[Bill_Steamshovel]

In Australia, we phased out 1 and 2 cent coins about 30 years ago and are fast on track to be doing the same with 5 cent coins.

Ideally I'd prefer it if larger and more cumbersome coins were eliminated rather than the smaller more portable coins.

[Psudo]

Would anyone object to keeping all existing coins but making them 1/3rd the mass? That would make them cheaper to make due to less metal, more portable, and kinda cute I'd imagine. Small and cute seem to be strongly correlated.

[Blue_Nose]

Psudo wrote:

Would anyone object to keeping all existing coins but making them 1/3rd the mass?

How does that constitute "keeping" all existing coins? I get your point, but that would require minting entirely new set of coins. Any automated system, like bridge tolls, would have to be revamped as well to handle both systems until the changeover is complete.

We've seen changes to coins before (eg, the nonsense up here with commemorative quarters for everything imaginable), but they're usually not so much that you (or a machine) can't glance at the coin and say, "that's a quarter," etc.

[DerbyX]

Bill_Steamshovel wrote:

In Australia, we phased out 1 and 2 cent coins about 30 years ago and are fast on track to be doing the same with 5 cent coins.

Ideally I'd prefer it if larger and more cumbersome coins were eliminated rather than the smaller more portable coins.

It worked quite well there didn't it.

The Australians have a very good currency system going. No handfuls of useless change. Loonies and Toonies like us (different name though) and different sized money made out of plastic that is very difficult to destroy and even harder to counterfeit.

The initial cost for making each bill is higher but they don't wear out anywhere near as quickly.

Their tax system is done so that each product already has tax added so all you do is add up the cost of each item and voila, the total.

Quite frankly its a currency and syatem I would like to see us emulate.

[Prestwick]

I don't think us in the UK understand the concept. You guys make hard nosed and common sense decisions...while we turn ours into works of art.



Awesome and well travelled Aussie (although sadly not as awesome as Sam Kekovich), Clive James, writes for the BBC:

Quote:

I have studied the designs closely, and so far I am intrigued only in the sense of wondering how on earth this latest case of the fidgets has been allowed to get so far, and I am entertained only in the sense that a previously dignified nation's ability to commit cultural self-mutilation is getting beyond a joke, and I am smiling only in the sense that if I laugh aloud it hurts.

[ChrisV82]

Great comic.

As for the penny, the only stores that charge me to the penny are large chains. Independent stores and small businesses tend to round up or down, depending on the price. Interesting how the free market is screwing over the capitalist needs of the government.

[CanadianJeff]

Interesting how the Capitalist needs screw over small business by allowing giant companies a lot of breathing room.

Thinking about it isn't keeping the penny only really helping those larger busineses by allowing them to have that extra cent or two on every trasnaction or save that cent or two?

Obviously if we still have the penny it must be benefitting someone. So how is it benefitting?

[Psudo]

That logic doesn't follow, Jeff. If larger corporations are currently getting "that extra cent or two on every transaction", what's to stop them from rounding all their prices up to the next nickel once pennies are banned? Pennies are not about a company's ability to set prices higher, but about their ability to set prices precisely.

Further, profits aren't always increased by increasing prices. Why is everything $X.99? Because that negligible penny discount looks good and increases sales. More sales times slightly less margin per sale equals greater profit precisely because of the reduced price. (Or, anyway, that's the logic behind it; I wonder how many sales are actually gained.) Large companies actually benefit from being able to survive on thinner profit margins times many more transactions, whereas smaller companies need thicker profit margins (higher prices) to make ends meet. Wal-Mart is the classic example of this.