4 ms·
If you’re comfortable with not being precise to half pennies or $0.001, then there is likely a unit that you feel is equitable to round to, and the question is
by ghayes 7y ago
If you’re comfortable with not being precise to half pennies or $0.001, then there is likely a unit that you feel is equitable to round to, and the question is what unit that should be. As rounding will favor you as often as it works against you (assuming it’s not heavily gamed), there should be a unit that people trait as fair. As that choice has remained the same regardless of inflation, it might be fair to say we only use $0.01 because it’s what it used to be, not because it’s the right choice. I would argue that $0.05 or $0.10 would be better choices than pennies, for instance.
- TylerE 7y agoWorth pointing out that while $0.001 (mil) coins never existed, half-cent coins were minted from 1792 to 1857. Even in 1857 $0.005 was worth way way more than even a quarter is today. Probably more than a dollar. (Actual inflation gets a bit hard to track going back that far).
- brassattax 7y agoIf you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.
- pmiller2 7y agoTrue, but $0.001 (mil) tokens do exist. They were usually used for sales tax accounting, IIRC.
- jrockway 7y agoIf you visit the grocery store twice a week, then with 24 cents rounded up each trip (worst case, not average case), you pay about $25 a year more for groceries. Meanwhile, if you round up to the penny, then the worst case is .9 cents twice a week, which is about a dollar a year. All this pales in comparison to the 1%+ markup due to people using credit cards and charging the same price for credit cards as cash, though.
- blahedo 7y ago$0.10 is a tricky choice (in the US) because it's not compatible with the next denomination up ($0.25). If anything like this ever happens, we could round either to the nearest $0.05 or the nearest $0.25, but not easily in-between.