Should pennies be removed from the currency system?

[StriderShinryu]

Canada is in the process of removing pennies, but I'm not really sure about the details of the whole thing and since sales taxes are not included in the price on the label, even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

Pennies are no longer being produced here in Canada, and circulation will end in the fall (September I believe). Cash purchases will be rounded up or down as appropriate but direct transactions like debit or credit will still be charged to the cent.

 

[The Funslinger]

No. Precisely because regardless of £0.99 or $0.99 or whatever sales, pennies are needed, purely to serve as base units. Without a base unit, mathematically speaking, you're going to be screwed when it comes to adding or subtracting values. There's no feasible way of standardising prices everywhere so that every single transaction will result in more than a single penny difference between other currency values, meaning that when dealing with multiple transactions you are pretty damn likely to need a penny somewhere down the line. This doesn't just apply to single penny difference either. In the UK the next size denomination is 2p, then 5p, then 10p. In the US, isn't it straight up to 5 cents, then 10 cents? You'll thus have the same problem when dealing with 2p, 3p, 4p, etc. differences.

Simply put, base units are essential, and thus getting rid of the penny would cause more problems than it solves.

Didn't the UK, along with the US (and most countries I'm sure) produce sub-penny coins at some point and then stop? It's much the same process. You round and it winds up not being a big deal to the economy or your average citizen.

Yeah, but that was back in the days when having a pound was a bit flash. Like having a £50. Pennies could buy shit in those days. You could get a pet duck for three.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Canada is in the process of removing pennies, but I'm not really sure about the details of the whole thing and since sales taxes are not included in the price on the label, even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

i dont know canadas situation but it sounds very weird to me that sales tax would not be included on the label. Likely you got a retarded shopkeeper

Actually, in Canada sales tax is almost never included in the posted price. Whether you're buying a car or a candy bar, you only see the price with tax included once the item has been "rung in at the till" so to speak. You just have to get good at mentally calculating the tax yourself.

 

[Dags90]

Yeah, but that was back in the days when having a pound was a bit flash. Like having a £50. Pennies could buy shit in those days. You could get a pet duck for three.

I think that's sort of the point. You can't buy anything for a penny now. Hell, finding something under 25 cents is pretty rare, and largely relegated to gumball machines.

 

[Strazdas]

Canada is in the process of removing pennies, but I'm not really sure about the details of the whole thing and since sales taxes are not included in the price on the label, even if you change something that now costs $0.99 to $1.00, you'll still need to pay an extra $0.13 in tax, meaning that you still need pennies for change.

i dont know canadas situation but it sounds very weird to me that sales tax would not be included on the label. Likely you got a retarded shopkeeper

Actually, in Canada sales tax is almost never included in the posted price. Whether you're buying a car or a candy bar, you only see the price with tax included once the item has been "rung in at the till" so to speak. You just have to get good at mentally calculating the tax yourself.

Hmm didnt knew that. Sounds like an unnecessary work for the costumers. Learn something new every day i guess. Here we have VAT instead of sales tax and its always in the pricetag.

 

[DarkRyter]

Hope so. I got like a billion pennies all ready for smelting and shit.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

There's really not much of a reason to get rid of pennies. Any economic problems associated with producing them for more than they're worth are really negligible when compared to how big the US economy and the US government's annual expenditures are. When the US government's debt is in the trillions, taking out 140 million a year isn't going to do much.

Then again, there really isn't a reason to keep pennies. Prices can easily be rounded to 5 cents, and it's not like people actually use pennies to buy anything. Plus, it would make buying things with cash much easier.

Edit: Also, while you're at it, include your sales tax on the cost labels. Seriously, when I visited America this practice absolutely baffled me. The ONLY reason I can see this being done is to give the illusion I was paying less, which I'm obviously not. Not just that, but it means I couldn't prepare my change before I reached the counter. It's a stupid practice that you need to fix, less I almost pull my hair out because of your absurd business practices like I almost did last time.

Also, this. I live in the US, and it's so annoying not knowing exactly how much something will cost before buying it.

 

[Rowan93]

No way! How am I supposed to troll cashiers (and customers behind me) without them?

I think it'll troll them even harder if the penny's abolished and you try to pay for something with a jar of pennies from 2012.

 

[Hoplon]

Yeah, the US could also do with getting rid of one dollar bills too, since they cost some infeasibly large amount to produce compared to their life time.

The sales tax thing is like that due to state by state rates rather than one for the nation.

 

[GistoftheFist]

You don't have to remove all of them from circulation, just stop producing new ones.

