. (so i hear)
many times and it didn't happen. I can bet that CA will begin making pennys again.
From the sound of it, does it mean that they'll remove pennys from circulation?
Has anyone ever considered that the problem isn't the penny itself rather than the fact that governments insist on devaluing the money people are holding?
It's because of people like you that when I was growing up young in a poor family I was able to feed myself by collecting pennies and rolling them up. I could usually get $1 a day, which was 2 steamed hot dogs or 1 quebec fry, plenty of calories for a starving child.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
You think you're being clever, but really, you're not.
First, the proposal was to eliminate denominations smaller than 0.05. So no, a 92 cent item would not go through the progression 0.92->0.90->1.00. It would go 0.92->0.90->0.95.
Second, regulating that bills paid in cash are rounded to the nearest minimum cash increment is already part of the law! Such laws are required in the US because sales taxes, discounts, and so forth routinely create final bill amounts which involve fractions of a penny. You're not supposed to get cheated by merchants choosing to round up instead of rounding to nearest. It would be a trivial legislative change to require that this rounding increment be $0.05 instead of $0.01.
Third, before you repeat your claim about this requiring price controls to work around merchants gaming prices, no. You are being a stupid-head. Stop doing that. It's annoying.
Problem #1 with that theory: Merchants who game their prices will have to compete with merchants who don't.
Problem #2 with that theory: Merchants can't predict exactly which things their customers buy, and in what quantity. Let's say pennies go away and Bob's Sleazeball Jerk Store decides to reprice such that any item, after tax, is $0.03 more than the nearest $0.05 increment. After all, that means Bob makes $0.02 extra per item, right?
Well, no. Buying more than one item affects the outcome of this little game a great deal, because it multiplies that $0.03 excess by N:
$0.03 * 1 = $0.03 : You must pay $0.05, Bob wins 2 cents
$0.03 * 2 = $0.06 : You must pay $0.05, You win 1 cent
$0.03 * 3 = $0.09 : You must pay $0.10, Bob wins 1 cent
$0.03 * 4 = $0.12 : You must pay $0.10, You win 2 cents
$0.03 * 5 = $0.15 : Exact change is possible
It's a repeating cycle from that point on. Which means that so long as the number of items bought is random, it averages out to even. If you think merchants are gaming you anyways, you can easily defeat it by randomizing your buying habits.
In fact, regardless of whether they're gaming you, you can easily manipulate your buying patterns to always win the rounding stage of making change. It wouldn't be worth the time you'd have to invest, but it wouldn't be hard to do!
You're obviously with the wrong bank if you pay for using your card. I have never had to have a minimum balance nor pay any fees nor pay for transactions with CIBC, Scotiabank, and President's choice.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Companies and banks have been rounding up/down transactions to the nearest penny for years, and you've apparently never cared what happens to that fraction of a cent. Without pennies it will be exactly the same thing but it will be fractions of a nickel. I really don't see the issue.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
That is interesting. Back then people were supposedly paid $1 for one day's work. So $1 back then = $200 today. A half cent then would be $1 today. So if we wanted to get rid of other equivalently useless coinage, we would dispense with every denomination below $1 (not that I would advocate it).
Source:
http://www.coinfacts.com/half_cents/half_cents.html
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
This is Canada, we now have a conservative government who wouldn't dream of regulating business in such a way that might benefit consumers and sure enough all they've done is decided to stop making pennies, it's up to business to decide how to rip people off, with the blessings of the government.
I still can't believe these assholes who are out to destroy everything nice about Canada, got voted a majority (38%).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Well I guess this is as relevant to Canada since they don't have a dollar bill. But for all the talk of "it costs more than one cent to make a cent" it is more cost effective to make 100 pennies than to make a one dollar bill. The life of a penny is decades. The life of a dollar bill is something like a year.
at that level of rounding people WILL start gaming the system, hell i know i would. coffee costs $1.51 - i'm going to pay with a card. coffee costs 1.49 - i'm going to pay in cash.
So you're going to pay $0.01 more for each coffee?
$1.51 with card = $1.51, with cash = $1.50
$1.49 with cash = $1.50, with card = $1.49
Not sure if GP referring to rounding to nearest dollar or dumb.
