They did it again!

[nonsense]

Doesn't matter by the time you get done with sales tax added on. Anyone still have 3%?

[<aemeijers]

???? I don&#39;t think anybody didn&#39;t realize they wanted to get rid of the $1 bill- the business case is pretty obvious. They just were complaining about the flawed attempts, and the inability of the Gummint to see why the previous attempts failed, and repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

Does getting rid of the dollar bill make sense? Sure. Will it ever happen? Unlikely, at least not if they keep making these almost-a-quarter things. I don&#39;t think they truly expect the rotating presidential mini-dollars to make people abandon the paper bill- I think they just wanna tap the same collector market as the state quarters and special nickels did, and help pay off the machine tools that will just sit and rot, otherwise. Plus, just like collector stamps, every new dollar that is bought and tucked away, amounts to a free loan to the government. Once it is in a sock drawer, it isn&#39;t really functioning as money any more.

As to getting rid of the penny- also unlikely- too much sentimental attachment, and people would perceive of it as a defacto devaluing of the currency. (ie, a nickel is now a penny.)

aem sends...

[Goedjn]

Dimes are currently the densest coinage available, which makes them a good choice for caches and emergency kits.

[<aemeijers]

(snip) . In a few cases it

I thought they fixed that when they went to the flash-plated zinc pseudo-pennies a few years back? Or has the dollar sagged so far, and/or zinc gone up so much, that the metal value is over a cent again?

aem sends....

[<aemeijers]

They don&#39;t take plastic at yard sales, or lotsa other places normal people shop. And normal people get irritated as hell when somebody ahead of them in line uses plastic for a 2 dollar purchase, at a retailer that doesn&#39;t have one of those whiz-bang customer operated terminals. There will always be a need for cash.

aem sends....

[tmclone]

Hmm, I actually DO take plastic at my yard sales, since I am a self- employed merchant, but I guess most people don&#39;t. However, since I rarely shop for anything at all, either new or used, I can&#39;t say I visit garage sales all that much. I guess since I&#39;m not much of a "consumer" I must not be normal. And, as far as "normal" goes, I can&#39;t say that there are any places I shop without the "whiz-bang" terminals. I rarely make offline purchases anywhere except the grocery store, WalMart, restaurants, the post office, and gas stations, and they all have the "whiz-bang" stuff, and it&#39;s MUCH faster to swipe a $2 purchase than to deal with bills and coins. That way, I don&#39;t irritate you "normal" people. I live in the boonies, not a big city, and I rarely see anyone else use money either. II don&#39;t know what you&#39;re talking about when you say there&#39;s a need for cash. Frankly, since I get at least $700/year in cash back from my credit card issuer, I can&#39;t afford NOT to use cards for everything. As always, however, YMMV.

[Mark Lloyd]

For reasons of fairness, that should be "rounded" rather than "rounded up".

[Just Joshin]

Hey they are elected right? ;)

Ok, just kidding, the ones in the treasury department are at best appointed. Most are just public servents, some trying to make a name for themselves. Just an observation.

You are correct, everytime a new coin comes out, the cost on venders is hugh. Coin operated machines, cashiers, etc.

Always wondered why the fed didn&#39;t design a coin you couldn&#39;t confuse for another coin. The NYC subways use to prevent their old tokens by punching out the middle of the token in the shape of a letter. Like the Y in NYC.

Just confusing at times, since I&#39;m NO expert at what is happening. I&#39;m sure few are. :D

tom @

[Goedjn]

Where else can you get game tokens, spacers, and fairly uniform weights for only a penny each?

[<aemeijers]

Chuckle- the last time I got robbed, a few years back, they carefully decanted 2 5-gallon jugs of pennies, and a half-jug of nickels, stealing all my soft luggage to drag it out in. (I had figured a 5-gallon jug was heavy enough to be safe- never occurred to me anyone would stay inside long enough to pour them out.) What makes it funny is that the idiots ignored the clear plastic quart containers of dimes on the shelf not 3 feet away, that were worth several times as much as what they stole.

