No more pennies, at least in Canada

[++$_]

Sure. But we don't need dollar bills, dollar coins are just fine.

I disagree. Bills fit nicely into a wallet. Coins do not. I try to get rid of my dollar coins whenever I can because they are a total pain to use.

To put it another way, if I have $10 in $1 bills in my pocket, I have one object in my pocket. If I have $10 in $1 coins in my pocket, I have 10 objects in my pocket.

[Dauric]

I use dollars all the time.

Sure. But we don't need dollar bills, dollar coins are just fine.

Except every time the U.S. mint tries to issue dollar coins nobody uses them.

The main problem with no dollar bills is it means you have to give at least a 5 to a stripper, damn sin taxes!

... Aaand now I'm imagining a stripper's bikini full of dollar coins....

[PeteP]

Are you suggesting that Canada should keep minting wasteful pennies just so that people counting those pennies have have jobs?

No, I am suggesting that Canada should keep minting wasteful pennies so that all citizens can exercise the economic agency to pay the amount of their purchases. Canadians can make their own rules, but I wouldn't want to live in a nation where rich people can pay $4.58 for a purchase by swiping a debit card but the underprivileged have to pay $4.60.

If pennies bother you as a consumer, then overpay and leave the change on the counter. If pennies bother you as a business, then undercharge and round your change up to the nearest nickel. Now you are a consumer or a business who hardly ever has to deal with pennies, and it's a win-win because everyone you do business with is happy to receive the pennies that strike you as such a burden. But don't force your mentality on someone with the equally valid perception that a hundred pennies are worth a buck.

There is no 0,5 cent coin, and with a percent based tax it's possible that price + tax result in something like x.975.(Though the sane thing to do is planning prices including taxes and setting them to a level where you can pay it with normal money.) What do you do they are rounding by half a cent and two hundred of these are worth a buck. So why aren't you campaigning for even lower valued coins? For the 0,1 cent coin or the 0,01 cent coin?
There simply has to be a lowest coin after a certain point it's not useful to make even smaller coins. And if the worth of money changes it's only natural that this point changes.
Would you be requesting a 1 cent coin if the 5 cent coin had been the lowest coin from the beginning?
Edit: bah ninjas

[Ghostbear]

Except every time the U.S. mint tries to issue dollar coins nobody uses them.

That's because they never go all the way. It's a self perpetuating problem: people don't like dollar coins because they aren't used to using them, dollar coins are minted without lowering dollar bill production sufficiently, so people don't have to get used to using them, so they don't. It's the same situation with $2 bills: people see them as rare because they aren't printed enough, so people prefer to keep them instead of using them. Since people don't use them, the treasury doesn't print more of them, causing them to be rare...

The main problem with no dollar bills is it means you have to give at least a 5 to a stripper, damn sin taxes!

$2 bills could very likely make a resurgence should $1 bills get replaced with coins. So it wouldn't be quite that big of a leap, especially since I doubt you could get very far with a stripper with just $1.

[ahammel]

The main problem with no dollar bills is it means you have to give at least a 5 to a stripper, damn sin taxes!

$2 bills could very likely make a resurgence should $1 bills get replaced with coins.

Join us...Don't be afraid...

[Dauric]

The main problem with no dollar bills is it means you have to give at least a 5 to a stripper, damn sin taxes!

$2 bills could very likely make a resurgence should $1 bills get replaced with coins.

Join us...Don't be afraid...

... Damn... and now I want a currency with a bear backside.

Edit: And the portrait should be face-on rather than in profile so both cheeks are visible.

[Роберт]

I use dollars all the time.

Sure. But we don't need dollar bills, dollar coins are just fine.

Except every time the U.S. mint tries to issue dollar coins nobody uses them.

I have a feeling that if it would be very easy for them to get people to use dollar coins.


I have already proposed the idea for how to do this in this thread.

[sourmìlk]

Why do you prefer coins to bills? Bills are lighter, easier to manage, harder to lose, possibly cheaper to manufacture, etc.

