Does anyone think we SHOULDN'T stop using pennies?

[shady123]

Haha, an arguement about pennies, cool.

 

[coolVariable]

I think they should stop printing/minting anything below $1000 bills.
I always round up anyhow ....


That's a stupid logic to get rid of pennies. You always need some smallest form of currency and it has to be very, very small.

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: Kevin

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Why in the world do we still use pennies in cash transactions? The government could save the money they spend minting them if we just rounded to the nearest nickel... 1 or 2 pennies round down, 3 or 4 round up... It would all average out in the end. The penny tray at convenience stores essentially does exactly that, so why not just make it official and stop making all of those stinking pennies?

And on a related note, will the government ever realize that no one will use $1 coins unless they stop printing $1 bills? First there were the Eisenhower dollars, then the Susan B. Anthonys, then the Sakawhatever - I'm sure people are willing to use them, but they'll never catch on because stores would never give them to you as change.

They wanted to eliminate the penny but introduce the $1 coin. Then they were supposed to stop printing paper $1 and change over to $2 bills. I don't know why, but that was a plan a while back.

I'd blame stores and not the goverment. Stores can try and price their items so everything is even...

I agree. Price them with tax already figured in. Hell, the gas stations do it with 9/10's of a penny how hard can it be?

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I think they should stop printing/minting anything below $1000 bills.
I always round up anyhow ....


That's a stupid logic to get rid of pennies. You always need some smallest form of currency and it has to be very, very small.

Exactly. What are we going to do? Round everything up to the nearest 5 cents? That would cost people money (albeit, a small amount, but that small amount adds up). In 5 years, the nickle would also be useless and we would get rid of that. Then the dime, then envtually the quarter. I know this sounds like slippery slope, but it is the next logical step. Pretty much all change is ultimately useless to people, so why not get rid of it all right away? My mom collects all her change and every few months cashes it all in and has probably over $50 in pennies alone. Just because you are inconvenienced by it doens't mean that we should get rid of it because we need a small amount to round to. It would be stupid to round to the nearest 5 cents. That would require all new cash registers and stuff as well. Also, what do people have against checks? Granted, I get annoyed when I want a few items from the store and someone in front of me whips out a checkbook and starts scribbling away, writing a novel or something, but they serve a very good purpose. They are very secure, and you have a hard copy of all your transactions, etc... Cards are inherently insecure and many people don't want them because of this. Bottom line is this...just because you think something is stupid and should be gotten rid of, doesn't mean that everyone thinks that way. Personally, I hope they bring back half-pennies just to tick you people off. Heck, if you don't like pennies, just give them to the cashier, or to that santa guy ringing the bell outside. Or even just toss them in the garbage.

 

[LakAttack]

If you get rid of pennies, then every time something costs 3 or 4 cents, it gets rounded to 5. Plus, banks never "round down." So anything that doesn't end in 0 or 5 gets rounded up. So you lose between 1 and 4 cents per transaction. That could easily be $50 bucks lost in a year, or $4000 lost in a lifetime. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but no one ever gets rich throwing money away.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: coolVariable
I think they should stop printing/minting anything below $1000 bills.
I always round up anyhow ....


That's a stupid logic to get rid of pennies. You always need some smallest form of currency and it has to be very, very small.

Exactly. What are we going to do? Round everything up to the nearest 5 cents? That would cost people money (albeit, a small amount, but that small amount adds up). In 5 years, the nickle would also be useless and we would get rid of that. Then the dime, then envtually the quarter. [1.]I know this sounds like slippery slope, but it is the next logical step. Pretty much all change is ultimately useless to people, so why not get rid of it all right away? My mom collects all her change and every few months cashes it all in and has probably over $50 in pennies alone. Just because you are inconvenienced by it doens't mean that we should get rid of it because we need a small amount to round to. It would be stupid to round to the nearest 5 cents. [2.] That would require all new cash registers and stuff as well. Also, what do people have against checks? Granted, I get annoyed when I want a few items from the store and someone in front of me whips out a checkbook and starts scribbling away, writing a novel or something, but they serve a very good purpose. They are very secure, and you have a hard copy of all your transactions, etc... Cards are inherently insecure and many people don't want them because of this. Bottom line is this...just because you think something is stupid and should be gotten rid of, doesn't mean that everyone thinks that way. [/b][3.]Personally, I hope they bring back half-pennies just to tick you people off. [/b] Heck, if you don't like pennies, just give them to the cashier, or to that santa guy ringing the bell outside. Or even just toss them in the garbage.

