Canada: Flaherty strikes the last penny

[Copper Catcher]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/new ... le4105371/

Published Friday, May. 04 2012, 5:53 PM EDT
With the push of a button, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty helped mint the last penny. Flaherty says no longer producing the penny will save $11 million a year.

[John_doe]

a smart person could use this rounding system to make themselves a small fortune, with very simple calculations.

[Sheba]

a smart person could use this rounding system to make themselves a small fortune, with very simple calculations.

For the sake of an old codger who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, please give an example of what you mean.

[AGgressive Metal]

a smart person could use this rounding system to make themselves a small fortune, with very simple calculations.

that's probably what people said when we did away with the half-cent

[John_doe]

a smart person could use this rounding system to make themselves a small fortune, with very simple calculations.

For the sake of an old codger who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, please give an example of what you mean.

one store rounds up on their goods, and a competitor rounds down on the same goods. which one will you shop at? of course you would have to take the price before the rounding into account, but it seems logical to me that a frugal person could make/save a lot of money with this.

[Robarons]

You guys ever watch 'Office Space' the movie?

That was the scam- the company had millions of transactions that ended in tenths of a cent that would simply be rounded down. The characters opened a savings account in which the tenths of the cent would be deposited into. The issue was that the amount after a couple days was so big that the company would have noticed (which for these smaller amounts they may not)

But likewise the rounding cant really be caught just for the sheer overhead/administrative costs of catching that 2 or 3 cents. And something that was $3.57 could naturally be bumped to $3.65 or $3.70 without much protest to make up for this and other items costs due from the rounding.