It looks like legislation has entered Congress to do away with the beloved penny. It seems someone tried to do this in the past, 2001 to be exact, and failed. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=136546http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/18/news/penny/index.htm?cnn=yes
Ok, so Rep Jim Kolbe of Arizona has introduced this bill that will effectively kill the penny. Now, I don’t rightly care about the penny itself… because I don’t like carrying them in my pockets when I do happen to use cash for a purchase. However, what I do mind it the whole idea of “rounding” all purchases, which is the main purpose of this bill, the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation Act. The COIN Act… clever, eh?
So, by definition of this bill, all items with a price ending with 1 or 2 cents will be rounded down to 0. Those ending with 3 or 4 cents will be rounded up to 5 cents. Those ending with 6 or 7 cents will be rounded down to 5 cents. And, finally, those ending with 8 or 9 cents will be rounded up to 0 cents. Let’s list some pros and cons of this…