Jeff was right about the penny

They recently got rid of the penny in Canada. I don't ussually use cash so it has taken a while for me to form an opinion on it. Before the change I didn't really care as the penny was almost worthless and I figured merchants would round to the nearest value. They don't round fairly and regardless of any logical arguement you can give me I'm still pissed every time I get shortchanged. Fuck merchants and while I doubt pennies will ever be reinstated I say the US should try to keep them.

@FluxWaveZ: Obviously but I'm talking about the impact of having no pennies.

Bah! Pennies are evil:

@BirdkeeperDan: Ah, got it. Deleted my comment.

It was inevitable that merchants would round the value of purchases to their favor, but I can't say I really care because it really just is a few cents. I've not had the experience with it yet, though, but I can say that I would feel frustrated despite the little amount of money that was essentially "stolen" from me. Don't know if that frustration is worth producing something as useless as the penny, though.

@BirdkeeperDan said:

They recently got rid of the penny in Canada. I don't ussually use cash so it has taken a while for me to form an opinion on it. Before the change I didn't really care as the penny was almost worthless and I figured merchants would round to the nearest value. They don't round fairly and regardless of any logical arguement you can give me I'm still pissed every time I get shortchanged. Fuck merchants and while I doubt pennies will ever be reinstated I say the US should try to keep them.

I completely agree.

Think about it. Sure, you're losing money, but you're losing that money entirely in pennies. If you lose, say, $20.00, that's 2000 pennies. I don't know about you, but I rarely exchange my pennies for other coins or bill, or even bother putting them in my bank account, so I'd rather have 0 pennies than 2000.

@FluxWaveZ: Man I didn't think I would really care that much before the change. But something about it just gets me angry everytime it happens.

@MaxxS: Except you could take all those pennies and turn them into Amazon money at a coinstar machine.

@MaxxS: I think I'd rather have the $20, you can give it to me in pennies if you want, we have machines to take care of those almost worthless little bastards....

@OldGuy said:

Bah! Pennies are evil:

Boom! You beat me too it.

It takes more pennies to make a pennies. That should be reason alone to get it banned.

@MaxxS said:

Think about it. Sure, you're losing money, but you're losing that money entirely in pennies. If you lose, say, $20.00, that's 2000 pennies. I don't know about you, but I rarely exchange my pennies for other coins or bill, or even bother putting them in my bank account, so I'd rather have 0 pennies than 2000.

Fuck that. I could use that money to buy dinner or a book.

@BirdkeeperDan: Can you explain what "not rounding fairly" means? If they didn't round to the nearest number then surely that would be weirder? IE 4.99 --> 5.00? Which makes sense and it's only a penny so...

Rounding pennies incorrectly is illegal. The merchant does not decide how something rounds.

.01, .02, .08, .09 round to nearest 10.

.03, .04, .06, .07 round to the nearest 5.

debit/credit transactions are not rounded

@Chavtheworld: If I used to get 4, 3, 2 or 1 pennies I now get nothing.

Think about it. Sure, you're losing money, but you're losing that money entirely in pennies. If you lose, say, $20.00, that's 2000 pennies. I don't know about you, but I rarely exchange my pennies for other coins or bill, or even bother putting them in my bank account, so I'd rather have 0 pennies than 2000.

@MAGZine: Not inforced and this 'illegal' rounding frequently happens to me it even happened today.

It costs more than a penny to make a penny. I do not understand why the US hasn't abandoned it yet.

That video just makes me want them to bring the half cent back. I'm already being robbed of $0.005 on transactions!

Best goddamn thing the Canadian government's done since... well... shit, probably since they formed.

I noticed this at work, on 5$ movie tuesdays, it takes me about as much time to count the money from the asshole who payed in small change as it does to go through like 3 or 4 people with 5 dollar bills.

I throw pennies out when they're in my pocket change. I have so many in a jar like everyone else, and I don't really need to add to them.

I didn't even notice the lack of pennies until you mentioned it I thought it wasn't going to be implemented until later this year. I guess I don't really care. I don't understand how anyone can be so cheap that they lament the loss of 4 cents.

@Omega: I am incredibly cheap. But it's more about the emotional response to being shortchanged.

They discontinued Pennies, how did I not hear tell of this.

@BraveToaster said:

Fuck that. I could use that money for dinner or a book.

Seems like an incredibly unsatisfying meal, not to mention hard to digest. As for a book, you can have as many pennies as you want but they will all still say the same thing.

