Political Discussion

We stopped minting pennies more than 10 years ago. They're useless and cost too much to make.
Yeah, I read the article yesterday. Our penny’s cost 3¢ to make. Most are stored in jars/piggie banks at home any our federal reserve hoards like $3billion dollars worth of them. Even if the US ended circulation they would lightly remain out a part of our monetary system long after I was dead.

As a born and raised Illinoian, I am pro penny since they feature our greatest president. Unless the US gives us $1 replacement coin featuring the Lincoln, ¡VIVA LA PENNY!
 
Yeah, I read the article yesterday. Our penny’s cost 3¢ to make. Most are stored in jars/piggie banks at home any our federal reserve hoards like $3billion dollars worth of them. Even if the US ended circulation they would lightly remain out a part of our monetary system long after I was dead.

As a born and raised Illinoian, I am pro penny since they feature our greatest president. Unless the US gives us $1 replacement coin featuring the Lincoln, ¡VIVA LA PENNY!

Lots of people were worried about it when it happened here, but at most a month and we were used to the new way. They stuck around, but not all that much TBH. Even if nobody uses them, every household probably still have a few lying around still though.

If it came down to it, I'm sure they would honor Lincoln in other ways. T
 
Just listened to the podcast / narrated version of that penny story, and wow is it crazier than I ever knew.

I knew it costs us more to mint new pennies that they are worth at face value and that it's time to think about phasing them out. I did not know we mint crazy amounts of new pennies just because most of them disappear from circulation after being given as change to never appear again and that their is a long history of trying to phase them out and nothing but our governments inability to get anything done is why they are still around.

There was a study that said we should phase out pennies by no later than 1980. And we even got congress to say long ago that the treasury does not need to mint them. But here we are with no real changes.

And what is the whole deal with it will take a law passed by congress to phase them out, but congress will not touch the subject with out every possibility being studied and then just wanting more studies next time it comes up.

Based on our current law it would seem the treasury doesn't need to mint pennies at all. And congress even passed a resolution saying they didn't have too. But they just keep on saying they will produce them as long as the Federal Reserve keeps ordering them. And the Federal Reserve will keep ordering them as long as pennies are still part of our currency provided by the Treasury. And they each keep pointing the finger at the other more information and why pennies still exist.
 
And what is the whole deal with it will take a law passed by congress to phase them out, but congress will not touch the subject with out every possibility being studied and then just wanting more studies next time it comes up.
Because TLK will come for them if they do.

I mean when was it decided that Harriet Tubman would be on the $20
 
Just listened to the podcast / narrated version of that penny story, and wow is it crazier than I ever knew.

I knew it costs us more to mint new pennies that they are worth at face value and that it's time to think about phasing them out. I did not know we mint crazy amounts of new pennies just because most of them disappear from circulation after being given as change to never appear again and that their is a long history of trying to phase them out and nothing but our governments inability to get anything done is why they are still around.

There was a study that said we should phase out pennies by no later than 1980. And we even got congress to say long ago that the treasury does not need to mint them. But here we are with no real changes.

And what is the whole deal with it will take a law passed by congress to phase them out, but congress will not touch the subject with out every possibility being studied and then just wanting more studies next time it comes up.

Based on our current law it would seem the treasury doesn't need to mint pennies at all. And congress even passed a resolution saying they didn't have too. But they just keep on saying they will produce them as long as the Federal Reserve keeps ordering them. And the Federal Reserve will keep ordering them as long as pennies are still part of our currency provided by the Treasury. And they each keep pointing the finger at the other more information and why pennies still exist.

We got rid of 1 and 2 coins something like 5 or 10 years ago and if you pay in cash everything is rounded up or down to 5 or 0. Card prices stay the same obviously. The sky didn’t cave in
 
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We got rid of 1 and 2 coins something like 5 or 10 years ago and if you pay in cash everything is rounded up or down to 5 or 0. Card prices stay the same obviously.

With polling, one of the reason Americans are so against getting rid of the penny is because of the chance of the price being rounded up and that they would have to pay more. But stistcically, over time there are equal chances of the transaction amount being rounded down as up and the average of what you pay would be a fraction of a cent in either direction.

I think the issue might be the incorrect assumption that prices would always be rounded up.

I find it interested that they just wouldn't round everything. @Turbo how does this work in Canada, I would have assumed all sales are calculated to the nearest devision of 5 and credit card's would not still be charged to the exact penny.

It's also interesting that this perception has little to do with why pennies have yet to be eliminated in the United States.

It is mostly do to our government standing in it's own way and being incapable of making any real change. They say we need to study the impact on charities and the poor. All of which have proven over and over would do just fine without the penny and don't need / use them.

Charities are the number 1 reason we list as why we need to keep the penny around, for spare change donations. But they all say they have stopped collection coin donations, and rather collect donations from round up on sales on credit cards. They are collecting far more money in donations this way than ever before and the headache and cost of having to deal with coins is a cost saver.
 
