[Glidergider]

I've been wishing for that the US would wise up and abandon the Penny. What can you buy with a penny? Not since I was 18 years old, have I gone to the store with a penny and return with a treat. That was 35 years ago, and then I bought only bubble gum.

Heck, our merchants could still charge $9.99 for a six pack of micro brew, but when I get to the store counter, I'd gladly let them round up (or down) the final payment to the nearest nickel.

It seems like such a waste of resources to produce such a worthless coin. It probably effect our global warming too. (I had to put that line in to make this topic fit the forum).

So what do you think, are you ready for the government to stop producing the penny. To allow our grocery stores and general merchants to roundup the final tally to the nearest nickel?

Keep in mind that all of us in the States have been living successfully with a rounded up transaction. In fact you let your gasoline attendant sell you a gallon of gas for $2.9799. Did you ever notice the extra little 99/100cents on the price of your gallon of gas. So, rounding up the final purchase is not a big deal, we've been doing it for years at the gas station pumps.

What do you think, can we dump the penny? Am I un-American for thinking such a thing? My friend at work accused me of that very sentiment. I disagree. I think inflation is Un-American. But we deal with inflation, and now its time to deal with the least valuable coin in our inventory.

[dertsap]

it would be a nasty can of worms that wouldnt work to any benefit to the consumer .
so many things round of to the nearest penny as it is , take taxes interest rates and fuel , if they were to get rounded off to the nearest nickle then it would mean rediculous amounts of extra revenue for the governments , fuel companies and the banks , it would be rounded off to their benefit before ours

[Glidergider]

dertsap,
Rounded correctly, the merchant would only round the final total price. Let's say the total price of your shopping was $95.72. You would pay $95.70. Yes, rounding down is OK too.

Sometimes your bill would round up and sometimes it would round down. In the long run, you break even.

I try to think of a single item I can buy with a penny, and I can't come up with even one item. Maybe one item, a restaurants checkout counter, they sometimes have a candy bowl. Nah, even a mint costs a nickel or dime these days.

I contend that our lowest valued coin should be large enough to buy something.

[port_huon]

Different country but same problem.

The smallest denomination coin in Australia is 5 cents. The 1 and 2 cent coins were withdrawn from circulation in the early 90s (1992 I think)
There was some initial concern about being ripped off by rounding up instead of rounding down but these days, no one gives it a thought.

[ImanCarrot]

Since 1982 US pennies are made of copper plated zinc.

Now, while the mint makes all other coin blanks, the zinc blanks for pennies are bought from an external supplier. I have no doudt that this external supplier would have a vested interest in keeping the penny going...

Or am I being paranoid?

[jhowelb]

Why not just do away with all currency and coin? Just convert to an electronic measure and as a side benefit we would no longer be tied to terminology like "dollar" or "Pound".
And besides, then the government wouldn't even have to actually print phony money. They could just inflate or deflate the "value" of the unit at will to the advantage of which ever group had favor at the moment.

What a wonderful social engineering tool! Why haven't we thought of this before?!

[Glidergider]

jhowelb, It won't be long, and you'll get your wish. But that's another topic. Soon your phone will buy a softdrink from the Pepsi machine. But I doubt that money will go away.

Geoff, Thanks for the info. Amazing that you it was 17 years ago that you guys got rid of the penny.

I visited Germany last year. Germans still have a penny, but I noticed that I almost never had to use one. All my purchases miraculously ended up rounding up to a nickel.

[dertsap]

Why not just do away with all currency and coin? Just convert to an electronic measure and as a side benefit ?!

its an idea that could work but in day to day dealings such as buying used goods it may be difficult , unless cash machines could print out certificates worth x amount of dollars .
it would be one way to have a great impact against organized crime if they had to do things electronically rather than bundles of cash , in Canada the banks have to contact the police on deposits above $10000

[jhowelb]

My comments were tongue in cheek jab at the fact that the dollar is already currency based on nothing but the hot air spewed by politicians. Soon, I fear, one will need a wheelbarrow full of cash to purchase a loaf of bread.

I can foresee a future where goods and services are the coin of the realm and government is viewed as nothing more than an obstacle to commerce.

Imagine that!

[dertsap]

think about the days when salt was currency , one hole in the roof during a rain storm would have broke down a rich man to a poor man

[High Seas]

All very interesting. Seems like a few years back there was a call for all to turn in the pennies kept in piggy banks and change jars because it was costing more to make new ones than their value because they were "out of circulation."

Here is an interesting tidbit - on how one country deals with a similar problem.
In Cambodia - virtually every thing is marked and sold in USD. ATMs and banks dispenseUSD - not local currency. They use their local currency for only giving change on the sale.

They haven't gotten rid of the "small change" just opted for a different measurement for sales. 100 Cambodian Riels to US Dollars is 0.02437 USD . So 100 is about 2 cents! AND- they have paper notes from 1,2 , 5, 10, etc. Nice collectors item - but hardly of any value. They have some coinage - but rarely seen - the 50 - is worth about a penny, 100, etc.

Rambling on -- Wasn't there a scam of taking the last 10ths of a transaction and aggregating that into millions? So who gets the round up difference? The local government? The company?

How would you feel if the round up all went into the state sales tax "pool?" Could it/would it reduce local taxes - or be used for improved services? It could be a useful source of revenue.