If you are in a register line with even a couple people using pennies, and each transaction length increased by even a few seconds as a result, the amount of time you save is worth the loss in money. Keeping the penny would be equivalent to working for below minimum wage. Your time is better spent in places other than managing pennies.

That the prices are higher is the fault of merchants, NOT inherent to lacking pennies. Even with pennies, nothing would have stopped merchants from hiking prices anyway; if everyone wanted to start charging $5 instead of $4.99 in the US right away they could totally start doing that right now, pennies or no pennies.

Swedish coins are now 1 Crown, 5 Crown, 10 Crown. They're considering adding a 20 to make up for the out of use 50 Öre, the decimal dick.  So that's three coins. Life in Sweden is fucking grand lemme tell ya and this helps a lot.
 
Now look at how many coins the UK's got.
 
DREAD.

I keep my change in a jar to save up for a rainy day or when the next console comes out that I want to get. Pennies are worthless but together the bring something wonderful...kinda like people

@Seedofpower said:

@OldGuy said:

Bah! Pennies are evil:

Boom! You beat me too it.

It takes more pennies to make a pennies. That should be reason alone to get it banned.

It takes more than it's worth to make a nickle too though...

@Autumn_Thunder: I think the feeling that you had a fair transaction is worth that extra time. Proper rounding would make this fair is some sense but thats not the reality of the situation. When you weigh the cons of removing the penny you have to look at how it's going to be in practice not some ideal implementation that isn't enforced.

You don't have to pay the government to produce something that costs more than it is worth, so I guess it's a matter of whether or not you want to see the costs upfront or not. Also, pennies take up time, so you are saving that, and pennies get lost or tossed so your immediate savings probably aren't as great as they appear to be. Death to the penny.

@Seedofpower: Yeah, but a penny gets used hundreds of times in it's lifetime. Meaning it has hundreds of times it's actual value to the economy.

@BirdkeeperDan: Fair enough. But doesn't the change come into your favour as well? Like if the cost is 34.17 doesn't it get rounded to 34.15 leaving you in excess of 2 cents? Also if you are getting cheated by the cashier its possible that they aren't used to the change in policy. I'm sure that within the year everyone will be used to it and you wont be cheated or feel cheated. Everyone is afraid of change I remember thinking the toonie was the dumbest thing ever, I remember thinking that when Nintendo named the Wii I would never be caught dead calling it that. Now I don't give a shit.

Australia got rid of 1 and 2 cent coins about 20 years ago and thank christ they did. Worthless.

fuck pennies. hell, fuck everything below 10 cents or 10 pence.

Pennies are a waste of time and energy. We already get "short changed" on rounding for tax anyhow, which is the ONLY thing being rounded at the register, and the money is split on fraction cents the way you learn to round in elementary school. This is why sales tax rates occasionally extend to 4 decimal places, to ensure an extra 1 penny to the government on typical prices of goods. The merchant gains nothing from mis-rounding except a paperwork headache(they have to pay tax on that "extra" 2-3 pennies, which they then have to justify on tax forms, etc). If only nickles existed, prices would be to set to the nickle instead of the penny ie: 29.95 instead of 29.99 because humans process 30.00 differently than 29.99. And then rounding for taxes is still the only necessary calculation.

The time spent counting pennies being removed alone is pretty significant. It costs approx 1 penny every 5 seconds to employ someone at minimum wage so that 20-30 seconds it took to Mr McDonald's drivethrough cashier count you out 74 cents cost them more than if he'd just thrown a handfull of pennies at you and called it good. They're inefficient, useless, and the arguments to keep them stemming from "gimme my 2 pennies!" are dumb because you're getting 2 other pennies just as often as you're losing 2.

@Omega: You could if merchants rounded fairly but in my limited experience most merchants don't. If it was 1.01 after I should get back 4 pennies and instead I get none and effectively pay 1.05. On average I lose 2 cents per cash transaction.

I sure hope I'm not still not getting angry about this in a few years. If I do I'll probably be insane and have started up some hilarious internet campaign to bring back then penny. Someone should create savethepenny.com

taking out the pennies will eventually make people lose money. lets say that stores now round up, so if something costs $6.96 it will cost $7. lets say that you buy 4 things every day, and you lost 4 cents every purchase. lets say that you buy 4 things every day for 60 years. so: 365 days * 60 yrs = 21900 days. in those 21900 days, every day you lost 16 cents (0.04*4=0.16). that means, in 60 yrs, you will lose $3504 (21900*0.16=3504). doesnt sound like much, does it. but, let's say that the population of california (37,691,912) is losing $0.16 a day, over 60 yrs, thats $132,072,459,648 (3504*37691912). thats $132,072,459,648 that could have been in the people of California's pockets. of course, this wouldnt matter because the prices would be adjusted, but still, you are losing money.

if somebody can check the math, i would really appreciate it, i tend to make really simple mistakes and ruin everything.

