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The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

(www.cnn.com)
460 points andrewl | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:10 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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didgetmaster ◴[12 Nov 25 16:40 UTC] No.45902279[source]▶
Many are reporting this as if failing to mint new pennies each year is going to produce some kind of shortage. There are billions of pennies sitting in drawers or jars in homes across the nation (I certainly have one with about a thousand pennies in it).

I doubt anyone who needs a penny will be unable to find one within the next 100 years.

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JohnFen ◴[12 Nov 25 16:46 UTC] No.45902363[source]▶
Most of the stores in my area have started requiring people to pay with exact change or by card because they can't get pennies to make change.

Personally, I think stores should just start setting prices to avoid the need for pennies, but that would be too easy, I guess.

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ianferrel ◴[12 Nov 25 16:57 UTC] No.45902534[source]▶
Setting prices to avoid the need for pennies is probably technically challenging given the combination of requirements to post prices and sales taxes that don't always round the same way.

If the effective tax rate is 7.432%, you can price single items so that the price plus tax ends up in a multiple of $0.05, but if you get a purchase with multiple items, you either need to round somewhere or post prices that are like $9.346263437.

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timeinput ◴[12 Nov 25 18:48 UTC] No.45904191[source]▶
Imagine a world where they just posted the price you would pay at the register on the shelf instead of some number that is ~93.082% of the price you would pay.

I know it's hard to imagine the price on the shelf being the price that you pay, but I believe it is possible even in complex tax situations.

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ianferrel ◴[12 Nov 25 20:08 UTC] No.45905724[source]▶
I live where there is no sales tax, so it's not hard to imagine!

But good luck convincing every state, county, municipality, and other weird governing body that requires something other than that and also collects a weird sales tax.

Or go with the solution that papers over all that nonsense: a flexible and maximum $0.04 per purchase discount.

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1. timeinput ◴[12 Nov 25 20:36 UTC] No.45906236[source]▶
I mean it's not on the state, county, municipality, or weird governing body to put the prices on the shelf at the store. Nation wide advertising might be different (is that still a thing? There were always asterisks that made a dollar menu not always a dollar anyway), but the literal price on the shelf / menu / ... at any given physical building could price things appropriately for the physical location that they are on.

I live in a place with a fixed VAT (that is included in the price on the shelf / menu / ...), but grew up in the US in several different weirdly taxed localities. It's just such a silly argument to say "we can't write the correct price on the shelf because the laws vary." The register knows the correct price, the labels on the shelf are computer generated, and updated regularly. The labels at many nation wide fast food type places are displays anyway.

If Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau can make it work I feel like it's at least imaginable that stores that already automate this weird complex tax code could print accurate labels instead of inaccurate labels, with an accurate calculation at sales time.