Re: Zinc firm eager to keep pennies in circulation


"Mr. Jaggers" <lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com> wrote in message
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"Richard L. Hall" <richlhall0@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Mr. Jaggers" <lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com> wrote in message
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"Dr. Richard L. Hall" <richllh0@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Aug 20, 8:46 am, RWF <rwfemail2006-use...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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DOMAIN-IN.SIG> wrote:
In article <iNqxi.58358$5j1.9...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
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"Michael G. Koerner" <mgk...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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stonej wrote:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/198721/

ALL the more reason to 'de-politicize' our coins and banknotes.

Heck, I'd go all the way and give the 'Secretary' (Treasury
Department)
*FULL* latitude over ALL issues relating to our physical money,
including
but not limited to: 'what denominations should exist?', 'coin
or
banknote?', 'composition?', 'dimensions?',
'obverse/reverse/edge
designs?', etc.

I do *NOT* like our current politically and lobbyist driven
cash.

Grrrrrrr...
Where are all these cents used ? I did some envelope
calculations. A
Wal-Mart that did 10,000 cash transactions a day, and forgave the
cents,
would lose $250.00/day or $ 90,000 a year. A thousand Wal-Marts
would lose
$90 million. Not small change. However they could calculate the
amount of
cents not used, notify the treasurer/US to stop making that many,
and ask
for half of the savings !

Dumping the one cent coin wouldn't result in "forgiving" the
difference. Retailers would round either down or up, which
would, on average over all transactions, cancel out the
difference.

The average taxpayer will lose 2 cents on every cash transaction -
figure 14 cents a week - $7.28 a year if just 1 transaction per day.
Now multiply that by 250,000,000 to calculate the total screwing the
public will receive at the hands of the "eliminate-the-penny" crew.
Don't kid yourself that merchants will won't figure out a way to
screw
the public by rounding up either.
Another question to ask is why the feds let the dollar become so
valueless that people would even think of eliminating the cent coin.
It's a plot I tell ya, a plot!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Impossible and illogical. Cahs registers will automatically display
the amount due for cash transaction and the rounding will be done JUST
AS IT IS NOW for sales tax. There is no evil plot with sales tax
rounding and there will be no evil plot with roounding to the nearest
5 or 10 cents. It is already done in major coountries around the
world, so there is no need to make up false "horribilizations".
http://www.geocities.com/fredeshecter/rounding.pdf


You make the mistake of assuming that a sales tax will always be
charged on a purchase. That simply isn't so. In fact, there are more
than 30 states in the U. S. that don't charge tax on various items such
as food, drugs, OTC meds, magazines, etc. In addition, there is a
truth in advertising law in the U. S. and the U. S. is a very litigious
society.

Here's a simple scenario. A weekly supermarket circular advertises a
can of soup at 68c. Someone goes into the store picks up a can and
takes it to the checkout. The cashier says, "Cash, check or charge."
The person produces a dollar and the clerk says, "That'll be 70c." The
guy says it was advertised at 68c. An argument ensues and the guy
eventually pays the 70c. The next day, the store is hit with a class
action lawsuit claiming that the store violated the truth in
advertising law.

No store is going to want its clerks arguing with customers and no
store is going to want to fight a class action lawsuit (which often end
up more to the benefit of the lawyers than the consumer.) And no store
is going to stop advertising. So the general trend will be to price
all items at the nearest nickel. And since most prices in a
supermarket are of the $x.x9 variety, the rounding is usually going to
be up. In addition, someone is going to have to pay to modify the cash
registers to do the rounding. And you can bet that that cost will be
passed on to the consumer.

Even if it only costs a typical family $25 per year in increased
grocery costs, with 120 million families in the U.S., that comes to $3
billion per year. All so the mint can save a paltry $8 million!?

I think you'd serve your cause better if you stop arguing that it isn't
going to cost the consumer anything. Only a fool would believe that.

I am going to sign up tomorrow for foolhood then. Pointed cap, the
whole schmeer.

You don't have to wait until tomorrow. You've succeeded tonight.

Sure, one item costing 68c in a non-tax state will cost you 70c if you
pay in cash. But the guy who drives to the store to buy just that one
item has incurred enough transportation expense to make the two cents
totally insignificant.

Stupid comment. The issue is not transportation costs but class action
lawsuits. If a lawyer can make a million dollars or so by such a suit
why would he worry about the few cents it cost him to drive to the store.
In my neighborhood, the stores are close enough to walk to.


By the way, does research actually show that "most" supermarket prices
end in a 9 as you claim? Next time I'm there, I'm going to do a quick
scan of things that I regularly buy and find out if that statistic has
any validity whatsoever. Unless, of course, you can point me to a
scientific study of same.

In my supermarket they do. I would estimate by looking at the prices
that about 90-95% of all the regular prices in the store are of the form
$x.x9. I found 2 boxes of organic cereal at $4.61 and another at $5.08.
And a handful of prices ending in either 0 or 5. But there were not very
many exceptions to the $x.x9. In the local 7-11 it goes up to about 99%.


And if true, there will only be a *one*-cent loss on "most" single-item
purchases.

I buy about 50 items a week. So if I lose 1c per item that's 50c per
week. Multiply that 52 weeks and that comes to $26 per year. Right on my
estimate. And I'm single. Take a family of 4 and it gets much worse.


Finally, the computers of every supermarket that puts things on sale
have to be modified every time that happens, so in the light of that I
doubt very much that the cost of algorithm modification will be
significant, plus it will be a one-time cost, even if it is.

Another stupid comment. Obviously you don't know the difference between
modifying a data base of prices and modifying the software or hardware to
accomplish the rounding algorithm for the total price.

James the Dunce
You got that part right.

Your early resort to ad hominem shows that you have run out of fresh
ideas. I wasn't expecting to take down a Ph. D. so quickly.

You made the ad hominem attack on yourself and I agreed with it for obvious
reasons. Of course, there were several points made in my post, but, typical
of you, you chose one of the insignificant ones, made a stupid comment about
it and then claimed victory. Amazing.


--
Richard
A thought: Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body. But rather it's to
skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly
proclaiming, "Wow! What a ride!!!"



.

Relevant Pages

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