Silly Canadians ditch the penny.

[Asher]

Paying in cash is more convenient sometimes, and vending machines don't take credit cards.

They don't?

Maybe in your old country.

I even use my credit card for parking meters.

[MikeH]

You don't need money for vending machines. #communism.

[Lorizael]

There are plenty of vending machines that take credit cards in the good ol' US of A. /me goes back to his hidey hole.

[PLATO]

I rarely use cash, but when I do it is usually somewhere I don't want my wife to know I'm spending money. The anonimity of cash just can't be replaced.

[Asher]

Get a secret credit card.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The issue with pennies is that it costs more to make them than they are actually worth. Makes sense to stop that sort of nonsense. It'll save the government some money and help pay the down the debt .

[giblets]

Paying in cash is more convenient sometimes, and vending machines don't take credit cards.

The newer ones do, especially at airports. **** they even have Best Buy vending machines where you can buy a Nintendo DS.

[snoopy369]

Credit cards at vending machines at parking meters is certainly the norm in Chicago. Not sure about elsewhere Of course some vending machines are old, but for example the train stations have Coke vending machines with the credit card option.

Frankly I'd be all for getting rid of cash, but that's not going to happen until we're in William Gibson's future. Getting rid of the penny though, good idea, particularly with the crappy pennies they released recently.

[giblets]

The issue with pennies is that it costs more to make them than they are actually worth.

Why is this an issue? If you're worried about people melting them down I'm sure they can come up with cheaper materials.

[The Mad Monk]

Get a secret credit card.

It's not advisable to leave a credit card in the dancer's garter belt, even a secret one.

[Uncle Sparky]

It's not advisable to leave a credit card in the dancer's garter belt, even a secret one.

That is the advantage of the prepaid cash card.

[Asher]

Why is this an issue? If you're worried about people melting them down I'm sure they can come up with cheaper materials.

It's cost ineffective?

Unlike the US, Canada is quite serious about being fiscally sound.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why is this an issue? If you're worried about people melting them down I'm sure they can come up with cheaper materials.

So it isn't an issue that the government spends more to make a penny than what the penny is actually worth? Seems incredibly inefficient use of resources.

[giblets]

So it isn't an issue that the government spends more to make a penny than what the penny is actually worth? Seems incredibly inefficient use of resources.

No, no it's not. The government doesn't mint coins for the purpose of funding itself. The government mints pennies for the purpose of making it easy for prices to vary by a hundredth of a dollar. If we killed the penny (and also the nickel since it apparently costs more than five cents to mint one of those) then for the purpose of a cost benefit analysis whatever we save on minting them should be compared to the deadweight loss cause by imprecise prices, not the face value of the coins we would have minted.

[snoopy369]

I'm fairly sure that argument is specious. While there are lots of valid reasons for removing the penny from circulation (cf., the lousy designs on the back, the fact that it costs retailers money to keep them for change, the fact that nobody actually keeps pennies anyway), the actual cost of minting pennies versus their actual value is largely irrelevant. A penny is worth far more than 0.01 to the economy, as it changes hands hundreds or thousands of times. If cost to mint were the sole factor, we'd have entirely paper currency... the fact that the US government 'makes' 0.01 per penny is not significant.