[ahammel]

Why do you prefer coins to bills? Bills are lighter, easier to manage, harder to lose, possibly cheaper to manufacture, etc.

Coins actually wind up being cheaper because they have a much longer lifespan than bills.

[Роберт]

possibly cheaper to manufacture

Coins are significantly less expensive overall than bills. Why do you think the treasury kept making half-hearted attempts to get us to use them.

[Ghostbear]

Why do you prefer coins to bills? Bills are lighter, easier to manage, harder to lose, possibly cheaper to manufacture, etc.

Cheaper to manufacture isn't the whole story. Coins are significantly more durable; they last longer. A lot longer. How many coins have you seen from the 60s or 70s? Now how many paper bills have you seen from the 60's or 70's? (Don't include experiences from the 80s, folks ). Over the lifetime of the money, a coin will be cheaper than a paper bill.

A lot of uses for individual dollars is in vending machines, which have little difficulty with coins, but can have quite a bit of difficulty with paper money. "Lighter, easier to manage, and harder to lose" misses that we like to have certain values of money in certain forms. You could apply all of those arguments to, instead of removing the penny, replacing it with a $0.01 paper bill. Would you support that?

[Griffin]

First: This title was a doubletake for me. I've got a dirty mind. Moving on...

I use and enjoy dollar coins, but it's incredibly inconvenient to carry lots of them around. For example just the other day I had 200 dollars in $1 bills. What the hell would I have done if there'd been no bills and I'd have had to have gotten that in coins?

I certainly couldn't have just easily wrapped an elastic band around them, that's for sure.

Dollar coins are fine as change, both giving and receiving, but they really just aren't anywhere near as convenient when used as, like, real money. Also, ATM machines don't give them to you and vending machines don't take them.

And this is someone who likes dollar coins and gets a bunch every time he goes to the bank!

I like dollar coins but I wouldn't want to lose bills.

[ahammel]

I use and enjoy dollar coins, but it's incredibly inconvenient to carry lots of them around. For example just the other day I had 200 dollars in $1 bills. What the hell would I have done if there'd been no bills and I'd have had to have gotten that in coins?

A better question might be "why the hell do you need $200 in singles?"

As for the vending machine problem: build new vending machines. Coins work way more reliably than bills for that purpose anyway.

[sourmìlk]

Okay, so for get the manufacturing price point. I think the other ones stand pretty well on their own though.

You could apply all of those arguments to, instead of removing the penny, replacing it with a $0.01 paper bill. Would you support that?

No because that would do nothing to the utility of of the penny (in that it's still worthless) while increasing manufacturing cost. Ease of management, difficulty in losing it etc., only matter if the currency is worth something.

[Dauric]

A better question might be "why the hell do you need $200 in singles?"

Well obviously... strippers.

*runs*

[Роберт]

I use and enjoy dollar coins, but it's incredibly inconvenient to carry lots of them around. For example just the other day I had 200 dollars in $1 bills. What the hell would I have done if there'd been no bills and I'd have had to have gotten that in coins?

A better question might be "why the hell do you need $200 in singles?"

Really, you should at most have 3-4 dollar coins, anything more than that and you can start using bills.

We already have dollar coins, $2 bills, and 5$ bills. I see no need for $1 bills.

I'm coupling this idea with the "getting rid of pennies and maybe nickels" idea, so you'd actually be carrying fewer total coins around anyway.

Edit: the reason I'm not for giving up nickels is that it would make making change odd. Dimes and quarters kinda need a 5 cent piece to go nicely.

[Ghostbear]

You could apply all of those arguments to, instead of removing the penny, replacing it with a $0.01 paper bill. Would you support that?

No because that would do nothing to the utility of of the penny (in that it's still worthless) while increasing manufacturing cost. Ease of management, difficulty in losing it etc., only matter if the currency is worth something.

