Spend a penny

[Padge]

4 hours ago, Saintslass said:

No.10 has already done a U-turn.  Charities have made a big noise about the possibility of coppers disappearing and so it looks now like there won't be a review into the suggestion after all.  This may have been one of the chancellor's little ideas rather than government policy.

You mean Hammond's being blamed for yet another idiot Tory idea from their unthinkable tank.

[Saintslass]

26 minutes ago, Padge said:

You mean Hammond's being blamed for yet another idiot Tory idea from their unthinkable tank.

He does have form!

However, I don't think it was an idiot idea in that we don't use coppers in shops now anywhere near as much as we used to.  Most of them stay in piggy banks for ages.  This means that the Royal Mint have to keep producing more and more of them , as they are not in regular circulation, which of course costs money.  The government wanted to consult on whether it was necessary to continue with the production of coppers but given the response from charities - which apparently was very strong - I think they thought it was a non-starter.

[Padge]

9 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

He does have form!

However, I don't think it was an idiot idea in that we don't use coppers in shops now anywhere near as much as we used to.  Most of them stay in piggy banks for ages.  This means that the Royal Mint have to keep producing more and more of them , as they are not in regular circulation, which of course costs money.  The government wanted to consult on whether it was necessary to continue with the production of coppers but given the response from charities - which apparently was very strong - I think they thought it was a non-starter.

Just multiply the currency value of all coins by 10, the 1p then becomes the value of a 10p. Avoids sneaky inflation creep by roundings.

[Maximus Decimus]

This is far too sensible an idea to come in in Britain. 

IIRC they already did this in Australia when I was there and they only round the final amount and it depends on which it is closer to. 

For instance if your amount comes to 3.96 you pay 3.95, if it comes to 3.98 you pay 4 quid. 

[ckn]

The Daily Mail seem to be very confused over this. They don’t like change you see so don’t know which side to support...

[Saintslass]

4 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

This is far too sensible an idea to come in in Britain. 

IIRC they already did this in Australia when I was there and they only round the final amount and it depends on which it is closer to. 

For instance if your amount comes to 3.96 you pay 3.95, if it comes to 3.98 you pay 4 quid. 

Yes, well, Australia would do that.  Over here we rip people off by default.  We would simply round everything up.

[Farmduck]

5 minutes ago, Maximus Decimus said:

This is far too sensible an idea to come in in Britain. 

IIRC they already did this in Australia when I was there and they only round the final amount and it depends on which it is closer to. 

For instance if your amount comes to 3.96 you pay 3.95, if it comes to 3.98 you pay 4 quid. 

That's right. We only round the final total. We got rid of 1c and 2c pieces in 1991. Then we replaced $1 and $2 notes with coins.