Friday, February 17, 2012

No Pennies -- Not Cheaper

One of my gripes is the number of pennies in my pocket at any one time. A personal crusade (blog posts**) to get the penny out of circulation has gone no where. Thanks to Boonie for pointing me to a recent post of Mish Shedlocks to rid the US cash economy of the penny where finding I am not alone in this crusade.

Instead of getting rid of the danged pennies, Obama just wants to make them cheaper. How do you make a coin cheaper when it costs 2.4 cents to make pseudo copper pocket filler. Be honest. The raw material is not the big cost of making the penny. How about the labor costs with pensions and health insurance. There are lots of other costs. However, since this is a government entity, the costs do not have property taxes and all that other overhead that any private business would deal with.

Once again. How about getting the penny out of circulation. Charge card transactions will be charged to the penny. Any cash transaction is rounded up or down.

For those who cannot figure this out or math may be a problem. Here is how it works.
  • .x1 and .x2 are rounded down to .x0 
  • .x3 and .x4 are rounded up to .x5
  • .x6 and .x7 are rounded down to .x5
  • .x8 and .x9 are rounded up to the next dime (x+1)
How hard is that.

Long time ago in Denver (the 70s) there was a restaurant bar that rounded to the nearest nickel. I always applauded their efforts. However, it never did catch on. Over the years, I have found the rare business that rounds to the nearest nickel. But it is rare. I always thank them for that.

If you are in line at the cash register behind me, you will be the recipient of the pennies if the change for my purchase includes pennies. No matter how many.



** Previous blog posts encouraging no more pennies:



1 comment:

  1. Sorry Lloyd, I can't support you on this. If we get rid of the penny, the nickle will become the new penny and everything will cost at least 3 cents more. The stores will figure out how to make rounding work for them and against us. I still bend over and pick up pennies; they spend just fine on my next purchase.

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