Last I checked, paying by card in Norway had a surcharge on each purchase. Is that still the case and how much is it?
If a lighter gets too hot it'll explode in your hand, especially risky if you hold it at an angle to burn something on the ground. Maybe use a BBQ lighter or better yet acetylene torch.
Twinstiq, game news
And yes, this would force me to use a card, because there's no way "rounding to the nearest $0.05" will work out in my favour.
It can if you want it to.
Just my CDN 0.01
--whacky
I can see more than a few business adjusting their prices just so they can round up most cash transaction in their favours not the small business because it will not be worth it but supermarket, walmart and all the big retailers who make millions of small transaction every day. With the right software and maybe some social market simulation it going to be very easy for them to game us out of billions, two or one pennies at a time.
I agree that it is applying a temporary fix for a problem introduced by inflation. However, if we are going to keep the Keynesian system going it should at least be patched appropriately.
We shouldn't--and can't--keep the fundamentally flawed Keynesian system going.
I'm in two minds about what I think about inflation. On the one hand, it is a form of taxation or perhaps theft, depending on who the recipient is (which is somewhat difficult to find out).
No, there is no "depending." It's theft, plain and simple.
On the other hand, it does induce people to spend money so that people remain employed.
People aren't driven to spend money because of inflation. They are driven to spend money because someone else has something they need. Money is only the value exchange mechanism.
If people weren't taxed through inflation they would have to raise taxes elsewhere to get the same tax revenue.
Wow, this is some SCARY thinking buddy.
The government is NOT entitled to my money, especially considering 90% of what they steal from MY pocket is wasted by them.
As a Canadian point of sale developer I see lots of pain implementing this rounding in software. I wish they would have made it round to 10 cents instead of a nickel
The US law also forbids exporting the coins to melt down
USC Title 31 Section 5111 subsection D (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5111) gives the Secretary of the Treasury the option, http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/?action=press_release&ID=724 [usmint.gov] is about that option being used.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Massachusetts is the home of Crane Paper Company, which makes the paper for US paper currency; their lobbying has helped keep the $1 bill in circulation.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
since it's the government doing it (taking away pennies and forcing the rounding of transaction totals at point-of-sale).. THEY should be the ones to take the hit (not the consumer, as we know merchants will shoot to mark prices to maximize rounding UP otherwise).. for taxable transactions, the TAX owed on the sale, and collected by the merchant, should be reduced as needed to get the total transaction DOWN to the next $0.05.
That's the beauty of being retired. You have the time to stand up and fight about small stuff that you wouldn't bother with if you were working. Very good for the soul.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Telling merchants what they have to do to their prices isn't going to happen. "You must round your prices down" will result in exactly the kinds of workarounds that I suggested. You can legislate rounding if you legislate the removal of the penny, but you can't legislate away price increases.
I agree that price controls are the work of the devil.
I do not agree that a law on rounding is in itself a price control.
And I do not agree that phasing out the penny will lead to prices increases, on average.
If you make the 10-cent the smallest denomination, the 97-cent items will cost you $1, leaving you 3c short. But buy two 97c items, and you will leave the store with 4c "extra". Buy a lot of stuff, and the result quickly approaches random.
Even now, there is rounding. You could make a 1/10c coin. Or a 1/2c. It would give more accurate pricing. Most people would agree that it would be more trouble than it's worth. The penny is going the same way, too.
What?
no. if you can follow what was said in the post i responded to then:
$1.51 with card = $1.51, with cash = $2
$1.49 with cash = $1, with card = $1.49
i thought that was pretty basic.
we were discussing the rounding of the 50 øre coin. which is why i said - at that level instead of at this level to be clear that i was referring to what was just said and not the article
we were discussing the rounding of the 50 øre coin. which is why i said - at that level instead of at this level to be clear that i was referring to what was just said and not the article
Actually, it wasn't clear at all. You used
$1.51
as your example. If you were discussing kroner, you shouldn't have used a dollar sign.
Besides, $1.51 will buy you a coffee in Canada, but in Norway it'll be 20 NOK.
i agree, i was not clear