Yeah, I figured out how to score the antenna traces on the card so that feature wouldn’t work. (Especially, I don’t want it to work for a debit card) Basically, you’re on the hook unless you can prove the card was stolen. The whole idea of Chip-and-PIN was to make transactions more secure, not less.
Canada has $1 and $2 coins, so the load is less once people figure out how to use one coin in place of 2. But yes, it’s easier to spend them when they are easier to grab. Whenever I visit the USA, I have an opposite problem - I always run out of $1 bills, I end up trying to get merchants to accept the ATM’s $20 bills for small purchases.
In fact, thanks to Canada’s multiple sales taxes and also when purchasing multiple items, I find that the times price rounds up or down comes out about even.
Although, I much preferred New Zealand’s system. IIRC, when I was there about 10 years ago, everything was in even numbers - $10.00 instead of $9.98, and so on. In Italy it used to be even simpler, almost always bills since most prices were in even hundreds or thousands of Lira… Except McDonalds, which would have prices to the 10-lira level IIRC.
This would be an issue if coins were a one-use deal, like trash bags, but they aren’t. Included in random change I got yesterday are '76, '87, '88, and '94 cents, and a '94 nickel. The chance of any bills in your pocket being that old is very slim.
"Lincoln Penny
(One-Cent Coin)
…
The image on the first **penny was of a lady with flowing hair symbolizing liberty. …
In 1857, Congress authorized the United States Mint to strike the penny **with 88% copper and 12% nickel. …
From 1909 to 1958, the Lincoln “wheat” penny obverse was paired with a …
In 2009, the United States Mint issued four different pennies throughout the year…"
Out-pedanting the US Mint on the subject of what US coins are called is… impossible, actually, since the US Mint is an authority on the subject and you’re not.
It’s like out-pedanting NIST on the subject of what time it is.
But has a coin with the word “penny” ever been made by the U.S. mint? I contend that penny is a holdover from earlier British coinage that has been unofficially attached to the U.S. one-cent coin by common use, and your cite is an example of such usage by the mint.
The American public would rather the Mint get off the pot and stop foisting dollar coins on us. They’ve collectively refused to use dollar coins many times over the years. Coins of any kind are more of a pain to carry around than bills.
Back on track, I wouldn’t care a bit if they eliminated pennies, or nickels for that matter.
Hmm. Maybe they could replace quarters with a 20-cent coin (a quint?) and eliminate the hundreths place completely.
Actually, for many people, coins (especially pennies) are one use only. I don’t have statistics but some people throw away coins. Certainly many don’t bother to pick one up off the street.
All this is a bit like saying “Bobby Kennedy never existed. His name was Robert.” If virtually everyone agrees to call something by name X, then X obviously refers to that thing at least in context. It might refer to other things as well.
Many countries seem to do fine with the equivalent of a dollar coin. I read somewhere that the US one-cent piece is one of the lowest denomination coins anywhere, or at least among first-world nations.
When I was in Egypt for a vacation, the locals preferred tips in the major currencies - US Dollars, Euros or GB Pounds. They prefer bills to coins. Of course, the others have seen the light, so the one dollar bill was a very convenient currency for tips, given that the alternatives were 5 Euros or 5 pounds. Fortunately, the local currency availability seems to have improved from 2012 to 2013, so it was also possible to get notes for 10 Egyptian pounds (about $1.40).
But thats another value of US currency - its a trusted medium where the local currency is not trusted.