Ban The Penny

Forbes.com ^ | 7/5/02 | Mark Lewis

[ThinkDifferent]

That does make sense. It's a more complicated issue than it appears, there's probably not a simple answer as to the net effect on total prices for consumers.

[SamAdams76]

Everything is already rounded up to the nearest nickel. The fact that everything ends in .99 is just foolishness. A $14.99 garden rake is actually $15.00. Even if you hung around to collect your penny in change, it would usually end up in that "penny tray" that has cropped up at just about every store. Either that, or the penny ends up under some seat cushion where it is eventually sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. There is really no point for the penny anymore except in coin collections. Time to retire it with the half-cent.

[discostu]

For sales tax it's straight forward: the odder the math the better it is for business, which eventually equates to more tax money since that extra tax gets rated as income.

Now for getting rid of the penny it'll cost the consumer more, garaunteed. I doubt prices will change (well if they do something stupid like only get rid of the penny for cash transactions prices will change because businesses will have to hire more accountants because the books will be harder to figure out, accountants aren't cheap, hirer labor costs always equals higher prices for the consumer), but after all the calculations you'll probably wind up with something that doesn't end in 5 or 0, and it will then be rounded up (garauntee that, no way a business would round down, they never round sales tax down). On your receipt it'll probably just get rolled into the sales tax so it's invisible.

[Freebird Forever]

After Ronald Reagan goes to his final rest, I'm going to propose the issuance of a pure copper penny bearing his likeness. I think Reagan, a child of the Depression, would most certainly approve.

I really like the idea of putting the likeness of President Reagan on a coin, but would prefer that it be on a new dollar rather then a penny.

[captain_dave]

One alternative to banning the penny would be to consider a 'reverse split' of the $US, like an unfortunate 'penny' stock.

Presuming a 1 for 10 rollback, the penny would again be worth what it was during Eisenhower's Presidency.

I'd vote for that!

[APBaer]

"dollar coin", those Sacajawea coins

They are also too close in size to a quarter.
I want to reach into my pocket of mixed change and have no doubt whether it is a quarter or a dollar I am grabbing.

[Chad Fairbanks]

Heh heh heh ;0)

[Highway55]

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."

J. Paul Getty

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

JUST think of it get rid of all those pennys !

NAHHHH lets get rid of the dude and keep the penny i like it better

[Redcloak]

A tangentially related note: The toxic waste site on Algore's family farm in Carthage is a zinc mining operation.

[cajun-jack]

ban idiot politicians and leave the dollar and penny alone.

[headsonpikes]

"I'd vote for that."

One can only presume that the old seadog has gunny sacks of pennies for ballast. ;^)