With polling, one of the reason Americans are so against getting rid of the penny is because of the chance of the price being rounded up and that they would have to pay more. But stistcically, over time there are equal chances of the transaction amount being rounded down as up and the average of what you pay would be a fraction of a cent in either direction.

I think the issue might be the incorrect assumption that prices would always be rounded up.

I find it interested that they just wouldn't round everything. @Turbo how does this work in Canada, I would have assumed all sales are calculated to the nearest devision of 5 and credit card's would not still be charged to the exact penny.

It's also interesting that this perception has little to do with why pennies have yet to be eliminated in the United States.

It is mostly do to our government standing in it's own way and being incapable of making any real change. They say we need to study the impact on charities and the poor. All of which have proven over and over would do just fine without the penny and don't need / use them.

Charities are the number 1 reason we list as why we need to keep the penny around, for spare change donations. But they all say they have stopped collection coin donations, and rather collect donations from round up on sales on credit cards. They are collecting far more money in donations this way than ever before and the headache and cost of having to deal with coins is a cost saver.

It’s the psychological 1.99 rather than 2 etc pricing that will always remain. There’s no need to round this on a card. Charities still collect change here, but when I look in my change jar it is mostly 20s and 50s, very few 1s 2s or even 5s. I’m sure people were meaning about all that shit here too, I can’t really remember but people be people, but sometimes you’ve just gotta impose common sense on people and they eventually fall into line.
 
It’s the psychological 1.99 rather than 2 etc pricing that will always remain. There’s no need to round this on a card. Charities still collect change here, but when I look in my change jar it is mostly 20s and 50s, very few 1s 2s or even 5s. I’m sure people were meaning about all that shit here too, I can’t really remember but people be people, but sometimes you’ve just gotta impose common sense on people and they eventually fall into line.
But Murica is free, comrade dumdumhead
 
I find it interested that they just wouldn't round everything. @Turbo how does this work in Canada, I would have assumed all sales are calculated to the nearest devision of 5 and credit card's would not still be charged to the exact penny.

Only rounding occurs when you deal with cash. Banking, credit cards, interac cards, apple pay, paypal, etc still works to the cent.

When you use cash, you round to the nearest multiple of 0 or 5. For 3 and 7, it's rounded in favor of the customer (customer rounds down from 3 and 7 when he pays, seller rounds up from 3 and 7 when giving change).
 
Not for nothing, we already round because tax is a percentage, so you have to round when there is a percentage of a penny. The perception that it would always be up is because muricans are stupid and math is “hard.”

I think it's more of misconception that rounding would never be in the customers favor. For example, if something were to be $5.01 and pennies no longer existed, they would expect business to round up to $5.05 because they wouldn't want to lose out on that 1 cent. Thus the consumer is paying an extra 4¢.

It wouldn't work like that, but there is a last of "trust" that is deeply ingrained in Americans.
 
I think it's more of misconception that rounding would never be in the customers favor. For example, if something were to be $5.01 and pennies no longer existed, they would expect business to round up to $5.05 because they wouldn't want to lose out on that 1 cent. Thus the consumer is paying an extra 4¢.

It wouldn't work like that, but there is a last of "trust" that is deeply ingrained in Americans.
I mean that’s what I was saying.

People think rounding is always rounding up. They don’t understand how rounding works because they didn’t get to an understanding of the basics of math when they were in school. It’s why everyone always gets order of math problems wrong when someone posts one on social media.

Math is hard.

My wife uses math all day every day. She solves for x all the time, but if I write her an equation with a variable it will break her brain. I’m not saying she is dumb, just the education system failed her and she thinks math that she does everyday (namely algebra) is impossible to do.

I’ve known lots of people like this. I wish my brain worked that way but if I need to solve for x, I’m probably writing the equation and solving it and then I start to wonder if I need to worry about limits and what not and wish I had paid more attention to statistics and calculus.
 
I think it's more of misconception that rounding would never be in the customers favor. For example, if something were to be $5.01 and pennies no longer existed, they would expect business to round up to $5.05 because they wouldn't want to lose out on that 1 cent. Thus the consumer is paying an extra 4¢.

It wouldn't work like that, but there is a last of "trust" that is deeply ingrained in Americans.
I don’t think a lack of trust is ingrained. I just think that starting with Hoover there is a lot to not trust and there are whole segments of our population that lean in that distrust. (See MAGA).
 
I don’t think a lack of trust is ingrained. I just think that starting with Hoover there is a lot to not trust and there are whole segments of our population that lean in that distrust. (See MAGA).

You also have a history of not regulating business at all in any way shape or form and just letting them compensate their way out trouble, no matter how serious. I don’t live in America and I still wouldn’t trust an American business to not try to fuck me over in some way shape or form.
 
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