Cheers - Jim

[billystein]

You might be a little premature. If things don't straighten out in california soon then My house might go for a few pennys and I might even have a penny sale at my shop. what about the stock market? I heard xm radio was $.08.
not much room to round up or down.


just my 2 pennys worth
billy

[Glidergider]

So, lets see, you buy stocks 1 share at a time? Hey that extra 2 cents would hammer your return on investment. Or maybe you'd by 1000 shares and spend $80.00 even. This recession has turned us into big spenders.

[Glidergider]

My favorite beef with the penny is the washer, the bolt and the nut. Every time I pass the hardware isle in my local Hardware store, I'm amazed. Why, I can't even buy a washer with a penny. I'm talking a alloy steel, zinc plated 1/4 inch plain washer. If you buy them in quantity of 100, this washer will cost you 3 cents. How is it possible that our finely engraved/stamped copper alloy plated penny can't purchase a plain washer? Yup, the penny is worthless.

If I drilled a hole in all my pennies and used them for washers, I'd be making great return on my investment.

[Fixittt]

Your not giving the lone penny enough credit. It is a VERY powerful marketing tool. The penny has made people millions. HOW? $.99 in not $1. $9.99 is not $10. In the mind of the consumer, that one penny has such an influence on sales. Its all about how the mind perceives numbers. So while standing alone by itself, its not worth much floating around in your pocket. When added or removed to a total sum, It has a great influence.

[Glidergider]

I'm not suggesting to change the price. You can still charge 9.99. i just want to round the final price to $10 even. However, i took a marketing class once too and we studied the psyco of the 99 cent and the 95 cent product. Did you know that the 95 cent item is considered a higher quality product.

[fizzissist]

Pennies aren't even any good as spacers. They're NOT uniform!!!

I've used 'em as standoffs, so I didn't have to worry about a tool running into 'em. Noticed the thickness varied so I had to screen a dozen or so to get 4 that were the same.

Why pennies? They're cheaper than washers, and I always have a pocket full of 'em.

[HuFlungDung]

My comments were tongue in cheek jab at the fact that the dollar is already currency based on nothing but the hot air spewed by politicians. Soon, I fear, one will need a wheelbarrow full of cash to purchase a loaf of bread.

I can foresee a future where goods and services are the coin of the realm and government is viewed as nothing more than an obstacle to commerce.

Imagine that!

How would goods and services be valued? Some form of money will arise in any barter system because straight barter is too clumsy.

Strangely enough, gold and other rare metals are a good basis for money because they cannot be counterfeited, and they are rare on a per capita basis. The physical limit on the amount keeps us honest, whether we want to be or not

Governments capitalize on the conservative nature of the human mind: the tendency to carry the past with us into the present. So gold serves as a logical basis for a money system, until such time as everyone is indoctrinated with the concept of its value. Like a shell game, the gold is hidden away but we are assured that it is there, and occasionally, a shell is lifted and we see the gleaming pile and are reassured that it is there. When paper becomes currency by government declaration, that is equivalent to saying "we're not going to lift the shell from here on out". In the end game, the amount that they say is under the shell literally becomes outrageous, and when we are incredulous enough, the game is over.

The game will have to restart with reference to a pile of gold, or something that is rare and cannot be counterfeited. Human greed has defeated every fiat currency. It is maybe hard to believe that it is about to happen again.

For an electronic currency to become 'real money' there would have to be a finite number established, the equivalent of a physical limit. This number could be divided into whatever size increments are needed. Since population growth requires the presence of more money, perhaps a good basis for electronic money is population: when you are born, so and so many credits are issued in your name, when you die, they are cancelled. How those credits get into circulation, I'm not sure. Maybe there could be an argument made for certain primary industries to serve as a basis for issuance of new credits, but the danger of inflation would need to be carefully considered. There is absolutely no requirement for inflation to exist, ever, if the details of the money system are correct.

Credits might also be given a half-life. That is, after a while, inactive credits are cancelled at a certain rate of decay. This encourages their reuse to keep them current, resetting their half life clock. Savings therefore do not accumulate interest when invested, but they will 'stay alive' so long as they are actively invested. This eliminates the need to inflate the credit supply in order to pay off interest, because interest is no longer related to earning additional credits, but rather serves to sustain the 'lifetime' of credits.

Sure, this would take a giant computer system to implement, but we're already in a giant computer system now, albeit, in an ad hoc manner, as much a slave to it as we are to being served by it.

Talk to me

[Geof]

....we're already in a giant computer system now, albeit, in an ad hoc manner, as much a slave to it as we are to being served by it.

Talk to me

That is scary; true but scary. We are like hamsters on a treadwheel; we have to keep running because if we stop the wheel keeps going and tumbles us head over heels.

[thkoutsidthebox]

HA! If you want to round the final price to $10, thats fine, but if the charge is $9.99 then I want to pay $9.99, not $10 (Or €10 to be correct at this side of the pond)! We shouldn't be naieve about this.....a merchant will NEVER round down if the penny goes, the price will always go up, because he knows that all those extra pennies will be a few hundred extra profit by the end of the year. And all those extra 1c charges will in the big picture cost me and you tens or hundreds of millions every year, we just won't notice it because its 'only' a penny at a time. The lowest whole number is 1, so the lowest monetary denomination has to be 1. I pity the countries that have done away with the penny!!! No doubt some fool in Brussles is thinking the same thing, and wants to impose it on the Eurozone countries, then we'll all have to pay more because of another fantastic idea (Sarcasm) from Europe, just like the Lisbon Treaty.....drifting off topic.......