1. Yes, it is slippery slope. Even if what you discribe did happen, your timeline is a fraction of what it should be....i.e., 5 years = 100 years

2. No redesign would be necessary. The extra change slot could be used to hold $1 coins. Having too many slots ins't a problem...its not having enough slots that creates cash tray confusion.

3. yep that would piss me off, unless of course they put my profile on it... 😀

 

[Yax]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Why in the world do we still use pennies in cash transactions? The government could save the money they spend minting them if we just rounded to the nearest nickel... 1 or 2 pennies round down, 3 or 4 round up... It would all average out in the end. The penny tray at convenience stores essentially does exactly that, so why not just make it official and stop making all of those stinking pennies?

...

What are you talking about. Take that bag of pennies to any 3rd world country and you can buy almost anything you want.

Solution: Send all your pennies to me. Tell all your friends to do it too. Spread the word. When I've collected all the pennies, we can stop using them. Everyone will be forced to use Nickels and up.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: cheapbidder01

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Why in the world do we still use pennies in cash transactions? The government could save the money they spend minting them if we just rounded to the nearest nickel... 1 or 2 pennies round down, 3 or 4 round up... It would all average out in the end. The penny tray at convenience stores essentially does exactly that, so why not just make it official and stop making all of those stinking pennies?

...

What are you talking about. Take that bag of pennies to any 3rd world country and you can buy almost anything you want.

Solution: Send all your pennies to me. Tell all your friends to do it too. Spread the word. When I've collected all the pennies, we can stop using them. Everyone will be forced to use Nickels and up.

I think it costs more to ship pennies than they are worth...

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Why in the world do we still use pennies in cash transactions? The government could save the money they spend minting them if we just rounded to the nearest nickel... 1 or 2 pennies round down, 3 or 4 round up... It would all average out in the end. The penny tray at convenience stores essentially does exactly that, so why not just make it official and stop making all of those stinking pennies?

And on a related note, will the government ever realize that no one will use $1 coins unless they stop printing $1 bills? First there were the Eisenhower dollars, then the Susan B. Anthonys, then the Sakawhatever - I'm sure people are willing to use them, but they'll never catch on because stores would never give them to you as change.

And aren't we all glad that you aren't an accountant or an economist!

First, the government doesn't lose money minting pennies, it makes money. I don't know where you get your info, but the US Mint is the only arm of the US gov't. that consistenly turns a profit year after year (and no, that's not a pun).

Second, just because your can't balance your checkbook to the penny doesn't mean that the rest of us don't want to. A couple of pennies may not be much, but start getting a few more and sooner or later you're talking about serious money.

 

[mugs]

The US Mint makes 3/10 of a cent "profit" for every cent they manufacture. That money goes to the Treasury - about $40 million a year. That money would be lost if the cent were discontinued.

Uh... yeah... so then why don't they just print themselves thousands of hundred dollar bills, solve all of our economic problems! Oh wait... So you're saying it costs 7/10 of a cent to make a coin that is worth 1 cent? Sounds like a bargain to me!

By saying "it all averages out in the end", you're assuming an even distribution of change in transactions. But even if that's the case, it doesn't alter the simple fact that someone is going to be losing money in 40% of the cases where money changes hands. Is that going to be acceptable in businesses where the bottom line is more critical than ever? I'm guessing not, which means that prices will inflate sufficiently to eliminate the revenue loss due to rounding.

No... if there is an even distribution of change in transactions, then 40% of the time the store will be losing 1-2 cents, and 40% of the time the store would be GAINING 1-2 cents. Same goes for the customer. End result - everyone comes out even. Since the rounding wouldn't occur until after everything is added up and tax is computed, stores couldn't try to "cheat the system" by pricing items so they always round up.

