8 ms·
The Penny Must Die
- iLoch 10y agoNot a fan of the "they cost more to make than they're worth" argument. How much does it cost to make a $100 bill? Nevertheless, we Canadians have been without pennies for a few years now. I have no complaints, just less change, which is nice.
- ClassyJacket 10y ago15.5 cents https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm
- newjersey 10y agoWouldn't the next logical conclusion be to get rid of cash altogether? Did I fall for a slippery slope fallacy?
- ue_ 10y ago> Wouldn't the next logical conclusion be to get rid of cash altogether? I like this solution. Get rid of the need for money, too.
- astrodust 10y agoThat 15 cents helps facilitate commerce, and the lifetime of a bill is usually more than a single transaction. It's not a huge cost unless people are destroying a lot of bills.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- seanalltogether 10y agoAt what point is the nickel not worth the effort to keep around as well? It might be easier to sell everyone on the idea of rounding to the nearest 10 cents to keep prices nice and even.
- Shivetya 10y agowell I suspect they would just push us to a digital currency and be done with it. slowly take away the small currencies and try to convince people that if they want to save money long term (as in get the penny values back) they need to convert
- madeofpalk 10y agoPlaces like Australia got rid of 1c and 2c coins (with the 5c being the smallest denomination) long before 'digital currency' was on the minds of anyone.
- jejones3141 10y agoThe problem with that rounding is that I suspect I know which direction the rounding will always go... and for things like gasoline or water (or even pork chops, which differ in size) there's no way to prevent a price that would require rounding.
- mikeash 10y agoI believe other countries solve this by legally mandating fair rounding.
- MBlume 10y ago...so what?
- madeofpalk 10y agoMany other countries solve this by just rounding the final price up or down regardless. So if your fuel comes to $100.02, all you pay is $100. If it comes to $100.04, you pay $100.05. It works fine, no one dies.
- djsumdog 10y agoNew Zealand phased out their 5cent coins a decade ago.
- M_Grey 10y agoThe persistence of the penny is a symptom, in my view, of just how apathetic and dysfunction the political system is at every level. It's a small annoyance, with a small fix that has been done by other countries with good results. That it isn't done is largely just a matter of people not participating in the process at all, and congress not really doing their job. It's a small thing, but then, so is a canary in a coal mine. This penny thing has been an irritant for years, and the things presaged by accepting that are starting to emerge... like failing infrastructure.
- oceanghost 10y agoYour thinking on the subject is a symptom of something else. The "question before the question" is-- why is the penny worthless? That's the uncomfortable situation.
- M_Grey 10y agoYour thinking on the subject is a symptom of something else. Sure, if you're very new to this planet and aren't aware that, "The penny must die" has been published in some form for longer than you've been alive. The actual question isn't engaging, isn't new, and doesn't represent a significant issue facing any of us. The issue behind why we keep regurgitating the same issues and pawing at them like blind fools however, is interesting.
- djsumdog 10y agoThe EU still has 1/2cent coins (although I think Belgium no longer allows shops to give them as change). Pennies are gone in AU/NZ and other south pacific countries.
- wronskian 10y agoThe Netherlands no longer uses the 1 or 2 cent coins - they are not accepted for payment, even if you have enough to make a round 5 cent amount.
- 10y ago
- raverbashing 10y agoYes, several countries have done away with the smallest denomination. Nothing to miss about carrying less coins around But the $1 bill really ought to be a coin instead
- dkresge 10y agoChaos aside, I wonder what the impact would be of simply declaring that all pennies are now worth $1. Based on circulation ca. 2009 it would imply a $1.65 trillion "conversion"; ~10% of GDP.
- ghaff 10y ago>But the $1 bill really ought to be a coin instead There have been various efforts at dollar coins and they've never really taken off. I would hate this. I don't use a lot of cash in general but I really like the fact that, when I do use cash, except for some quarters I save for parking meters, coins are basically in the dump in a jar when I get home value. I dislike when I travel to UK/EU that there's coinage of sufficient value that I can't just ignore my loose change. If I have to use cash I'd much rather just use bills. Coins require some sort of different container to carry them.
- Retra 10y agoThey've never taken off because they get cancelled too soon. And now everyone knows a new dollar coin will get cancelled, so why bother doing anything to support them?
- astrodust 10y agoThe whole point of having a $1 coin is so buying something like a can of coke or paying for a parking spot doesn't involve stuffing ten or quarters into the machine. It's two or three coins if you're doing it right, max. Parking meters. Laundry. Vending machines. Public transit. These are all things made immeasurably better by having coins that have value. > I can't just ignore my loose change. Sure you can. Back when I was still using cash I'd just dump it all in a jar and at the end of the year I'd have at least $800-1000 of savings. It's also nice that with a single coin you can buy something. A bagel? A muffin? A coffee? If you shop at the right place you might even be able to swing a muffin and a coffee for a single coin. You really can't get much for $0.25 these days. Even a pack of gum is vastly more than that.
