[Bound]

Copper is absolutely crazy these days. I remember when I first started working in the electrical field, a thoasand foot coil of Romex cost 68 bucks. They're now almost 180. Last summer they spiked even higher.

oh, and the cost of metals in money works both ways-
'Clean' copper scraps are @ 2.80 something a pound. So start melting your nickles down!

[Thrashmanzac]

i agree, australia rules

[JJ Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by Nerina

Yeah I know, like its SO much cheaper at 19.99.....
Another thing that irks me, is that tax isn't added on until you buy something, why cant they just add the tax when they're pricing stuff, and then whatever the price is, say $20, $300, whatever, is the price you pay? Then you wouldnt have to worry about tax after, wouldn't that be better?

The difference is marketing. If someone advertises a guitar for $400*, and the next guy advertises it for $445, who do you think the majority of people are going to go to? Even if they are getting a better deal at $445 (going by Canadian HST), people are fucking dumb.















































*Plus applicable fees and taxes.

[TheMissing]

I don't see a problem with changing the way pennies and nickles are made. In fact I have a cheaper way of making pennies -- stop making them

[Drew]

It's funny, if Bush just did away with the penny, it might be the one thing his administration did that would be remembered favorably.

The problem though with building the taxes into the cost so that you always came to 5-cent intervals would be this new thing we're doing with "tax free" shopping days. You'd have to instigate a suggested policy on the state level when next one was passed to deal with the rounding issues that would be caused - credit purchases could go with the actual amount (as there's no reason not to let the penny live on digitally), but cash purchases would have the total amount rounded to the nearest 5 cents, say...

[oompa]

Originally Posted by Nerina

Yeah I know, like its SO much cheaper at 19.99.....
Another thing that irks me, is that tax isn't added on until you buy something, why cant they just add the tax when they're pricing stuff, and then whatever the price is, say $20, $300, whatever, is the price you pay? Then you wouldnt have to worry about tax after, wouldn't that be better?

lol wtf ive faced this in a few other countries (goin shit this stuff is cheap! then at the counter: shit! that stuff was expensive ) , and it is weird. what is the point of putting a price-tag on stuff when you have to pay more for it?

so do you have the same tax-rate on everything? its not as big a deal then as if you have different ones. we range from something like 6% tax on books, 12% on vegetables, ~30% tax on candy, and god knows what, 200%?, on tobacco or something lol (the actual full price is always on the tag tho).

our "pennies" are öre, and the lowest coins go are 50öre (half a crown, and ~ 0,1 dollar). say a pack of milk costs 10,20 and that is all you buy, you only pay 10 crowns. should it cost say.. 10,30 tho, you'd have to pay 10,50. you just round it properly and thats it.

[TheMissing]

Originally Posted by Drew

It's funny, if Bush just did away with the penny, it might be the one thing his administration did that would be remembered favorably.

The problem though with building the taxes into the cost so that you always came to 5-cent intervals would be this new thing we're doing with "tax free" shopping days. You'd have to instigate a suggested policy on the state level when next one was passed to deal with the rounding issues that would be caused - credit purchases could go with the actual amount (as there's no reason not to let the penny live on digitally), but cash purchases would have the total amount rounded to the nearest 5 cents, say...

Excellent post, Drew.

I agree with you 100%

[InTheRavensName]

I'd advocate that over here, copper coins have become a subcurrency that is nearly entirely unused. I bet I have £2-3 in copper in a little skull moneybox sat on my windowsill. Even though I use change to get buses around Nottingham everyday, I'll never delve in there to find some change. Totally impractical, a waste of money and materials and a royal pain in the arse. The only problem is that everyone would round up, 67p would become 70, 99 would become £1, but inflation does that anyway, if only we could harness it to round things naturally

[urklvt]

US Military posts overseas have done away with the penny already. It's simply not cost effective to use them. They round up or down as appropriate. I loved it. Now that I'm back in the States I have to do the tax math and deal with pennies again. It feels like stepping backwards.

Useless trivia: Deployed Soldiers use pog style tokens for coin change rather than coins because it costs far too much to ship the coins back and forth to the States. Gallery

[Drew]

Weird.

Now would be a good time to mention that until around 1800 or so, America minted half cents, worth $0.005. We did away with that no problems, why not do the same for the penny?