6 ms·
The 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, wit
by M_Grey 10y ago
The 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.
- RBerenguel 10y agoThey should accept them, as per the Euro agreement.
- Someone 10y agoShould they? If so, wouldn't not accepting cash be illegal, too? Quite a few shops and, I think, most company canteens only accept electronic payment.
- RBerenguel 10y agoIIRC (long time since I checked) that's illegal, too, a merchant should always accept cash up to the legal limits imposed on cash payments
- jpatokal 10y agoBut many EU countries, including Belgium, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands, do not. (Technically, they do exist for collectors, but all prices are rounded up/down to the nearest 5c and you never encounter them in daily life.)
- astrodust 10y agoCanada got rid of it a few years ago despite all the wild-eyed hysteria surrounding the phase-out. Senior citizens did not go bankrupt, stores selling inexpensive items did not go under, and a myriad of other nonsense proved to be utterly unfounded. A penny is so worthless these days even homeless people throw them out. Visiting the US is like visiting a time machine where pennies and dollar bills still exist, where chip and pin is only just coming into fashion, and where "checks" are still used for ordinary transactions like buying groceries.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago> where "checks" are still used for ordinary transactions like buying groceries. I've been wondering if there are statistics regarding the usage of checks. When I was younger almost every week I'd get stuck in line by someone very, very slowly writing a check. But I haven't seen someone write one in...well it must be at least 3 or 4 years ago and that was at some tiny store that didn't accept credit cards. Do people really still write checks in a number that's in any way significant?
- maxerickson 10y agoI saw a middle aged person buy groceries with a check a week ago.
- ghaff 10y agoI don't in stores but it's still pretty much the standard way to pay a lot of service people. (Physical checks are also used in a number of payments I make through my online bank bill pay although I never see the actual check.)
- madeofpalk 10y agoA huge feature of the AU detonation system is that we actually give the coins sensible names. Instead of making up confusing names like penny and nickel and what not (which I can never remember what they are, no matter how much time I spend in the US). Just call them by their face value and be done with it. There's a particular coin in the US that doesn't actually say the value on it anywhere - it's particularly annoying.
- optimuspaul 10y agoI suppose you are speaking of a dime, since all the other coins are clearly marked with their value. It is odd that the dime doesn't say it's 10 cents. I guess it's just one of those cultural things that we are supposed to just know.
- jwilk 10y agoFor a moment I thought you were talking about half-cent coins.
- majewsky 10y ago> The EU still has 1/2cent coins I was confused there for a second because "1/2cent coins" looks like "half-cent coins", where you actually mean "one-cent and two-cent coins". And yeah, I would like to see these go. I refer to them simply as "Buntmetall" (a German word that translates literally as "colored metal"; appropriate since the small coins are brown-ish) and throw them away at any occasion.
- drfuchs 10y agoAt least as far back as the 1970's, every time our civil servants in the treasury ask congress to let them stop making pennies, the John Birch Society types raise such a stink about how this is a communist conspiracy to enable world government, that the politicians drop it as not being worth the fight. Source: Michael Blumenthal, Secretary of the Treasury 1977-79.
- mnm1 10y agoI know voting turnout is sadly low, but that does not constitute people not participating in the process. Senators and representatives are elected. These representatives' failure to do their job does not constitute a failure on the part of the people to do their job (voting). Pretending like people could do more when the system simply does not allow it is disingenuous and takes the blame away from where it rests: the elected representatives who refuse to do their jobs. And let's not pretend that calling/emailing/mailing/tweeting/etc. representatives is something that should be required to get our representatives to do their job. What kind of responsible, decent person needs to be prodded tens of thousands of times before they do their job?
- M_Grey 10y agoI know voting turnout is sadly low, but that does not constitute people not participating in the process. ...It's the most basic level of participation; if that's not failing to participate in the process, what is? You're welcome to rail against the entirety of the history of who politicians are and how they behave, but it's at your peril. In the same way that you can't just turn a computer on and leave it alone forever, you can't do the same thing with government. Politicians have always been, and will probably always been unrelentingly worthless scumbags.