Minting Pennies

I don't believe your logic works here. Even if it did it would make no difference in theory because sellers don't adjust their prices to break nickels in their favor, they adjust them to compete.

Buyers benefit only when the total is 1, 2, 6, or 7. So long as there are even and odd numbers then any total is possible and it can't be controlled.

Virtually nobody can come out ahead or behind on this. One of the few exceptions is many customers will shut off their gas pump so that it ends on "2". At the average gas station this will happen about 50 times per day costing the station nearly a dollar. I have absolutely no doubt they won't care much and can adjust their pricing to remain solvent.

 

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Of course when we buy a new car for $39,999.98 it's now going to cost a cool 40 grand.

I'd wager that if you insist on rounding down the salesman will always throw it into the deal.

 

There is an easy solution to everything.
Have companies simply round up the retail/selling price.

Why does practically everything be 9 cents? 1.09, 1.49, 1.99 and even for gas 1.999. .999 for all practicality is $1.00, but people have the perception they aren't spending $1. I've *never* been able to get back .001 from the gas station no matter how hard I've tried in the past.

There is a reason companies currently do not just round up prices.

It's called marketing, and finding the "sweet spot of pricing" to make people buy something versus opting not to.

The study of pricing strategies drives sales.
So you'll first have to convince sellers not to use the 9 strategy. But there's been plenty of studies in the past that the 9 strategy self-convinces people to spend more, and significantly more in some cases. There's even studies in how people react to seeing, or not seeing the "$" sign on price tags.

 

Funny how you say it won’t be exploited and then provide another example of how it can be... sounds like you’re quibbling.

 

It won't really matter whether anyone wants to keep the penny once the zinc and that tiny bit of copper in it attain a value greater than one cent. Inflation will ensure this will happen in the not too distant future. At the current price of zinc ($1.23/lb), there's about 0.7 cent-worth of zinc in a cent coin. 123 cents/lb x lb/454 g x 2.5 g/coin = 0.68 cents/coin.

When there is a bit more than a cent's worth of zinc in the penny, they'll go in the pot. It won't matter that it may be illegal to melt the little darlings. It didn't matter in the sixties when silver coins were being melted. Once coins become big hunks of scrap metal, their origin is mute. And zinc has a much lower melting point than silver (787 vs 1,783 F), so a lot more folks can participate.

Of course with silver, it was possible to substitute cheaper metals for coinage. Zinc is pretty much bottom of the barrel for metals. Plastic pennies anyone?

Cal

 

I suppose it's hard to find someone who sells helium balloons by the pound.

The bottom line is that a penny is no money at all any longer and is simply a liability passed from bank to store to customer and back to the bank except where it gets in the garbage stream where it belongs.

A nickel is hardly money either but is needed to bridge the gap between a dime and quarter.

Why do we produce liabilities by the billion. What is wrong with Washington?

It's bad enough we borrow a C-note for every worthless penny produced! Pennies just rub (zinc) salt in the wounds.

 

Pennies might make great little washers to nail tarpaper on shacks.

 

Pennies are almost exactly 3/4" in diameter. Same OD as USS galvanized 1/4" ID washers. The USS washers are about 3 cents each. Easy to drill a hole. Hmmm.

Cal

 

A sharp nail should go right through them