- djsumdog 10y ago> The reason why we have money is so that they can facilitate trade of goods and services so that we don’t have to barter like savages. This is entirely wrong. In high school you're taught that we went from barter to money to credit, but in reality, the earliest human economies were credit based. People sometimes say, "x society collapsed and reverted to barter," but in every case, they "revert" to the currency of trade from the previous state .. or they use something generic like "Oxen" but they never actually trade in real Oxen; they just use it as a unit of measure. I do agree the penny should be deprecated, and I know it sounds nit-picky, but myths like this prop up a narrative that doesn't match with history, and it distorts our perception of what money and markets truly are. I highly recommend the book Debt the First 5,000 Years, as it goes into great detail about the history of debt, money and slavery.
- zer00eyz 10y agoThere is a basic problem with this argument. There are lots of places in the world that accept and use the dollar as a means of trade, where the penny is still of value. https://qz.com/260980/meet-the-countries-that-dont-use-their-own-currency/ https://qz.com/260980/meet-the-countries-that-dont-use-their... What amounts to a rounding error for most Americans would quickly add up in places that depend on the dollar for currency (official or un officially) as they typically have larger marginal populations.
- reddytowns 10y agoThis is not the problem of the USA.
- astrodust 10y agoIf somewhere the economy of a country is built on melting down pennies and making brass statues that's also not the problem of the US Mint.
- planteen 10y agoHuh? Ecuador uses the US dollar and issues their own coins. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_centavo_coins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_centavo_coins Americans were able to trade fine in the past when a penny had far more purchasing power. Other counties will manage.
- robocat 10y agoAnd they should keep using pennies but valuing them at the base metal value ...
- herbst 10y agoAfaik most of them use their own currency instead of american coins. Like in cambodia everything below 1$ is handled in their own currency
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jwilk 10y agoArchived copy that can be read without JS enabled: https://archive.fo/wM6HU https://archive.fo/wM6HU
- Animats 10y agoThe penny lobby [1] is a front for the zinc industry. Mostly Jarden Zinc Products. [1] http://www.pennies.org http://www.pennies.org
- jackyinger 10y agoWhen I visited India I found that one rupee is the smallest increment offered. It's very roughly equivalent to the American nickel. Even though cost of living there is much cheaper, the coarser grain of currency does not cause trouble. When available currency has limited resolution merchants simply adjust their quantities to match. Wouldn't it be nice to just pay 3.50 and get a tad more product than 3.37 and futz with the change?
- Taniwha 10y agoThe problem in the US with getting rid of pennies is that the US does not quote prices with sales tax included (unlike every other country on the planet). If you do that then you can quote prices at appropriate price points (4.25, 5.95 etc) Of course if you get rid of the penny then rounding only occurs when you pay with cash - when you pay with a card you still get to pay to the penny
- ghaff 10y ago>unlike every other country on the planet That's not true at all. Many prices (in restaurants but also elsewhere) in both Canada and Europe don't include sales tax/VAT.
- maxerickson 10y agoWhat's wrong with rounding?
- Taniwha 10y agoNothing, but you don't need to round when you use a card
- DerekL 10y agoSome restaurants and coffee shops already display prices with tax, and round everything to the nearest nickel.
- unabridged 10y agoAmericans are too sentimental, its why we could never switch to the metric system. And congress voting to get rid of the penny is so low on priority I wouldn't count on it happening soon. Pennies are made because there is demand. If businesses stop requesting rolls of pennies, the mint would make less of them. If you want to get rid of pennies lobby businesses to round their after tax prices to the nearest nickel. Just McDonalds and Walmart dropping the penny might cut the amount in circulation by a significant amount.
- jwilk 10y agoDo other countries have nicknames for their coins? In Poland, if you want to talk about a particular coin, you use its denomination.
- Taniwha 10y agoIn NZ we used to have names like shilling and florin etc, we ditched them when we went decimal
- ghaff 10y agoThe flip side of US denominational conservativism that appeared starting in, oh, the 1950s or so is that $20 bills are effectively the maximum value you can depend on being routinely accepted. I get $100 bills to travel overseas (and they're routinely accepted if I'm using US currency for something). But I'd in no way depend on getting a $50 or $100 accepted in a US store. I admit that I see fewer signs to that effect these days than I maybe did in the past but I do have to go int to a bank teller if I want to get $100 bills for travelling.
- majewsky 10y agoObligatory link to John Oliver discussing the same topic in his usual manner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tyszHg96KI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tyszHg96KI