A penny for your thoughts.

Originally Posted by andkeener

We got rid of the half cent over a hundred years ago, I say it's about time the penny got taken out of circulation as well.

I disagree. Taking away the penny would cause problems. Anyone pricing something would have to consider what sales tax would do to the price, making sure that the end price would be rounded to the nearest five cents. Obviously, states with no such tax wouldn't have as big a problem. Solution? Destroy sales tax.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I don't like the notion of companies rounding to the nearest multiple of five. It just seems like we'd be messing with the mathematics of money. Would you want someone to round down your paycheck? We don't need a haypenny because it's a fraction. From what I've experienced, people don't like calculating in fractions, even ones as simple as that. Along the same lines, removing the penny might make math a little easier. This might lead to an overall dumber nation. On top of that, students might no longer learn the traditional math counting system considering that a large number of "real world" math scenarios involve money.

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm not saying they'll forget the number. Scores in games, the dollar, etc. are examples of it being used. No, I'm saying that teaching traditional math may be harder without the money-related examples, given that the monetary system would not be following the same rules.

How ya doing, buddy?

So, maybe it wouldn't be any harder to teach, assuming we just reprint math books substituting money word problems for some other kind. What do I know? No one answer that...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?