<story><title>What This Country Needs is an 18¢ Piece (2002) [pdf]</title><url>https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Papers/change2.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cbhl</author><text>Worth noting this piece was written in 2002. Ten years later in 2012, Canada finally took the penny ($0.01 coin) out of circulation.&lt;p&gt;Cash transactions were to be rounded to the nearest nickel, whereas cashless transactions were still computed in pennies.&lt;p&gt;(As far as I can tell, the main reason the US hasn&amp;#x27;t done the same is due to the prevalance of souvenir penny press machines.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>analog31</author><text>I suspect it&amp;#x27;s because nobody wants to admit that a penny has become worthless, and probably a nickel too. Also, there may be people who are worried that they will start getting ripped off by the rounding process.&lt;p&gt;I read a book about units of measure, and there was often strong local resistance to adopting regional or national standards because folks thought it would be a chance for merchants to surreptitiously raise prices. They were probably right.</text></comment>
<story><title>What This Country Needs is an 18¢ Piece (2002) [pdf]</title><url>https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Papers/change2.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cbhl</author><text>Worth noting this piece was written in 2002. Ten years later in 2012, Canada finally took the penny ($0.01 coin) out of circulation.&lt;p&gt;Cash transactions were to be rounded to the nearest nickel, whereas cashless transactions were still computed in pennies.&lt;p&gt;(As far as I can tell, the main reason the US hasn&amp;#x27;t done the same is due to the prevalance of souvenir penny press machines.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bryanlarsen</author><text>The removal of the penny was done in Canada at a time when the government needed a distraction from a scandal.   It worked fabulously, and was way more popular than people expected due to the pro-penny faction being way louder than the silent majority who were glad to be rid of the things.</text></comment>