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Canada Kills Penny!

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Dr.Acula

Banned
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/canadian-penny-killed_n_1389321.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...enny-that-costs-penny-and-a-half-to-make.html
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/29/budget-2012-federal-canada/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/03/29/federalbudget-flaherty-penny-cent.html

From the CBC:

The federal budget is guaranteed to leave Canadians penniless — literally.

Among the victims of cutbacks outlined by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the government’s 2012 federal budget on Thursday is Canada's one-cent coin.

Citing low purchasing power and rising production costs, the government has decided to phase the penny out of existence starting this fall, when the Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing the one-cent coin to financial institutions.

Over time, that will lead to the penny effectively becoming extinct, although the government noted on Thursday that one-cent coins will always be accepted in cash transactions for as long as people still hold on to them.

Amazing! I love this!

The solution Ottawa is proposing is to do away with the penny in cash transactions. Instead of fiddling with a few cents at the cash register, prices will be rounded up or rounded down to the nearest five-cent increment.

That rounding will happen after any applicable sales taxes have been implemented.

Take a cup of coffee in Medicine Hat, Alta. that currently costs $1.80 and is subject to 5 per cent GST. A consumer today would pay $1.89 for that drink. Once the penny plan is implemented, that price would be rounded up to $1.90.

But the nickel and diming can work both ways. A sandwich combo at a deli in Oakville, Ont. that today costs $4.86 after HST would round down to $4.85 under the plan.

Credit, debit and cheque transactions will be unaffected, so one cent is still going to be the base unit of Canadian currency.
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Nice. I hate pennies, I always toss 'em in the trash. Especially Canadian pennies, I live in Northwestern Michigan so they somehow find their way into my pocket. US needs to do the same.
 

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
The federal budget is guaranteed to leave Canadians penniless — literally

God...damnit...

Every news article writer is a shitty one line comedian it seems.
 
Yeah, the US should probably do the same but even in better times their government couldn't push any currency changes onto the population.

Pinche: Read the OP? 5c is the new lowest currency unless you pay by CC/interac
 

theCHENRY

Member
I'd like to know more about this rounding plan they mention, but still! Pretty awesome. My change jar's going to look pretty sad though without all those pennies.


Are they going to replace it with a 2 cent paper stamp? Their money make no sense to me. I hate the loony/twooney.

what's it like to be soulless ;D
 
I'd like to know more about this rounding plan they mention, but still! Pretty awesome. My change jar's going to look pretty sad though without all those pennies.

It sounds solid to me, with an equal number of possibilities for both ends. 0, 1, 2 vs. 3,4,5. With the prices of so many things ending in ".99", under Ontario HST anyway, it seems like you'd get more things being rounded down than up, if my thinking is correct.
 

Llyranor

Member
I'm partway in the process of making a life-size replica of President Obama using only pennies. I hope this won't affect me.


It sounds solid to me, with an equal number of possibilities for both ends. 0, 1, 2 vs. 3,4,5. With the prices of so many things ending in ".99", under Ontario HST anyway, it seems like you'd get more things being rounded down than up, if my thinking is correct.
All businesses will readjust their prices so that it always gets rounded up, maybe.
 

DrEvil

not a medical professional
Also, OP Fail, I was expecting at least a picture:

Penny.jpg
 

explodet

Member
5 cent coins. 10 cent coins. 25 cent coins. 1 dollar coins. 2 dollar coins.
5 dollar coins.
I, for one, welcome our new $5 coin overlords.
Like I said in the Canada PoliGAF thread, we should put the Canada goose on it.

First one to suggest the
milk bag
is getting such a paddlin'.
 
Companies are guaranteed to price things so the amount always rounds up for single item purchases.

And if you take all your cash transactions for a year and add 4 cents to them, how much does it come to? That's worst-case scenario, and it's also money that employers put back into their businesses.

I'm violently for it.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
But then stores can stop trying to swindle you with $XX.99 tags.

WHOLE INTEGERS OR BUST.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Next... we should just include taxes in the price of things, like in most sane countries. Why should buying things be guesswork or a math problem? It should just say exactly how much I need to give them. They can indicate the tax given to gov't in fine print.

edit: ^ Beaten.
 
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