You're zeroing in on an irrelevant detail (pennies are of low value) and using it to defend a point that doesn't, and can't, depend on that: your argument would make little sense if I had simply said "quarter" or "half dollar". It doesn't matter if the denomination is "worth using" (and might I add: says you), the point is if that's the argument for making something a paper bill instead of a coin, then that means that it applies to every coin vs. paper bill situation. A penny, regardless of if it was desirable to use, would benefit from being harder to lose, would it not? By being lighter and easier to manage? Would a quarter not benefit from being made lighter or harder to lose?

Also, you can't use manufacturing cost again in your argument immediately after conceding the point relating to it.

[sourmìlk]

A penny bill would be easier to use and harder to lose, but that wouldn't matter because both using and losing a penny are worthless activities. The only remaining factor is the manufacturing cost, which is against changing the penny from a coin to a bill. Thus we shouldn't. However, with a dollar, the increased manufacturing cost is (at least, in my opinion) outweighed by ease of use and such.

[Ghostbear]

A penny bill would be easier to use and harder to lose, but that wouldn't matter because both using and losing a penny are worthless activities. The only remaining factor is the manufacturing cost, which is against changing the penny from a coin to a bill. Thus we shouldn't. However, with a dollar, the increased manufacturing cost is (at least, in my opinion) outweighed by ease of use and such.

So you missed the entire first point of my response then, vis-a-vis zeroing in on an irrelevant detail. Fine. Change every instance of the word "penny" in my example to "half-dollar", then come back with a new argument.

[Griffin]

Half dollar is as silly and useless as the double dollar. For that matters, 10 dollar bills are pretty silly too. Argue for the quarter dollar instead. Everyone appreciates the utility of the quarter.

[Ghostbear]

Quarter-dollar, half-dollar, whichever. Argue dimes for all I care! The point is that his argument would mean it'd be ideal to turn all coins into paper currency.

[sourmìlk]

No it wouldn't. There are downsides to turning coins into paper currency, namely those in manufacturing costs. For useful paper currency, the increase in cost is outweighed by the increase in utility. For useless currency (like the penny), it's not. I don't see how that's inconsistent.

[Darryl]

Why do you prefer coins to bills? Bills are lighter, easier to manage, harder to lose, possibly cheaper to manufacture, etc.

Because for something handled as frequently as a $1 piece of currency, bills are horribly breakable. And having worked in the arcade industry (ASM at a single arcade), I've seen the average dollar bill that's less than a year old. It has a lifespan of 18 months before it's so ratty it needs to be removed from circulation. However, by 9-10 months, it can be so far gone that it won't work in 90% of DBAs (Dollar Bill Acceptors, which refers to any denomination of bill acceptor, actually). A 9 month viable (and yes, I consider the DBA acceptability to be the hallmark of a dollar bill's life, as that is what it gets used for quite frequently) life is kinda bad.

[sourmìlk]

That is something, particularly as coins can have a lifetime of 2500 years. But I wonder what the average circulation time is considering how coins get lost and forgotten.

[ahammel]

That is something, particularly as coins can have a lifetime of 2500 years. But I wonder what the average circulation time is considering how coins get lost and forgotten.

The Canadian two dollar coin is estimated to last about 20 years, according to an unsourced assertion on wikipedia. I imagine a one dollar coin would have a slightly shorter lifespan, as people would guard it less carefully. (Although I suppose you don't have to replace the lost ones as long as you lose it where somebody else can find it.)

Fun fact: the Canadian one dollar coin is called the loonie because there is a picture of a crazed woman on it.

[Ghostbear]

No it wouldn't. There are downsides to turning coins into paper currency, namely those in manufacturing costs. For useful paper currency, the increase in cost is outweighed by the increase in utility. For useless currency (like the penny), it's not. I don't see how that's inconsistent.

You're still sticking with "pennies are useless, and making useless things less useless is pointless" as your argument. Quarters are very useful, would you support switching them to paper money? For the half-dollar? What about the dime and the nickel?

[sourmìlk]

No it wouldn't. There are downsides to turning coins into paper currency, namely those in manufacturing costs. For useful paper currency, the increase in cost is outweighed by the increase in utility. For useless currency (like the penny), it's not. I don't see how that's inconsistent.

