The Penny Is Finally Toast

TheHulk, we may never see it in our lifetime, however, I feel there will be a time in this Century perhaps, were all currency is obsolete. Think about it for a minute, how many of you take money with you when you go shopping? I only bring a debit card and a Visa, you can go anywhere, buy anything, and do anything with those two pieces of plastic.
I know the old argument about change for vending machines, under the table cash transactions, flea markets etc. Take the cell phone for example, payments can now be made via your cell phone. They've been doing it in Europe now for over a decade, and eventually cell phone's will be obsolete in ways of making payment's. They'll have micro chips installed under the skin of your wrist and all you have to do is be scanned!

What next...............Glenn

Glenn is right, but already behind the times...
its all available already.. next vision? who knows...
But the only ones profiting big time from it are the banks...
they will spend millions to come up with software which calculates the interest you pay to the nickel UP of course...and they make sure the calculation will always have no cents on the end.

BUT, having not read the budget, does not producing a cent anymore make it also obsolete to have cents in paper commerce?
Harpers budget was nothing but a lame attempt to say something and redirect everyone away from the actual and more pressing issues. Namely to do something constructive.
tell me guys, When was the last time you actually had 400 Dollars worth of goods at the border? Customs did not care if you had 600, as it cost them more to collect than what they could have collected. AND, there is nothing worth buying out of the country anyway, unless you buy big......

m

Agreed, swrbxxx. I haven't actually done a US shopping trip in over a year, but for a while there the wife and I were going every few months, spending right up to (and beyond!) the allowable limit. Increasing the limit to $800 per person for over 48 hour visits means no more deception over how much we really spent in the US. I can't see us spending over $1600 in a weekend! If Canadian retailers want us to spend more in Canada, then stop charging us 20-30% more than the same product in the US. I've seen some products with an over 100% markup. I'm a patriotic Canadian, but c'mon!

I agree thehulk,

Look at milk I can get a gallon of milk in the USA for the cost of 1 liter here, With grocery shopping I usually get 3-5x the amount I would have if I bought in Canada. Plus the bonus programs, grocery & gas promotions that run are phenomial.

Just curious--but do many Canadians hop over the border for groceries--and do they face tariffs upon returning? Perhaps that explains why so many Canadians drive the hour to do their Christmas shopping here.

This is wrong. All electronic calculations and transactions will still be done to the cent.

I doubt it would still get total cost of each cent below one cent. The big problem is the outsource vendor (China, India, whatever) would need to show a profit. This will add to the total cost and probably eliminate any savings from the cheaper labour.

In regards to losing money when rounding and not having 97c specials anymore:

Australia got rid of the 1 cent coin over 20 years ago and most item are still have 99c or 32c etc put on the end of the dollar amount. Just because the coin is gone doesn't mean stores will putting prices to multiples of 5c. You will not see a change in prices.

Where you will lose out is if you're paying by cash and even then it will be a maximum of 2 cents per transaction. I you're going to grovel of 2c you've got too much time on your hands. The electricity spent powering the computer to whinge about it has just exceeded 2c.

Anyway more and more people are paying via eftpos which will charge you the exact amount of the purchase with no rounding. If you are worried about the 2c per transaction then dont pay cash, use eftpos instead.