The last-ever penny will be minted today in Philadelphia

I'd say screw it, get rid of nickles and dimes as well. Quarters can stay, for now.

It's a complete waste of money and time continuing to mint such low-value currency. It can't be used for just about anything.

Unfortunately, I do see the problem with part of this. For a handful of items where it does matter, it will force people to use cards more if they want to avoid rounding. And the card providers already have a choke-hold on retailers, and the whole thing is basically a scheme that funnels money from the poor to the wealthy via interest and fees on the consumer, interchange fees, and rewards programs.

I know you're referencing more than pennies, but to speak to pennies, I find the current rounding noise in the US to be weird. Likely, it's just more of the media, talking heads, and youtube personalities trying to turn a nothing into something, story.

Back when we did it in Canada, I don't recall a single person I knew concerned about penny rounding. Everyone was sick of pennies. No one cared. Everyone was happy. And the math seems fair enough:

https://www.budget.canada.ca/2012/themes/theme2-info-eng.htm...

Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up. Rounding is to be applied after all taxes are paid, etc.

Of course, there was also central guidance and, well, everyone just followed it. It's called "having a society".

People blathering on about stores fixing the rounding are morons, there's no way to do so if you buy more than one item. No one gets ripped off with the above method. In the end, it just works out.

And really, who cares?! It's a penny.

> Basically, if something is $1.01 or $1.02, you round down. If it's $1.03 or $1.04, you round up.

So everything's going to be $1.03 or $1.04. Not sure why you think retailers (or any sellers) would ever, ever, ever let this play into customers' advantage.

But apparently pointing out that obvious truth makes me a "moron," because you can think of some clever ways to get around it that retailers surely won't work around.

If you buy two things at $1.03 or $1.04, it's $2.06 or $2.07 and rounds down to $2.05 more often than it's $2.08 and rounds up to $2.10. That's not "some clever ways." That's so basic it's absurd. They don't know how many things you're going to buy. They don't know how many things anyone is going to buy. There's no way to game the entire system for every combination of things people might buy.

Never mind this: When was the last time you bought something in person, in cash, and bought only one thing? Just think it through for a second.

If there is no rounding down, it could amount to more.

Hypothetically if you incur 10,000 transactions per year with the max rounding up of $0.04 per transaction, you're out $400.

This doesn't make a huge impact to individuals, but it absolutely will to large volume businesses.

For large volume businesses, $400 / year is what we usually call.. a rounding error.