Of course, the root cause of all American complaints about change is the ridiculous system you have where taxes aren’t included in prices. Other countries don’t worry about carrying a pocketful of metal because our prices are nice and round.
No argument from me on that one.
Massachusetts, to. The problem is that people in NJ and MA very often don’t obey the rules for driving in Traffic Circles/Rotaries* . In England and Ireland they do.
I used to think they were getting rid of traffic circles in the US. Several of the most notorious ones I knew had been replaced. But they keep building more.
*Massachusetts doesn’t have “traffic circles” It has “rotaries”
My understanding is that there’s a technical difference between a traffic circle and a roundabout; a traffic circle is a set of T intersections onto a circular road (which may be controlled by stop signs or even stoplights), while a roundabout is built with curves going into and out of it, to allow traffic to flow more freely, and which use only yield signs. But, that said, I suspect that the terms often get used interchangeably.
That said, it’s the roundabouts which are being adopted in many places in recent years: traffic engineers feel that they help traffic to move better, and reduce the incidence of severe accidents at intersections: when you get accidents at roundabouts, they are typically low-speed side-swipes, rather than higher-speed t-bones when someone runs a stop sign or a red light. I don’t doubt that, though, for drivers who have little or no experience using them, a sudden influx of new roundabouts seems to lead to confusion and lack of knowledge regarding their effective use.
Getting back to the topic of stuff not available in the United States, I’d like to be able to purchase long eggs here, though I haven’t seen them for sale anywhere.
It’s not a system. It’s lots of different systems.
A custom, then. There’s no law preventing retailers from including taxes in the price, is there?
I am both disturbed and intrigued by these…
No, but no motivation for them to make their prices look higher.
Technically there’s no law requiring a retailer to charge tax. The retailer must pay the state, however.
At one point most of my sales were not taxable. I had one item that was taxable, so I marked its price up a bit and paid the state six percent of whatever small amount of money I’d made selling the item.
I liked the Japanese hot-and-cold vending machines – tins of juice and soda on one side, tins of hot coffee and tea on the other.
FYI, here’s a video of them being prepared in a factory. There are other videos describing how one can make them at home, but they seem to be kludgy. I’d prefer to buy them already cooked.
And customers should push back. It’s a matter of honest labelling - if the price tag on something says $9.99, then you should pay $9.99 and not a cent more.
And if there isn’t a price tag?
Seriously. I was in a little shop that sold “art”. Everything from hand drawn notecards to dining room tables. Not a price on anything, which actually made it fun to look at things and attempt to guess the price.
They have some amazing vending machines. Here is a video of a “museum” of them that I found fascinating.
You have to admit that places like that are the exception, not the rule.
Certainly.
A US paper bill is 155.96x66.3x0.11 mm, or 1137 mm^3.
A dollar coin is 26.49 mm diameter by 2 mm thick, or 1102 mm^3.
So, very close overall, except the coin has much worse packing density since they’re generally loose. The bills stack nicely alongside other bills. And of course the coin is 8.1 g instead of ~1 g.
Yeah it’s not like any Americans ever travelled or lived in other countries. How could we possibly have an informed opinion?
Oh yeah that’s right, now I remember. I lived in Germany for a few years and always had a ridiculous amount of coins in my pocket. No thanks.
I both do and don’t want to see the chicken that laid them.