Of course, did the local idiot cops bother to put out a notice on anyone trying to cash in 12+ gallons of pennies and nickels? They did not, and in the recap in the paper, it said &#39;$50 in change&#39;, not the $500 or so it really was.

I roll it whenever the coffee can gets full now, and tuck it away in nooks and crannies. (No banks here offer use of their counting machine, and I refuse on principle to pay the 7-9 per cent CoinStar machine at the grocery wants.)

aem sends...

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per [e-mail]:

I guess I&#39;m out of touch bc this is the first time I&#39;ve heard of that.

What issuer?

[Elmo]

I think Discover was the one that pioneered the concept but others have picked it up. I saw an ad for Chase the other day which said you could have airline miles, points, or cash back -- your choice.

[KLS]

I guess you don&#39;t buy candy bars from kids who go door to door.

[Hayes]

Taking plastic as a merchant, will cost you an additional 2%, minimum. It&#39;s utterly foolish to take plastic, at a garage sale no less.

You know, for someone that claims to rarely shop for anything at all, new or used. And, not much of a consumer. You sure do get a lot "cash back". You have to spend close to $70K a year in order to get $700 back.

I smell a BSer, big time. LOL, thanks for catching yourself up in lies.

[Tom Terrific]

Actually, he&#39;s wise to accept plastic (evidently, he already knows that). As a merchant, you wind up selling a lot more stuff if you accept plastic - certainly more than enough to make up the fee. Do you really think that retailers would almost universally accept plastic if there wasn&#39;t an economic benefit to it?

That would be true if the cash back was only 1%. Most issuers are now paying at least 2% and many go as high as 5% *after* the promotional period ends, and even higher for certain purchases/merchants. For example, I got 20% on my Citgo gasoline purchases for the first 90 days after I got their card last year. That was $150 just on gas (the fact that they were the cheapest gas in town was icing on the cake). Add another $10,000 worth of purchases at 5% on another card and that adds up to $650 for

[Jeff Wisnia]

Well, here in Massachusetts, there&#39;s NO sales tax on groceries or on clothing costing below (I think it&#39;s) $150 per garment. Most of the rest of the stuff we buy including foods considered a "meal" gets taxed at 5%.

But, there are some other exceptions like periodicals (but not "books") and the one which seems wackiest to me is the sales tax on "bakery items" purchased in quantities greater than a dozen at a time. IOW if you buy from one to eleven Dunkin Donuts you pay 5% tax, but when buying

12 or more they are not taxed.

Course, one state north of here, New Hampshire, less than an hour&#39;s drive from metropolitan Boston, there&#39;s zero sales tax, and we&#39;re constantly peppered with radio, TV and print ads from stores up north which append "In tax free New Hampshire" to their names.

It&#39;s illegal to buy stuff in New Hampshire and cart it back to Masachusetts and then not declare the purchase on your next state income tax return and pony up 5% to good old Taxachusetts, but I suspect that&#39;s honored more in the breach than the observance.

Jeff

[Jeff Wisnia]

Yup, and the mint labor and shipping aren&#39;t inconsequential either. I think the current "cost" to get a penny into circulation is about 1.4 cents.

Jeff

[Larry Caldwell]

The value of currency varied wildly when it was made out of gold and silver. Gold and silver are commodities, just like wheat and barley. The price goes up, the price goes down.

[John Gilmer]

Nope!

The consistent (and in the long run most "fair") is to remember that when you now buy ONE of something that&#39;s "Three for a $dollar" the first item is $.34. The next two are only $.33.

So long as everyone plays by the same rules and everyone understands the rules "fairness" isn&#39;t an issue.

[Rick Brandt]

C&#39;mon, it IS bigger AND a different color AND with a different edge.

The reason dollar coins are not popular is because COINS are not popular. We put up with the others because we have to and the majority of us carry them precisely as long as it takes to dump them in a big container at the house.

Dollar coins (of any shape and size) will catch on 100% the moment they stop printing paper dollars.