 

[The Funslinger]

You don't have to remove all of them from circulation, just stop producing new ones.

Yeah, but then years down the line, you have all these brand spanking new coins, and then old, chipped, scratty pennies thumbed by so many people, their faces are worn blank.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think pennies are pretty damn useless and you guys have every financial incentive to abolish them. Quite simply I like what we do here in Australia, our lowest coin is 5 cents, and everything gets rounded up or down to meet the 5 cent marker. That way you still have a small coin but it's not AS small or AS useless as a single god damn cent.

Edit: Also, while you're at it, include your sales tax on the cost labels. Seriously, when I visited America this practice absolutely baffled me. The ONLY reason I can see this being done is to give the illusion I was paying less, which I'm obviously not. Not just that, but it means I couldn't prepare my change before I reached the counter. It's a stupid practice that you need to fix, less I almost pull my hair out because of your absurd business practices like I almost did last time.

Hmm didnt knew that. Sounds like an unnecessary work for the costumers. Learn something new every day i guess. Here we have VAT instead of sales tax and its always in the pricetag.

There's a pretty big difference between VAT and Sales tax. VAT is a national thing; it's the same everywhere, so a given company can print up one set of prices for all of its stores in a country and be done with it. Sales tax, at least in the US, is a state and local thing. So not only are there 50 different tax values for the 50 different states, but individual states have variations, since individual counties can levy their own sales taxes. Point being, it's too big of a mess for anything but small, local businesses to actually include the tax on the sticker.

OT: There really ought to be a way to make pennies cheaper, using plastic or something. Small change adds up over time; I found something like $30 when cleaning my room recently, all made up of change left over from buying stuff at vending machines. My parents found $200 in their room (they use more cash than I do.)

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

If we get glow in the dark dinosaur coins like canada, then fuck yes.

 

[Vivi22]

No. Precisely because regardless of £0.99 or $0.99 or whatever sales, pennies are needed, purely to serve as base units. Without a base unit, mathematically speaking, you're going to be screwed when it comes to adding or subtracting values. There's no feasible way of standardising prices everywhere so that every single transaction will result in more than a single penny difference between other currency values, meaning that when dealing with multiple transactions you are pretty damn likely to need a penny somewhere down the line. This doesn't just apply to single penny difference either. In the UK the next size denomination is 2p, then 5p, then 10p. In the US, isn't it straight up to 5 cents, then 10 cents? You'll thus have the same problem when dealing with 2p, 3p, 4p, etc. differences.

Simply put, base units are essential, and thus getting rid of the penny would cause more problems than it solves.

You can remove the penny as a physical unit of currency without removing the concept of having 1 cent as a monetary unit. Most money doesn't even exist as physical currency and electronic transactions will not be happening less as time goes on making it largely a non-issue for all but those people who still deal largely in cash (and there will be fewer of those in the future most likely). And even then, rounding to the nearest 5 cents isn't likely to have a material effect on anyone if they're using a lot of cash as it should average out over time.

For the record, the Canadian government recently decided to get rid of the penny and I doubt any issues will actually arise from it that aren't easily solved given the above.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

It costs more to mint a penny than it does to spend it. The copper covering and zinc core are more valuable in non-penny form.

 

[MammothBlade]

Perhaps. I would support this if only to get rid of uneven price numbers which leave me with an abundance of copper coins.

It would be good to do away with any coins lower than 10 pence.

 

[viranimus]

Uhm.. No.

You need the ability to create change for the most nominal denomination of currency possible. Does not matter if "nothing costs 1 cent now" because invariably you need divisiable currency to cover any amount from 1-99.

While Ill grant you there might be some incentive, Eliminating a vital peice of currency is not a proper alternative. It would make sense to A: Make pennies smaller thus costing less materials. B:
Make pennies out of cheaper more inexpensive materials Or C: eliminate all paper/ coin currency(Including checks) all together and create standard issue "credits" currency that operate in the same manner as every Visa check card without the ability to preclude someone due to bounce checks wrote a decade ago.

 

[Carbonyl]

I'm just going on sentimental reasons here, but I want them to continue to exist, they're a part of my entire conception of currency.

 

[Torrasque]

I thought this was a Canadian thread for a moment, since we're doing that right now. And it makes sense, I don't think anyone actually uses pennies.

I thought it was a Canadian thread too, lol.

For the non-Canadians out there, all that has happened, is that the Canadian mint has stopped making pennies. Pennies are still in circulation, you can still use them to buy stuff, and people still give you them with change, but there will come a day when they are just not around.