…leaves us all wasting time, effort and money!
Finally something from the NDP that makes sense but unfortunately, the Conservatives object. Damn. Pat Martin brought this up last year too.
Getting rid of the penny will save minting costs. Furthermore, retailers will stop counting and rolling the wasted metal. The only people who stand to gain by maintaining the penny in circulation are the people who work at the Royal Canadian Mint.
Anyway, if the Mint does not eliminate the penny, consumers will eventually. With enough time, the face value of the pennies will be worth less than the metal. People will haul them over to scrap-metal yards to have them melted down.
——–
You know what perplexes me the most? Retailers can get rid of the penny themselves. They can quote after-tax prices in round numbers.
I get pissed off every time a cashier asks me “Do you have an extra penny?” or “two cents?” or “three cents” or whatever to round out the change that I receive. They want to avoid depleting their register of petty cash. I think: “You are the one quoting the dorky prices!” Retailers should quote prices with taxes included and round up their prices to the nearest nickel. We should not be wasting one iota of effort handling pennies.
The other day I went to the hardware store to buy a custom-sized nut and washer. Not only did this little washer cost more than the nut but it cost more than a dime. After handing over my change to the cashier the following hit me: I could have just taken a nickel or a dime and drilled a bloody hole through the middle!!!!!
Davide wrote:
One thing to keep in mind about eliminating the penny is that forensic accounting gets more difficult.
I’ve watched accountants chase a 1 penny discrepancy for weeks to make sure the books are in order.
Do you round up or down or to the nearest nickel?
A 5% GST sure helps this, but not when prices are $4.99…
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 11:23 am | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
The accountants will still have the privilege of creating more useless but billable work for themselves because eliminating the penny will only affect handling cash. Electronic transactions will always remain.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 11:47 am | Permalink
Abattoir wrote:
There would be no significant change as a result of getting rid of the penny. We already round off our prices to the nearest penny every time tax is calculated. The rules are well-established, it’s just a matter of renormalizing them to the nearest nickel instead of the nearest penny.
Also, since the nickel becomes the lowest-valued coin, accountants can chase a 1 nickel discrepancy all they like.
I think we should stick to the same system with both cash and electronic transactions. I can just see it now, the idiot in front of me in line at Timmy’s, deciding to pay for their $1.13 coffee with their debit card instead of cash, all to save 2 cents. 1 price is far preferable.
BTW, pennies minted before 1996 are already worth over 2 cents in base metal value alone…
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
The MP’s proposal has nothing to do with electronic transactions.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 1:51 pm | Permalink
Durward wrote:
every increase in the price of anything”gas” included will be 5 cents or ten cents, no more 1 or 2 cent increases.
It will drive inflation and is a stupid idea that could only come from a commie mind like an NDPer.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 4:26 pm | Permalink
Adam Dyck wrote:
While I’m not going to call this a “commie” idea, it does seem kind of strange to me.
Durward: If you bought gas with a credit/debit card, you’d still play the same price.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
Patrick Ross wrote:
One would have to suppose it would be the end of items being priced to .99
Abolishing the penny is a novel idea, but one has to wonder about the practicality of it.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 8:16 pm | Permalink
Scott from Winnipeg wrote:
There’s precedent for a penny being abolished. And it costs taxpayers something like $180 million a year to produce what is essentially a useless piece of currency.
Thought this would be a slam dunk for the crowd that’s always chattering about tax dollars.
Go figure.
Martin should have asked Towes to introduce it.
Posted on 02-Apr-08 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
Charles Anthony wrote:
Alas, Scott, I believe you are right. This should be a no brainer for everybody — rather, for anybody who has either worked in retail or has to pay for things out of their own pocket or simply count change. On second thought, maybe that excludes some people…
Speaking of which, I am genuinely curious about how the Liberals will respond. The average Liberal MP will probably think: “Oh, no… What will the headlines say on this one? What if somebody asks me why I supported this? What if somebody asks me why I objected to this?? Sheesh… I would rather not have to answer ANY questions particularly on things that are above my head.” I bet the Liberals will abstain yet again because they are too lazy to think this one through and they have no courage to take a stand on economic policy.
The Bloc will probably support this. I guess we will see if the House lasts long enough for any of this to play out.
Pat Martin is making a bold and risky move. He is in Winnipeg and the Mint makes coins there. He freely admits himself that 70% of the coinage goes into making pennies and he is recommending that the work be changed in favor of more productive tasks. You rarely get a NDPer taking such a stand. He actually risks pissing his constituents off.
DurWard,
If you really want to fight communism consistently, you would promote abolishing both legal tender and taxation. Central banking is the epitome of communism in the market for currency.
I challenge you to re-evaluate your objection to abolishing the penny. This bill does not increase the money supply. Nor does this bill mandate price increases. Think of what you just said: “Inflation will drive inflation.” or “Price increases will drive price increases.” That is all you just said. You may as well fear the boogey-man. It is not rational to say that retailers WILL automatically round up instead of round down.
What I find a bit shocking is that you are not the only one with this ignorant economic outlook. In fact, despite his correct conclusion, Pat Martin is suckered into accepting an incorrect reasoning and so is Doug Porter, the deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. They just reason that abolishing the penny will have a negligible effect on the inflation rate.
Well, the truth is that the inflation rate is not caused by denominations in currency.
The sad reality is that “inflation” is now a word used by governments and bankers to hide the reality of what actually occurs: they inflate the money supply. They are hiding the fact that they are spending money and credit they do not have! Price increases are the end result. Hmm…. this is giving me an idea for a future extended blog post…. There are so many myths about money.
Posted on 03-Apr-08 at 4:44 am | Permalink