Should We Get Rid of The Penny?

[GoldenLag]

Considering that a penny is 0.08 NOK. 

 

And we removed our smallest coin the 0,50 NOK with no change at all.

 

Why wouldnt people want to remove such a coin....... People have said that they dolt bother picking it up when they drop it. So its essentially trash and a emviromental hazard. 

 

We still have our 1 NOK which is roughly 1/8th of a $. 

 

Im talking about the US penny but it applies the same to the UK.

[LukeLinusFanFic]

10 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

So that companies will round up all prices? Because you know they will take advantage of that.

Good, because then prices won't be misleading

[THraShArD]

This is a good topic, but I vote No.

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, THraShArD said:

This is a good topic, but I vote No.

 

 

I'm old enough to remember when sales tax often was less than a penny and many cities/States issued plastic coin tax tokens that were worth 1/10 of a cent although they were pretty much obsolete by the time I came onto the scene. My parents and grandparents would give me some to play with.

[dalekphalm]

6 hours ago, THraShArD said:

This is a good topic, but I vote No.

 

 

Unless you live in one of the 5 states with no sales tax, you're likely not paying $3.49 as your final price anyway.

 

Let's take New York State as an example - 4% sales tax. This seems to be the lower end of the average.

 

Math time!

$3.49 @ 4% Sales Tax

$3.49 x 0.04 = $0.1396 tax

Rounded to $0.14 tax

 

$3.49 + $0.14 = $3.63. This would be rounded up to $3.65 if paying with cash - otherwise it would remain $3.63 if paying with a card.

 

Now let's take a different figure:

Purchase Price

$10.49

$10.49 * 0.04 = $0.4196

Rounded to $0.42

 

$10.49 + $0.42 = $10.91. This would be rounded down to $10.90 if paying with cash - otherwise would remain at $10.91 if paying with a card.

 

As you can see, in some cases, it will favour the retailer, and in other cases, it'll favour the customer.

 

Certainly you probably could try to game the system, but man that would take a lot of work for extremely little gain. And all the customer needs to do is just pay with card, and it won't matter anyway.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

13 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Unless you live in one of the 5 states with no sales tax, you're likely not paying $3.49 as your final price anyway.

 

Let's take New York State as an example - 4% sales tax. This seems to be the lower end of the average.

 

Math time!

$3.49 @ 4% Sales Tax

$3.49 x 0.04 = $0.1396 tax

Rounded to $0.14 tax

 

$3.49 + $0.14 = $3.63. This would be rounded up to $3.65 if paying with cash - otherwise it would remain $3.63 if paying with a card.

 

Now let's take a different figure:

Purchase Price

$10.49

$10.49 * 0.04 = $0.4196

Rounded to $0.42

 

$10.49 + $0.42 = $10.91. This would be rounded down to $10.90 if paying with cash - otherwise would remain at $10.91 if paying with a card.

 

As you can see, in some cases, it will favour the retailer, and in other cases, it'll favour the customer.

 

Certainly you probably could try to game the system, but man that would take a lot of work for extremely little gain. And all the customer needs to do is just pay with card, and it won't matter anyway.

If you can't dazzle them brilliance, baffle them with.... While your math is correct, that's not what is likely to happen with businesses. They are far more likely to perform reverse salami slicing and round up to the nearest nickel every time rather than take a chance of ever losing even a fraction of a penny per sale. Prices also would, eventually be in increments of  5 cents. An exception might be for gasoline (petrol, for those of you on the right hand side of the pond), which might keep the idiotic practice of almost always adding 0.9 cents to a price to make it look much lower. Very few things cost less than a dollar anymore so the price increses won't be very noticeable. Of course, prices increases can still be hidden by decreasing package quantity or volume, a despicable practice already being used.

[dalekphalm]

15 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

If you can't dazzle them brilliance, baffle them with.... While your math is correct, that's not what is likely to happen with businesses. They are far more likely to perform reverse salami slicing and round up to the nearest nickel every time rather than take a chance of ever losing even a fraction of a penny per sale. Prices also would, eventually be in increments of  5 cents. An exception might be for gasoline (petrol, for those of you on the right hand side of the pond), which might keep the idiotic practice of almost always adding 0.9 cents to a price to make it look much lower. Very few things cost less than a dollar anymore so the price increses won't be very noticeable. Of course, prices increases can still be hidden by decreasing package quantity or volume, a despicable practice already being used.

Well... no.

 

You're wrong.

 

I mean, at least, if we take all examples of countries who have ditched the penny.

 

In Canada, for example, the business has no choice in the matter. If it ends with x.x1 or x.x2, they round down. x.x3 or x.x4 they round up. Period. If they don't, they're violating the law and are stealing from people.

 

Also, again, no prices have not incremented up to 5 cents. First off, it wouldn't matter if they did anyway, because of taxes. Even if you set all prices to end in x.x5 or x.x0, taxes will make that end number different regardless.

