2 cent piece revisited

so there's been talk since forever about doing away with the penny due to its expense and relative unuse.
Problem is, no one cent piece means that prices are rounded up to the nearest 5 cents, which comes out to quite a bit in the aggregate.
So, how about using the penny blank and material and making a 2 cent piece - alleviating the expense part of the penny and the rounding up part of having 5 be the lowest denomination?

 

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You have the rounding concept all wrong.
If you buy one item, it will be rounded, up or down, to the nearest 5 cents.
If you buy 75 items, the total of ALL of those items will be rounded, up or down, to the nearest 5 cents.
But that's only when you pay with cash.
If you pay with a check, debit card or credit card, there is no need for rounding.

 

It does not come out to quite a bit at all. Anything will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel or dime.
A purchase ending in 8 or 9 cents will be rounded up to 10, which a purchase ending in 11 or 12 cents will be rounded down to 10. Something ending in 13 or 14 cents will be rounded up to 15 cents. Something ending in 16 or 17 cents will be rounded down to 15 cents. No one will make or lose any money if they eliminate the penny.
Besides the fact there are billions of pennies in circulation currently, enough for 100 years.

 

So true!

 

Makes sense - thanks for clearing that up!

 

Especially since they will all (or practically all) disappear from circulation with on two years. Most of them within one.

 

"Rounding" is an interesting concept. When I was a kid (Early Stone Age), we were taught that if the integer to be dropped was less than 5, the preceding integer was left alone (rounding down), if the integer to be dropped was greater than 5, the preceding integer was to be raised by 1 (rounding up). The interesting thing was that if the integer to be dropped was 5, if the preceding integer would be left alone if even, and raised by 1 if it were odd. When hand-held calculators came along, this was too difficult to build into them, so if the integer to be dropped was 5, the preceding integer was raised by 1. The world hasn't ended because of that change.

 

That's true if you're rounding to the nearest dime.
We're talking about rounding to the nearest nickel.

 

Nah, just blithering about rounding in general.

 

Not to get into a big political debate, but I feel that the one cent coin is in no danger of going away. The US Government has much larger areas of waste to address before this is a key issue. I think there is too much nostalgia with a few dashes of bureaucracy to worry right now.

 

We need a 2 cent piece like we need a hole in our collective heads.

 

I vote for the 0.09 or 0.99 piece.

 

Our sale tax is 11.50 it's rounded up to 11.00

 

Really?! What state is that? Is it $11.50 flat or is it 11.5%?

Sales tax, no matter the rate, is calculated on the total amount of taxable purchases, it is added to that total and then the total of purchases and tax is rounded.

 

Agreed. Some attempts have been made but it has never gotten any serious legs.

Interesting side note looks like Australia will be getting rid of the 5c piece from inflation in their next budget unless I missed that part being removed.

 

Chicago is at 10.25% and I don't think anyone else is higher?

 

i thought

i thought 9% in LA was bad

 

Rounded up would be 12 rounded down would be 11

 

LA was 8.75 rounded up to 9 (which begs the question, why not make it a round number to begin with...)

 

Same reason things are 8.99 and not 9 dollars. Most people just remember the first number and aren't aware if things are ever rounded