@BirdkeeperDan said:

@Chavtheworld: If I used to get 4, 3, 2 or 1 pennies I now get nothing.

so, 4.96 -> 5.00 also? I wouldn't really care that much to be honest. I don't do a lot with 5p anyway :P

@ManU_Fan10ne: Merchant prices in stores would be set at the store(and for stores, none of this matters price is set based on conditions other than pennies, if something would typically be 3.06, they charge 3.49 because the human brain will mostly process those two thins as the same value), and the standard .99 pricing would likely become .95 etc because the human mind process these prices less than the alternative of rounding to the nearest dollar. In addition, the only rounding done at the register is for tax, which would be split on 2.5 cents so you'd be losing half a penny some of the time. This already happens because of fractional cent sales taxes.

Hell, I'm completely fine with the pennies being rounded in their favor. I'll probably just lose the pennies, or at best, put them in a drawer somewhere. Now someone actually gets their profit, and I don't have to dirty my hands with them.

Honestly, isn't something like this good for the economy? It's not like losing a couple cents with each transaction will discourage the consumer from buying something, but a company that say, gets an extra two cents a few hundred times a day? That could actually help. That, and they don't have to waste time counting pennies anymore.

I say go merchants.

@ManU_Fan10ne:

I think your math is right but I'd change the 4 cents to 2 cents to represent the average lose per transaction if transactions are always rounded in favour of the merchant.

2cents = 1/5*0cents + 1/5*1cents + 1/5*2cents + 1/5*3cents + 1/5*4cents.

@Red said:

I say go merchants.

I say fuck merchants :P I want my money.

The Upright Citizen Brigade has a good argument on why the penny needs to stay in circulation. 
  

@BestUsernameEver said:

@Seedofpower said:

@OldGuy said:

Bah! Pennies are evil:

Boom! You beat me too it.

It takes more pennies to make a pennies. That should be reason alone to get it banned.

It takes more than it's worth to make a nickle too though...

Don't even get me started on the %&@#^#$ paper dollar, either!

I've never used pennies in years, and their value is ridiculous. Yep, they should just be scrapped.

@GenocidalKitten: I agree. When I used to trade cards, sometimes I would bring rolled coins. And if I traded with someone I didn't like I would bring out the rolled coins. They ussually begrungingly accept and they have to carry them for hours. Lets just say I ussually would hear about it the next time I saw them and would have a good laugh.

Edit: Those were the days.

You see I'm for keeping the penny because the they the penny has been gotten rid of is dumb. You see being a man of science it's all about significant figures. By saying the penny is useless what your really saying is the hundredth is insignificant value to anyone.

So rounding to the nearest 5 cent is just dumb and the rounding alone take more brain power then it's worth. Also every time a country has done this the "digital penny" is still used with plastic transactions. Which is them saying the hundredth place still matters. So of course people will feel ripped off when they lose "digital pennys", which still have value, for using physical money.

So the the only logical to get rid of the penny is to get rid of the hundredth place every where because as long as you use it a penny still has value in your mind. So in order to do that you must get rid of the penny, nickle, and quarter since they all use the concept of .01 and also get rid of it in plastic transaction too. Then for coinage you should use a redesigned dime that is now worth 1 dec (.1) instead of 10 cents (.10) and hopefully not as tiny. Also reinstate the half dollar as the 5 decs (.5) coin. That would be all the coins you need.

@Chavtheworld said:

@BirdkeeperDan said:

@Chavtheworld: If I used to get 4, 3, 2 or 1 pennies I now get nothing.

so, 4.96 -> 5.00 also? I wouldn't really care that much to be honest. I don't do a lot with 5p anyway :P

5ps piss me off just as much as 1s and 2s. They just clog up my wallet, and as I don't even use money often - debit card whenever I can - it's even more annoying.

Even if they do round the penny properly, merchants will just change the prices of their goods so, with tax, they always get the better side of the deal. And I won't care.

I don't think you guys realize how little the penny is worth. The only practical use for the penny is to pay using exact change, which holds up lines and wastes time. And the only real point of paying with exact change is to avoid getting pennies in the first place.