If you get rid of pennies, then every time something costs 3 or 4 cents, it gets rounded to 5. Plus, banks never "round down." So anything that doesn't end in 0 or 5 gets rounded up. So you lose between 1 and 4 cents per transaction. That could easily be $50 bucks lost in a year, or $4000 lost in a lifetime. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but no one ever gets rich throwing money away.

I said CASH transactions. For electronic transactions and your bank account/credit card balance, everything would be the same. The point is just to eliminate pennies, not to make the nickel the smallest unit of money.

Exactly. What are we going to do? Round everything up to the nearest 5 cents?

Wow, read the whole thread. Round 1 and 2 pennies down, 3 and 4 pennies up. With an even distribution of change, it wouldn't cost anybody anything. I guess if people could grasp that, they'd have gotten rid of the penny a long time ago.

That would cost people money (albeit, a small amount, but that small amount adds up). In 5 years, the nickle would also be useless and we would get rid of that. Then the dime, then envtually the quarter.

Perhaps if we had 500% inflation over those 5 years...

My mom collects all her change and every few months cashes it all in and has probably over $50 in pennies alone.

So it's a bad thing to save her the trouble of doing that by giving her a nickel instead of 3 or 4 pennies, or just withholding the pennies if it's just 1 or 2? $50 in pennies weighs a lot, and it costs a lot of money to produce them.

Just because you are inconvenienced by it doens't mean that we should get rid of it because we need a small amount to round to.

Did I say anything about being inconvenienced? I said it's a waste to spend so much money minting (and on a side note, TRANSPORTING) all of those pennies.

It would be stupid to round to the nearest 5 cents. That would require all new cash registers and stuff as well.

Programmable cash registers have been around for a few decades now...

just because you think something is stupid and should be gotten rid of, doesn't mean that everyone thinks that way.

Who said everyone has to think that way? But now that you mention it, a lot of people do... And as I and others have pointed out, there are very good reasons for not using pennies, and not many sound arguments for keeping them.

Personally, I hope they bring back half-pennies just to tick you people off. Heck, if you don't like pennies, just give them to the cashier, or to that santa guy ringing the bell outside. Or even just toss them in the garbage.

Ummm... k.

 

[mugs]

And aren't we all glad that you aren't an accountant or an economist!

Who's we? Who else do you speak for?

First, the government doesn't lose money minting pennies, it makes money. I don't know where you get your info, but the US Mint is the only arm of the US gov't. that consistenly turns a profit year after year (and no, that's not a pun).

The U.S. Postal Service makes a profit IIRC. I'm not really sure that you can say the mint makes a profit - they're PRINTING the money.

Second, just because your can't balance your checkbook to the penny doesn't mean that the rest of us don't want to. A couple of pennies may not be much, but start getting a few more and sooner or later you're talking about serious money.

You missed the part where I said CASH transactions? And rounding will not cost you any money.

 

[ThaPerculator]

I dunno man... weirdly I decided to count all the pennies I've been saving for like a decade last week, and I now have a couple hundred bucks to blow on something... As much as I hate pennies, coming up with $380 that I never realized I had was pretty sweet... If you hate your pennies so much, save them and give them to a bum/charity in like 10 years...

 

[BooGiMaN]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: edro13

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I think we should lower our use of paper entirely. Checks should all but be banned except for personal transactions (giving somebody money, paying for work done on your house etc.) and the same for cash. Plastic people!

NO SH|T! :|

Come on people! Do you REALLY need to write a fsckin check?!?!?! Every bank in the world has a checking account debit card! USE IT! Watch those stupid Visa Charlie/Martin Sheen commercials!

And what is up with women whipping out their check book like they are all special.... then their write it out like it's a freakin federal document in calligraphy and crap..... I just wanna throw a can of tomato soup at their head! (while at the grocery) :| :| :| :|

Amen!

BWAHAHHAH !!!
Im goign to start using checks again just to piss u guys off 😛

and im going to take my sweet time writing them out.......just cuz im evil that way 😛

 

[kami333]

Rounding down/up, good in theory, will never work in practice. How are businesses going to account for all the money at the end of the day if they are either making a few cents or loosing a few cents in every transaction? Can you imagine what a pain it would be to balance your register? And you say it would apply to cash only, but what happens if you pay with a card at the grocery store and the total was $10.98. Would you be charged $10.98 or $11?

