Posted on 07/17/2006 8:01:27 AM PDT by presidio9
Giving money away for free is not behavior one expects from ordinary, rational Americans. But it’s something they do every day in massive numbers—that is if you consider the penny to be money.
At store counters around the country, people will leave pennies for the next customer, something they’d never do with a dime or quarter or any piece of currency they actually value. The poor, pathetic penny has become clutter in the nation’s pockets, the irritating detritus of cash transactions that inconveniently don’t end in a 5 or 0. Pennies sit in jars around the country, waiting in desuetude until their owners work up the energy to haul them to a bank or to a supermarket with a Coinstar kiosk where they can be exchanged for useful money.
Yes, we love Abraham Lincoln. We love our memories of buying candy with pennies when we were children. We love our traditional adages (“a penny for your thoughts,” etc.). But none of that should be enough anymore to inflict the penny on adults attempting to conduct cash transactions in an efficient way. Who will rid us of this nettlesome coin?
Perhaps Rep. Jim Kolbe (R., Ariz.), who will soon introduce legislation to move to a system that rounds cash transactions to the nearest 5 or 0. This would be a further step toward the penny’s obsolescence, or—as it should be thought of more accurately—toward stopping the madness.
The penny is no longer made from copper (too expensive), but merely has a copper coating over zinc, which is also now too expensive. It isn’t easy finding a substance worthless enough to make into pennies. It now costs 1.23 cents to make 1 cent. That means it will take 10.7 billion pennies
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
And it's a penny in the @ss to read too.
According to Google, a two-Pound coin weighs twelve grams. Twelve grams.
At some point, the word "laziness" will become operative here.
What was it I said about theorizing?
"laziness"
Hmmm ... yes ... perhaps the wrong person has "Arrogant" in his screen-name?
As a math major and an accountant, I can't fathom counting without the ones! I'm always confusing the poor cashiers by paying them with pennies out of my wallet. If the register didn't calculate the change for them, they wouldn't have a clue what to do. Just call me old fashioned!
And I'm the person stuck in line behind you. Stop doing that!
I have no idea. I'm not theorizing.
And laziness is a factor here, since you're obviously not spending the larger coins during the day, just accumulating them; and you're also complaining about carrying all those heavy coins. Poor baby.
No, you are all a bit wrong. it is 6 PERCENT of your purchase.
Rounding (up and down) goes on all the time now.
Depends on how you round. .06 and/07 round down to .05. 08/09 round up to .10. At least that is the way it is done in the military exchanges and has for more than 20 years.
Getting rid of the penny is nothing but inflationary. Taxes, prices, etc., will all riseto the next highest coin currency level. Pennies do tend to be a pain in the pocket but, as long as they are around, they save us money.
If this were about ONE penny being spent on ONE purchase on ONE day out of the month, I could almost agree. But, we are talking about cumulative millions of transactions per day involving pennies. Round those purchases up and you have a LOT of money going to government or merchants that they wouldn't ordinarily receive.
This is just about creating an artificial tax hike on all of us by stupid people unable to figure out what is at stake.
Then you're not reading my posts to you. Strike One.
since you're obviously not spending the larger coins during the day,
You're still not reading my posts to you. I already addressed that. Strike Two.
Poor baby.
My real world experience differs from yours, so you see fit to insult me. Your arguments must, therefore, be devoid of merit elsewise they would stand on their own. Strike Three.
PLONK!
When a municiple, or county, or state govt sets up sales taxes by the 1/4 cent or even 1/8 cent (and they do) do you really think their going to let a whole 2 cents on every dolllar go?
Ha! that's what I said.
Florida has counties with 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 % local sales add ons.
>>>Are you figuring that the times it comes out 1 or 2 cents I make money and that evens it out?
That's exactly what will happen. It won't cost you anything more.
>>>I feel certain that merchants will figure it out so that it is never or rarely 1 or 2 cents, but then, perhaps I'm cynical.
I too am cynical, but I don't really see how a supermarket will be able to make a basket of 22 different items add up to a number that ends in 3,4,8 or 9 just to get an extra penny or two out of you.
I'm not following you. You're following me. Right in front of me too. That's scarey.... ;)
susie
As a retailer it would not be too difficult to program the register to always round up to the nearest nickle on the total. Say your total after tax @.06 was 3.18. The register would round to 3.20. The retailer would realize a .02 profit. In my case .02 * 2000 cust. per day = 40 or around 14K per year. Of course some legislator would learn of this windfall profit and tax my Arse and I would end up worse off.
Keep the penny...stop putting the date on them so that they are all the same to cut down on hoarding.
Oh, they will have "Them" do it for them! Now....where is my tin hat??
susie
What can I say? It's a skill.
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