[Phantom Lord]

Why do I think this is nothing more than a scam to increase sales tax revenue by forcing all prices to end in a 5 or 0. As we know, prices would always be rounded UP and not down, these seems like a way to increase prices and thus sales tax revenue.

And what kind of wacky ass math and pricing schemes would need to be implemented to assure that even after sales tax all prices would end in a 5 or zero?

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I think we should mint the 99-cent coin. Have you noticed that all kinds of prices end in ".99"?

[concerned about politics]

, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down.

Sure. They'd be rounded up like everything else.
Keep the pennies.
They're all the tax collecters let us keep!

[RightWhale]

the nickel is still with us

The Canadian nickel has real nickel in it. It also appears to be made of an asteroid that slammed into earth long ago.

The zinc penny might be useful if the municipal power goes out since you can make an electrical battery out of it. You will need several to get significant power.

[SteamshipTime]

Interesting, isn't it, how the money-changers at the Treasury couldn't even keep their hands off the lowly copper standard--they had to turn a penny's weight of copper into a disk of worthless zinc.

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.

No one's asking why you never saw penny trays on 7-11 counters until after the 1970's. Just keep clicking your heels and repeating: "There is no inflation, there is no inflation ..."

[Minutemen]

Thanks everybody for your two-cents worth!

[dutyhonorcountry]

The last thing I'd want to do is give the postal service one more reason to raise the postage stamp price.

[Drew68]

Pennies are useful to throw at "spangers" --those able-bodied, dreadlocked, pierced and tattooed high school/college-aged kids that sit in front of the McDonalds (with a help-wanted sign in the window) on the 16th Street Mall in Denver or the mall in Boulder and beg "Hey dude, ya' got any spare change man?"

"spangers" = spare change (rs)

[Husker24]

I wish they would get over that "dollar coin" thing, nobody wants it. How many times have you actually gotten one of those Sacajawea coins in change. They look good at first, but they turn to a dull crappy color real fast.

[Petronski]

Ban the paper dollar. Keep the penny.

[headsonpikes]

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.

[LibWhacker]

Personally, I hope they don't do away with the penny. If they do, I won't know what to do with our backpack full of pennies. Durn thing's so heavy I can barely lift it.

I've been too embarrassed and lazy (lazy because I don't want to go through the bag and check that none of the pennies is of interest to collectors; it'd take a week!) to haul it off to the bank for them to count. It's all the pennies my wife and I ever tossed into a jar throughout our lives, plus all the pennies her parents and her grandmother ever put into a jar. I'm not kidding, it's a HUGE pile of pennies. Couldn't believe it when I first saw it.

[discostu]

but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down.

this is my favorite part of the no penny movement. They're idea for how to phase it out. All this method would do is drive accountants insane. Try figuring out how profitable it is to carry item X when the price you charge for it fluctuates wildly depending on how the customer is paying and what other items the customer buys (ie their pre-rounding subtotal). Absoulutely brilliant idea... if you hate accountants. I happen to be friends with a number of accountants, I think the idea sucks.

[afraidfortherepublic]

America seems to really like the coin, despite what people might read to the contrary,"

I have NEVER received one in everyday commerce. I could buy on eat the bank, if I were interested but I do not see them in use at all.

I was looking at the "change" tray at my bank just the other day and noticed that while all the rows of coins were stacked neatly and in profusion -- the $1 slot had only 4 coins in it. The teller did not offer one to me when I cashed my check.

When you do auto banking, you won't receive one either because coins are prohibited from being exhanged via the vacuum tubes.

[mysterio]

Sure, raise the price of everything four cents. What are you thinking?

[vetvetdoug]

I think we need the penny. However, there is a serious problem with the penny being >90% zinc. If a child swallows the penny (which many of them do) and it stays in the stomach over two days there a some serious effects of the zinc. First, there is significant erosion of the gastric mucosa causing a major ulcer. The zinc also causes hemolysis of the red blood cells and liver failure primarily and multi system organ failure. The dangerousness of the penny is dependent upon a) if it was made post 1982 and b) if the copper coated penny post 1982 had damage to the copper coating exposing the zinc.

Tennesseans in the legislature need to have their butts reexamined for common sense for continuing to embrace the penny made primarily of zinc.

If Congress wants to do something for the children and little animals, they could go back to making the penny out of copper. I have personally treated many dogs that were dying from penny ingestion and zinc heavy metal poisoning.

[Timesink]

The US Treasury MAKES A PROFIT minting pennies. It costs less than one cent to make a penny; the difference is pure profit. Combine that with the fact that so many people hoard the pennies and take them out of circulation, forcing the Treasury to mint even more pennies, the profit only goes up. Ban the penny and that's more cash that the RATS will have to "find" by raising taxes.

Anyone who advocates banning the penny either doesn't understand the most basic details of how the Mint works, or else has an alterior motive.

Be that as it may, Kolbe's proposals are only logical. Several other nations have eliminated their small-denomination coins without going to wrack and ruin in the process, and Canada managed to replace its dollar bills with dollar coins.

Yes, and these other countries routinely ignore their citizens' wishes on every other issue under the sun as well. This isn't a good argument for anyone that believes in freedom.

[afraidfortherepublic]

This is the pretty one.

[Frohickey]

I think that we ought to ban all pennies, dimes, quarters, dollars, $5, $10... round everything to the nearest $10 million.

[Billthedrill]

I was living in Japan in the late 80s, when they actually had done this de facto - all prices were rounded up to the nearest 5 yen to avoid having to carry around the silly little aluminum 1Y coin (it floats in a glass of water, BTW). Despite what you may have heard from campus feminists in the U.S., Japanese women control even more of the economy than American women do theirs, and they were sick of having their purses bulging with the worthless little buggers.

So what changed? Well, the government in its infinite appetite for somebody else's money - there is no other kind - decided to pass a 3% value-added tax to all retail purchases, and voila! the little aluminum monsters became necessary again overnight. The resulting furor very nearly brought down the government. But the furor died down and, naturally, the tax remains.

This is why I tend to doubt we'll ever rid ourselves of the penny, at least until the government succeeds in convincing us that it needs our money in larger bites.