Anyone ever been to Denmark? Their smallest coin is a 25ore piece, worth 0.25DKK. If you go to the store, the prices are written as 17.95DKK. Guess who eats the difference?

 

[BillGates]

I throw pennies in the garbage --- oooooh, that might result in a total loss of $4.93 a year!

 

[mugs]

Some people really don't understand how this would work. Say you go into a store... you buy a bottle of soda for $.99. You could pay for that with a debit card, and $.99 would be deducted from your account. Or you could use cash, and then it would be rounded up to $1. You get out to your car and realize you wanted a snack. The snack costs $.96. You could use your debit card and $.96 would be deducted from your account. Or you could use cash, and you'd pay $.95. But wait! Some unscrupulous store could price everything so it rounds up! A cup of coffee could cost $.98! But if you bought two, it'd be $1.96, and it would round down. Score one for the good guys. Prices would be the same, $.01 would still be $.01 - we just wouldn't have any pennies! At the end of the year, the average person would have lost or gained at most $.02.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: ThaPerculator
I dunno man... weirdly I decided to count all the pennies I've been saving for like a decade last week, and I now have a couple hundred bucks to blow on something... As much as I hate pennies, coming up with $380 that I never realized I had was pretty sweet... If you hate your pennies so much, save them and give them to a bum/charity in like 10 years...

Start saving your nickels, they'd add up faster. 😉

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Some people really don't understand how this would work. Say you go into a store... you buy a bottle of soda for $.99. You could pay for that with a debit card, and $.99 would be deducted from your account. Or you could use cash, and then it would be rounded up to $1. You get out to your car and realize you wanted a snack. The snack costs $.96. You could use your debit card and $.96 would be deducted from your account. Or you could use cash, and you'd pay $.95. But wait! Some unscrupulous store could price everything so it rounds up! A cup of coffee could cost $.98! But if you bought two, it'd be $1.96, and it would round down. Score one for the good guys. Prices would be the same, $.01 would still be $.01 - we just wouldn't have any pennies! At the end of the year, the average person would have lost or gained at most $.02.

Just because of that, I'm cool if we keep on using pennies.

Checks? If the merchant wants to keep taking IOUs (that's all a check is until it clears), that's up to him/her. I don't care.

What more stores should have are "CASH ONLY" lanes. NO checks, NO cards. They BOTH take too long. I hate having to wait behind 3 people who want to buy $3 worth of crap each, using their credit cards, in the middle of the day when the approvals are running like molasses, while I'm standing there with my $1.29 CASH already counted out for my gallon of drinking water.

OTOH, I love the pay-at-the-pump self-service gas pumps. What a great time saver!

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: ThaPerculator
I dunno man... weirdly I decided to count all the pennies I've been saving for like a decade last week, and I now have a couple hundred bucks to blow on something... As much as I hate pennies, coming up with $380 that I never realized I had was pretty sweet... If you hate your pennies so much, save them and give them to a bum/charity in like 10 years...

$380 dollars in pennies?!

Let me whip out my calculator...

$1 = 100 pennies
$380 = 38,000 pennies

according to this site:
a penny prior to 1982 weighs 3.1 grams
a penny after 1982 weighs 2.5 grams
let's just take the average: 2.8 grams

38000 * 2.8 = 106,400 grams

1 pound is roughly 454 grams

so you went to bank carrying 234 pounds of pennies???

 

[MattCo]

Pennies are worthless. If they had value then soda/snack machines would take them.


Just my .05




-MC

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii

The US Mint makes 3/10 of a cent "profit" for every cent they manufacture. That money goes to the Treasury - about $40 million a year. That money would be lost if the cent were discontinued.

Uh... yeah... so then why don't they just print themselves thousands of hundred dollar bills, solve all of our economic problems! Oh wait... So you're saying it costs 7/10 of a cent to make a coin that is worth 1 cent? Sounds like a bargain to me!

