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I really like it that they offer you, instead of a site with a lot of junk and JS, a plain text version! That's much nicer news than the story itself :-) ... t

I really like it that they offer you, instead of a site with a lot of junk and JS, a plain text version! That's much nicer news than the story itself :-) ... that said - why _don't_ you guys cancel the penny? > Penny defenders' strongest argument was that eliminating it would hurt consumers. All those $9.99 products? The prices would be jacked up to an even $10! That sounds like an argument made up retroactively to try to justify something. Seriously? 1. The time and effort to handle penny change costs more. 2. Those bargain prices will become $9.95 , and some other prices will rise slightly to compensate; or not.

mc32 6y ago
Yeah but what will the gas pumps do? Their prices are “$3.29.9” per gallon, do they Mae it “$3.29.5“ now? Personally yeah, I don’t think we need pence.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  They're already denominated in a unit that doesn't exist. Why would they change?
  - gerikson 6y ago
    The US dollar was designed to be subdivided into cents (hundreds) and mills (thousands). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)#Usage
    - cwhiz 6y ago
      Practical reality in 2020 is different than whatever the intended design was. There is no possible way to pay with a fraction of a penny.
      - mark-r 6y ago
        "Practical reality" hasn't changed. There never was a way to pay anything with a fraction of a penny, even when cards made it theoretically possible. The final price just gets adjusted to a whole penny amount.
        tedunangst 6y ago
        The US has minted half cent coins in the past.
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        A half cent coin doesn't provide a way to pay in increments of 0.1 cents.
        mark-r 6y ago
        I stand corrected then. I'm pretty sure that was well before I was born, though.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
talideon 6y ago
Where I'm from, shops started using .95 pricing _long_ before the idea of scrapping 1c and 2c coins was raised, purely because handling those coins wasn't worth it. A key difference is that we have VAT, which is built into the price, rather than a US-style sales tax, which is not. In the US, if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that. That made it easier for us to scrap 1c and 2c coins, but creates resistance for any US attempts to do the same. One other thing we did was introduce symmetrical rounding rules on the final price of cash transactions: https://www.centralbank.ie/consumer-hub/rounding https://www.centralbank.ie/consumer-hub/rounding Applying rounding was entirely voluntary, and all the Government did was gradually take the 1c and 2c coins out of circulation. After that, it was a matter of time for the problem to go away.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  > if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that. I don't think so. The same way you don't have to handle sub-1-penny tax amounts, you won't have to handle sub-nickle tax amounts later. There'll be some sort of rounding mechanism just like you described.
  - talideon 6y ago
    Well, yes. That's why I mentioned the rounding mechanism later. However, US-style sales taxes make the process of applying that more difficult because you can end up with weird numbers, whereas with VAT, you can pre-round things to minimise the disruption.
michaelt 6y ago
> That sounds like an argument made up retroactively to try to justify something. Seriously? If the latest console game rises from $79.99 to $80.00 it's a trivial increase, I agree. A hundredth of a percentage point. But if a loaf of bread rises from $0.99 to $1.00 it's increased by an entire 1% - resulting in a noticeable impact on food price inflation. And when your inflation rate is around 0%-2% before, even a quarter of a percentage point is pretty noticeable to inflation-watchers. IMHO we should do it anyway, though.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  I call straw man. 1. Loaves of bread don't go for $0.99 ; see an example survey here: https://costaide.com/loaf-bread-cost/ https://costaide.com/loaf-bread-cost/ 2. You can get bread at different units of weight. 2. A $0.09 item would rise by a full 10%! Terrible, right? ... not when you ask yourself "How many of those do I actually buy?"

mc32 6y ago

Yeah but what will the gas pumps do? Their prices are “$3.29.9” per gallon, do they Mae it “$3.29.5“ now? Personally yeah, I don’t think we need pence.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
They're already denominated in a unit that doesn't exist. Why would they change?
- gerikson 6y ago
  The US dollar was designed to be subdivided into cents (hundreds) and mills (thousands). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_(currency)#Usage
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Practical reality in 2020 is different than whatever the intended design was. There is no possible way to pay with a fraction of a penny.
    - mark-r 6y ago
      "Practical reality" hasn't changed. There never was a way to pay anything with a fraction of a penny, even when cards made it theoretically possible. The final price just gets adjusted to a whole penny amount.
      - tedunangst 6y ago
        The US has minted half cent coins in the past.
        thaumasiotes 6y ago
        A half cent coin doesn't provide a way to pay in increments of 0.1 cents.
        mark-r 6y ago
        I stand corrected then. I'm pretty sure that was well before I was born, though.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

talideon 6y ago

Where I'm from, shops started using .95 pricing _long_ before the idea of scrapping 1c and 2c coins was raised, purely because handling those coins wasn't worth it. A key difference is that we have VAT, which is built into the price, rather than a US-style sales tax, which is not. In the US, if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that. That made it easier for us to scrap 1c and 2c coins, but creates resistance for any US attempts to do the same. One other thing we did was introduce symmetrical rounding rules on the final price of cash transactions: https://www.centralbank.ie/consumer-hub/rounding https://www.centralbank.ie/consumer-hub/rounding Applying rounding was entirely voluntary, and all the Government did was gradually take the 1c and 2c coins out of circulation. After that, it was a matter of time for the problem to go away.

einpoklum 6y ago
> if you're handling cash you still have to deal with 1c and 2c coins because of that. I don't think so. The same way you don't have to handle sub-1-penny tax amounts, you won't have to handle sub-nickle tax amounts later. There'll be some sort of rounding mechanism just like you described.
- talideon 6y ago
  Well, yes. That's why I mentioned the rounding mechanism later. However, US-style sales taxes make the process of applying that more difficult because you can end up with weird numbers, whereas with VAT, you can pre-round things to minimise the disruption.

michaelt 6y ago

> That sounds like an argument made up retroactively to try to justify something. Seriously? If the latest console game rises from $79.99 to $80.00 it's a trivial increase, I agree. A hundredth of a percentage point. But if a loaf of bread rises from $0.99 to $1.00 it's increased by an entire 1% - resulting in a noticeable impact on food price inflation. And when your inflation rate is around 0%-2% before, even a quarter of a percentage point is pretty noticeable to inflation-watchers. IMHO we should do it anyway, though.

einpoklum 6y ago
I call straw man. 1. Loaves of bread don't go for $0.99 ; see an example survey here: https://costaide.com/loaf-bread-cost/ https://costaide.com/loaf-bread-cost/ 2. You can get bread at different units of weight. 2. A $0.09 item would rise by a full 10%! Terrible, right? ... not when you ask yourself "How many of those do I actually buy?"