I will take this argument seriously when they say round down rather than up. It is nonsense that rounding up does not raise prices (as this video claims). So long as we have sales taxes, we need pennies. Government wants to eliminate the coins, then round down, not up, to the nearest nickel. Meanwhile my conspiracy voice is whispering that eliminating pennies is yet another plot to (ahem) nickel and dime people.
Divisibility increases options. When I buy fuel, believe me, they're happy to calculate in tenths of a penny. Sales taxes? Yes, the U.S. is primitive. In the civilised world a cost you can't avoid, i.e. sales tax, is simply included in the display price. The label tells you how much money you will have to part with in order to own the item. What's difficult about that? There's nothing inherently wrong with pennies. Only our ever increasing inflation. Back in Roman times, one denarius, ancestor of the english penny, was a substantial sum, the pay for a legionary or a labourer for one day's honest work. And the denarius was worth.... 64 copper quadrans. At the time the coin was first issued it was worth 10 asses. It rose, at one time to sixteen asses.
Sixteen asses for a penny. Now I ask you, has the value of an ass improved so much over the last two-thousand years? Did romans have tiny inferior ones? No. Not at all. Yet somehow, we keep putting bigger prices on stuff whose value actually has not changed. The result is that our money is worth less.
When I started work,I got paid, per week, less than 1/20th of today's minimum wage. Yet I did okay on it, its buying power was as good or better than today's 18 year-old would have. Keep the pennies. They remind us of the rate at which WE are being devalued.
Don't get me started on the Goods and Services Tax in Ontario or the minimum wage! They fall right behind capital punishment and bottled water in my menagerie of pet peeves. Nothing like a bit of fury in the morning to wake me up. My first permanent job was at W.H. Smith and Son where I made $48.00 per week. I supported my art student husband and myself on that salary. Today I make as much in an hour and a half. My opinion of pennies is that they weigh down my purse and give me a sore shoulder. Off with their heads!
I will take this argument seriously when they say round down rather than up. It is nonsense that rounding up does not raise prices (as this video claims). So long as we have sales taxes, we need pennies. Government wants to eliminate the coins, then round down, not up, to the nearest nickel. Meanwhile my conspiracy voice is whispering that eliminating pennies is yet another plot to (ahem) nickel and dime people.
ReplyDeleteDivisibility increases options.
ReplyDeleteWhen I buy fuel, believe me, they're happy to calculate in tenths of a penny.
Sales taxes? Yes, the U.S. is primitive. In the civilised world a cost you can't avoid, i.e. sales tax, is simply included in the display price. The label tells you how much money you will have to part with in order to own the item. What's difficult about that?
There's nothing inherently wrong with pennies.
Only our ever increasing inflation.
Back in Roman times, one denarius, ancestor of the english penny, was a substantial sum, the pay for a legionary or a labourer for one day's honest work.
And the denarius was worth.... 64 copper quadrans. At the time the coin was first issued it was worth 10 asses. It rose, at one time to sixteen asses.
Sixteen asses for a penny. Now I ask you, has the value of an ass improved so much over the last two-thousand years? Did romans have tiny inferior ones? No. Not at all. Yet somehow, we keep putting bigger prices on stuff whose value actually has not changed. The result is that our money is worth less.
When I started work,I got paid, per week, less than 1/20th of today's minimum wage. Yet I did okay on it, its buying power was as good or better than today's 18 year-old would have.
Keep the pennies. They remind us of the rate at which WE are being devalued.
Don't get me started on the Goods and Services Tax in Ontario or the minimum wage! They fall right behind capital punishment and bottled water in my menagerie of pet peeves. Nothing like a bit of fury in the morning to wake me up.
ReplyDeleteMy first permanent job was at W.H. Smith and Son where I made $48.00 per week. I supported my art student husband and myself on that salary. Today I make as much in an hour and a half.
My opinion of pennies is that they weigh down my purse and give me a sore shoulder. Off with their heads!