Silly Canadians ditch the penny.

[snoopy369]

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.

Agreed, though to be fair it wouldn't really cost much to phase out pennies (And nickels, who cost 11 cents or so each themselves). You'd have to have new cash register software, I guess, but most companies release new software regularly anyway, and the corner stores would just round by hand I imagine, as they probably do anyway; or they would do as my local corner store does now and price everything such that the post-tax price would be a round number (ie, my soda costs 1.47, which plus tax is 1.65). If I buy multiple things and the post-tax amount ends up uneven, they just round it anyway.

Read the wiki page on the subject, by the way - a study was done that determined there would be a 1/40th of a cent difference total, which would be in the consumer's benefit (ie, shop keepers would end up charging 1/40th of a cent less for things on average).

[MikeH]

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

Or a penny.

[Hauldren Collider]

They don't?

Maybe in your old country.

I even use my credit card for parking meters.

Some of the newer meters in Pittsburgh take credit cards, but most vending machines don't. Newer ones do, but companies don't bother to replace old vending machines.

[Hauldren Collider]

Most vending machines don't take pennies either. (The ones that do are awesome though.)

This is the best thing about the DC metro. Easiest way to get rid of dollar coins and pennies is to add them to your fare card.

[MikeH]

So pennies are actually an inconvenience and you find you have to find ways to get rid of them?

Sounds like it's pointless having it.

[MikeH]

Also dollar bills. They are just stupid. Have dollar coins.

[regexcellent]

The problem with pennies is that they're coins, really. I wish there was a quarter bill. I hate coins.

I usually pay in exact change though, and I throw my coins in a bowl.

[regexcellent]

Also dollar bills. They are just stupid. Have dollar coins.

that's the stupidest ****ing idea I've ever heard.

Incidentally we do have dollar coins but nobody uses them because they suck and everyone hates them. The parking machines at Rochester International, sadly, dispense them as change when you pay in cash so I have a bunch of them.

[MikeH]

Dollar bills wouldn't suck so much if your stupid money wasn't all the same size and colour.

[regexcellent]

For some reason I have no difficulty distinguishing between 1/5/10/20/50/100 dollar bills (or the $2 bill, unicorn that it is). That might have something to do with not having crippling glaucoma.

I would be fine with different color, though I don't think it's necessary. Different sizes would be endlessly frustrating.

[giblets]

Dollar bills wouldn't suck so much if your stupid money wasn't all the same size and colour.

Making bills the same size isn't really a problem so long as you don't happen to be blind, in which case you may find yourself at the mercy of strangers. USA

There's no braille either. **** blind people

[regexcellent]

Forcing everyone else to deal with differently sized bills is not worth the benefit to the tiny number of blind people. besides which most blind people can see, just very poorly.

[Sava]

So this will save Canada $11 million a year... meanwhile, credit card merchant fees cost Canada about $5 billion per year.

Awesome plan.

No wonder your hockey teams can't even win the championship in your own national sport.

[Asher]

Forcing everyone else to deal with differently sized bills is not worth the benefit to the tiny number of blind people. besides which most blind people can see, just very poorly.

You don't need different sizes.

Canada leads here, too. Same size, different colours, and they have braille.

[Asher]

So this will save Canada $11 million a year... meanwhile, credit card merchant fees cost Canada about $5 billion per year.

Awesome plan.

No wonder your hockey teams can't even win the championship in your own national sport.

Credit card merchant fees cost the Government of Canada $0.00, not $5B.