You're still sticking with "pennies are useless, and making useless things less useless is pointless" as your argument.

No, I'm not, and this is the third time I'm explaining it. My argument is not that making useless things less useless is pointless, it's that making useless things less useless is not worth the cost.

[Ghostbear]

No, I'm not, and this is the third time I'm explaining it. My argument is not that making useless things less useless is pointless, it's that making useless things less useless is not worth the cost.

Ah, so you're saying your current argument is a completely different one than the one I originally criticized; that one had the utility completely separate from cost, and the cost argument was based on coins costing more than paper money, whereas your current one acknowledges that they do, in fact, cost less over the long run, yet you've been arguing as if it's the exact same argument. Of course.

[sourmìlk]

I only said once that paper money costs less. I was immediately corrected and none of my arguments since then have operated on that assumption. All of my statements since you asked me about whether I'd support a penny bill have been built on the fact that bills cost more than coins.

[yurell]

If you believe that companies are going to arrange their purchase prices so that half of them lose money, I don't know what to say to you. I almost don't want you to wake up.

Yep, I suppose living in a country without 1c and 2c coins has taught me absolutely nothing about buying things that round to the nearest 5c >.>

Are Australian prices displayed with taxes included?

Yep, all taxes are included in the sale price (I can just imagine how apeshit that consumer watchdog would go if someone tried to sell something like groceries or restaurant food without including it), and your analysis of how rounding works is correct — sure, a lot of things are labelled with a 0.99 c ending, but that's more to do with psychology (i.e. a $16.99 object is seen as $16 not $17, because we attribute higher value to the first numbers) than gaining a 1c rounding, especially when you look at purchasing multiple items.

Edit: Two pages? How could I have not noticed a second page?

[ahammel]

That is something, particularly as coins can have a lifetime of 2500 years. But I wonder what the average circulation time is considering how coins get lost and forgotten.

Highly unscientific study: I currently have 4 one-dollar coins in my possession. One was minted in 1987, one in 1989 and two in 2007. I pulled 4 two-dollar coins from my change drawer and three of them were minted in 1996 (the year that the toonie was introduced). The fourth is from 2007. I infer that it is not unusual for a >= dollar coin to last fifteen or twenty years.

Edit: and Wikipedia tells me that the one-dollar coin was introduced in 1987, so there you go.

[sourmìlk]

I get that that's not a particularly scientific study, but it does give me an idea about the sort of ballpark I'd expect the average lifetime to fall in. thanks.

[yurell]

To go with the how old coins are discussion, I decided to have a look at the average age of $1 and $2 coins I had gotten this year are (before anyone asks why I have forty of them, they're needed for the washing machines and dryers here):
Average date: 2000 (12 years old)
Standard Deviation: 8 yrs
Newest: 2011
Oldest: 1984

I also have a coin from 1966 that I got this year, but didn't count it since it's a round 50c coin.
Also, my $2 coins seem to be newer on average than the $1 — if I don't count the $2 the average age is from 1995 (so 17 years old).

Edit: I know forty coins isn't a big sample size, but it's a long and tedious process to check the dates on each!

[Tirian]

@Tirian, your argument would only make sense if we didn't already have a smallest unit of currency. All we're doing is changing what that is to reflect the point that nobody cares about the current smallest denomination. Why aren't you upset that you don't have halfpennies and quarterpennies? It's a .5 cent tax grab on every transaction!

I don't mind that there is a quantum of currency. I would be much more on board with +$_'s suggestion to get rid of nickels too and go to a one decimal place currency system. Hell, if you can fix the vending machines, let's go back to pieces of eight -- we can all feel like pirates and all of your coins could have significant mineral wealth.

The crux of my problem is that the Canadian government went halfway and created a system where the quantum of currency is the penny for rich people with debit cards and other forms of virtual currency and the nickel for poor people who only have hard cash. I think that's an economic injustice, and I remain unconvinced that roundups and rounddowns would cancel each other out at the end of the week. I also think that it's the role of government to ensure fairness across society, so the argument that we can save money by being unfair doesn't move me any more than claiming that we should disable environmental protections or eliminate safeguards in criminal trials because they're expensive.