That's exactly right. It costs them 7/10 of a cent to manufacture a 1-cent coin. Why do you think the Mint is so happy about the State Quarter program? It costs the Mint about 5 cents to manufacture a quarter. They sell them to the Federal Reserve for 25 cents each. Twenty cents profit on each one, and they make them by the billions. Did you know they are going to change the nickel later this year, for a two-year period? Part of the justification is that they expect to make an extra $15 million because demand for nickels will double when the design changes.

The reason they can't just make trillions of coins is that it's up to the Federal Reserve to decide what they want from the Mint. The Mint can't force coins on the Fed.

 

[yukichigai]

I like pennies. It's easier to get two rolls of those to use as impromptu brass knuckles than it is to get rolls of quarters.

Beyond that I might care if vending machines would accept them.

 

[Wolverine27]

Originally posted by: FeathersMcGraw
Eliminating pennies insures the worthlessness of the nickel.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: kranky

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii

The US Mint makes 3/10 of a cent "profit" for every cent they manufacture. That money goes to the Treasury - about $40 million a year. That money would be lost if the cent were discontinued.

Uh... yeah... so then why don't they just print themselves thousands of hundred dollar bills, solve all of our economic problems! Oh wait... So you're saying it costs 7/10 of a cent to make a coin that is worth 1 cent? Sounds like a bargain to me!

That's exactly right. It costs them 7/10 of a cent to manufacture a 1-cent coin. Why do you think the Mint is so happy about the State Quarter program? It costs the Mint about 5 cents to manufacture a quarter. They sell them to the Federal Reserve for 25 cents each. Twenty cents profit on each one, and they make them by the billions. Did you know they are going to change the nickel later this year, for a two-year period? Part of the justification is that they expect to make an extra $15 million because demand for nickels will double when the design changes.

The reason they can't just make trillions of coins is that it's up to the Federal Reserve to decide what they want from the Mint. The Mint can't force coins on the Fed.

So how do you figure in all of the money they shred every year? 🙂 You're talking about one portion of the government "profiting" off another portion of the government - can you really call that a profit? It seems to me that the only way the mint would make a "profit" is if people hoard money - like those state quarters. Aside from that, wouldn't the amount of money in circulation increase at about the same rate as inflation? So all the mint would be doing is adding money to keep up with inflation (can't call that a profit really) and replacing worn out money, at a LOSS of the cost of printing/minting the money.

(and when I say "mint" I'm referring to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, in case anyone is going to get anal about that)

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: mugsywwiii
Who's we? Who else do you speak for?

The U.S. Postal Service makes a profit IIRC. I'm not really sure that you can say the mint makes a profit - they're PRINTING the money.

You missed the part where I said CASH transactions? And rounding will not cost you any money.

The "we" I spoke of is all of us who would get short-changed on every cash transaction.

I said "consistently" makes a profit. The USPS does not consistenly make a profit. They do some years and lose money in others. Why do you think they had to raise the cost of postage last year?
And the mint DOES make a profit. I said that wasn't a pun.

And I understand the part about cash transactions. I frequently use cash for regular day-to-day purchases. In fact, the people who bug me are the ones who pull out the debit card and make me wait for a $3.50 mocha at Starbucks.
And yes, the rounding would cost money. You are talking about implementing an economic plan that would penalize people for paying in cash. If I buy something at a store for $3.96 in cash, and there are no pennies, the store is not going to round down that purchase to $3.95, that would cost them money. No, they would round up to $4.00 even. Assuming that I bought that same item in cash every day, I would lose $14.60 every year.

Originally posted by: lozina
$380 dollars in pennies?!

Let me whip out my calculator...

$1 = 100 pennies
$380 = 38,000 pennies

according to this site:
a penny prior to 1982 weighs 3.1 grams
a penny after 1982 weighs 2.5 grams
let's just take the average: 2.8 grams

38000 * 2.8 = 106,400 grams

1 pound is roughly 454 grams

so you went to bank carrying 234 pounds of pennies???

First, the likelihood of him having any pre-1982 pennies (much less half) is pretty much nil. But assuming your argument, and assuming that he had a car and the bank was in relatively close proximity, taking 234 pounds of pennies to the bank shouldn't take more than 2 hours labor. $380 bucks for 2 hours labor equals $190 bucks an hour. Clearly YOU are too good for that but I know that I am not. Easy money IMO.