 

Second, a lot of people pay with Card. Maybe less in the US than in Canada, but certainly enough that I highly doubt most retailers are going to change their pricing structures.

 

I'll also note that in Canada, our gas prices don't always end in 0.09. In fact, they rarely do. The prices change all the time and that last digit will end up being almost any number. Maybe in the US gas retailers are bigger douches - but it's hard to imagine them being any worse than in Canada.

 

EDIT: I'd forgotten how long ago we did this - Canada ditched the Penny in 2012, so it's been coming up on 7 years now since the change. None of the problems you describe happened.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Well... no.

 

You're wrong.

 

I mean, at least, if we take all examples of countries who have ditched the penny.

 

In Canada, for example, the business has no choice in the matter. If it ends with x.x1 or x.x2, they round down. x.x3 or x.x4 they round up. Period. If they don't, they're violating the law and are stealing from people.

 

Also, again, no prices have not incremented up to 5 cents. First off, it wouldn't matter if they did anyway, because of taxes. Even if you set all prices to end in x.x5 or x.x0, taxes will make that end number different regardless.

 

Second, a lot of people pay with Card. Maybe less in the US than in Canada, but certainly enough that I highly doubt most retailers are going to change their pricing structures.

 

I'll also note that in Canada, our gas prices don't always end in 0.09. In fact, they rarely do. The prices change all the time and that last digit will end up being almost any number. Maybe in the US gas retailers are bigger douches - but it's hard to imagine them being any worse than in Canada.

 

EDIT: I'd forgotten how long ago we did this - Canada ditched the Penny in 2012, so it's been coming up on 7 years now since the change. None of the problems you describe happened.

The SSA (Squabbling States of America) and Canada have radically different Governments. Your Government is far better organized and is far more on the ball than ours. I seriously doubt any of the clowns in the circus called Washington, D.C. would have that much foresight.

[Guest]

Yeah, US government is a mess rn.

[Velcade]

If we get rid of the penny how am I suppose to pay for 15min parking downtown?

[ForLocks]

In the UK we've already gotten rid of the cent. So it could happen.

[Kleine IJsbeer]

1 hour ago, Velcade said:

If we get rid of the penny how am I suppose to pay for 15min parking downtown?

Pay more, in Amsterdam 15 min parking would already cost you over €1,50 so you don't need pennies (or for euro's sake -> cents) there  And as for paying with pennies, well here the 1 and 2 cent coins aren't used anymore and all shops round to the nearest 5ct value and I don't see the problem else than the fact that other countries with the euro don't have the same policy so after a holliday in Germany per example I get home with a kilo of change that I can't use here anymore in general lol

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Velcade said:

If we get rid of the penny how am I suppose to pay for 15min parking downtown?

How... would a penny help you?

[Velcade]

25 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

How... would a penny help you?

I thought it was fairly obvious... it costs 1 cent for 15min of parking

[BLLDoesTech]

5 minutes ago, Velcade said:

I thought it was fairly obvious... it costs 1 cent for 15min of parking

where is that?

[Velcade]

8 minutes ago, BLLDoesTech said:

where is that?

Woah woah woah.  I like you but no enough for you to come to my town.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Velcade said:

I thought it was fairly obvious... it costs 1 cent for 15min of parking

What the... what's even the point? It probably costs the city more to administer a parking meter system like that then they would generate in revenue.

 

Assuming you live in the US, I can only assume this is a clever troll, since either that, or your city council is stupid (which could very well be the case).

[Syntaxvgm]

no. 

We're making cash criminal anyway, why bother. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Kleine IJsbeer said:

Pay more, in Amsterdam 15 min parking would already cost you over €1,50 so you don't need pennies (or for euro's sake -> cents) there  And as for paying with pennies, well here the 1 and 2 cent coins aren't used anymore and all shops round to the nearest 5ct value and I don't see the problem else than the fact that other countries with the euro don't have the same policy so after a holliday in Germany per example I get home with a kilo of change that I can't use here anymore in general lol

Hot dam that is expensive parking and I complain about 1.5 euro/hr

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Parking meters in Phoenix, AZ are $1/hr for coin only and $1.50/hr for meters that also accept phone and credit card payments.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Parking meters in Phoenix, AZ are $1/hr for coin only and $1.50/hr for meters that also accept phone and credit card payments.

You’d be lucky to find meters that accept card in NZ. Not that I pay anyway seeing as parking fines from the carpark company aren’t enforceable. Only council ones. Too right though as they charge $65 flat fee for any time over.

[Drak3]

Meters are always free if you have an angle grinder.

 

Or a boot.

[Velcade]

47 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

What the... what's even the point? It probably costs the city more to administer a parking meter system like that then they would generate in revenue.

 

Assuming you live in the US, I can only assume this is a clever troll, since either that, or your city council is stupid (which could very well be the case).

Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's stupid...

[BlurryAngel]

no

[aezakmi]

thought this was a weeaboo post about this penny

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