At the same time, I confess that this is a minor irritant and nobody is going to get dinged for even $50 a year compared to someone who was able to pay with the virtual pennies that still do exist.

[sourmìlk]

To go with the how old coins are discussion, I decided to have a look at the average age of $1 and $2 coins I had gotten this year are (before anyone asks why I have forty of them, they're needed for the washing machines and dryers here):
Average date: 2000 (12 years old)
Standard Deviation: 8 yrs
Newest: 2011
Oldest: 1984

I also have a coin from 1966 that I got this year, but didn't count it since it's a round 50c coin.
Also, my $2 coins seem to be newer on average than the $1 — if I don't count the $2 the average age is from 1995 (so 17 years old).

Edit: I know forty coins isn't a big sample size, but it's a long and tedious process to check the dates on each!

Wow, your data have been statistically analyzed. Awesome!

[Iulus Cofield]

Wiki answers has a helpful and surely accurate answer to the question of a coin's life expectancy:

It depends on the type of coin. Nickels can last five years pennies 1 year dimes 10 years quarters 25 years half dollars 50 years golden dollar 100 years

Helpful!

But the US mint website says a coin lasts about 25 years. A quick Google search has a bunch of sites saying the average circulation life is 25-30 years.

[Darryl]

Wiki answers has a helpful and surely accurate answer to the question of a coin's life expectancy:

It depends on the type of coin. Nickels can last five years pennies 1 year dimes 10 years quarters 25 years half dollars 50 years golden dollar 100 years

Helpful!

But the US mint website says a coin lasts about 25 years. A quick Google search has a bunch of sites saying the average circulation life is 25-30 years.

Probably because half-dollars and dollar coins don't get circulated, while pennies, nickels, and dimes do. Also, on second look, I find it suspicious that the age of each coin is the same number of years as its value in cents.

[Iulus Cofield]

You know, now that you mention it those numbers do look laughably false.

[ahammel]

The crux of my problem is that the Canadian government went halfway and created a system where the quantum of currency is the penny for rich people with debit cards and other forms of virtual currency and the nickel for poor people who only have hard cash. I think that's an economic injustice, and I remain unconvinced that roundups and rounddowns would cancel each other out at the end of the week. I also think that it's the role of government to ensure fairness across society, so the argument that we can save money by being unfair doesn't move me any more than claiming that we should disable environmental protections or eliminate safeguards in criminal trials because they're expensive.

At the same time, I confess that this is a minor irritant and nobody is going to get dinged for even $50 a year compared to someone who was able to pay with the virtual pennies that still do exist.

Ok, so let's do the math here:

Let's say the average person makes ten transactions per day (sounds preposterously high to me). Let's furthermore assume that the last digit of the price of stuff in general is uniformly distributed (on the grounds that I'm thoroughly convinced that it's economically inadvisible for any seller to try to game the system due to fluxuations in sales tax. See above.) Using cash every time breaks even. The optimal use of this system for the buyer is to make a cash transaction on purchases that have a dime modulus of 1¢, 2¢, 6¢ or 7¢, and use a debit card on purchases that end in 3¢, 4¢, 8¢, or 9¢. This gains an average of (1+2+1+2)/10 = 0.6¢/purchase = $21.90/year. You may recognize this as a number that is way the hell less than it costs to have access to a debit card and use it that much anyway. If you want to make 150 debit card transactions per month at my financial institution, you're looking at $170/year.

TL;DR: this is a total non-issue.

Edit: accidentally swapped a set of numbers the first time around.

[Tirian]

You know, now that you mention it those numbers do look laughably false.

Indeed. Americans can perform the very simple test of pulling the pennies out of their pockets and seeing what percentage of them don't have the Lincoln memorial on the back, which were minted 1959-2008. Going by the change on my nightstand, only 15% of pennies in circulation have been minted in the past three years. I think that's more consistent with a shelf life of around 30 years, but that's a back of the envelope estimation.